More Mean Than Lean

There's an article in the UK Daily Mail newspaper currently about conditions in a factory in Dongguan, China, which assembles mice and webcams for Microsoft and others, including Hon Hai (Foxconn). Although a right-wing newspaper, it often has interesting features on manufacturing in China and this is no exception.

Picking up on a report from the National Labor Committee, you can see photos of workers, exhausted during 15 hour shifts, catching naps on their worktables. The rest of the conditions you can see and read for yourselves.

Although one of the ways to save Western manufacturing seems to be team-focussed lean manufacturing, there's probably a point at which no amount of lean can compete with this amount of mean.

And that would need politicians and investors to see a much bigger picture. Like the ones in the article, perhaps?