Chinese and Indian factory photos This pack contains three parts: 1) An extended set of exhibits from the paper 2) Some additional photos from Indian textile factories, from visits I made to Tarapur (near Mumbai) in August ) Some additional photos from Chinese textile factories from visits I made to Shengzezhen (near Shanghai) in August 2010 You are welcome to use any photos that might be helpful for research, presentations, teaching etc Nick Bloom, Stanford University, August 2010

Extended exhibits Additional Indian photos Additional Chinese photos

Exhibit 1: Factories are large compounds containing several buildings. Factory surrounded by extensive groundsA group of three buildings within a factory compound Factory offices (left) and goods loading bay (right)Factory entrance with gates and a guard post

Exhibit 2: These factories operate 24 hours a day for 7 days a week producing fabric from yarn, with 4 main stages of production (1) Winding the yarn thread onto the warp beam(2) Drawing the warp beam ready for weaving (3) Weaving the fabric on the weaving loom(4) Quality checking and repair

Exhibit 3: Many parts of these factories were dirty and unsafe Garbage outside the factoryGarbage inside a factory Chemicals without any coveringFlammable garbage in a factory

Exhibit 4: The factory floors were disorganized Instrument not removed after use, blocking hallway. Fire extinguisher 3 years past its service date Tools left on the floor after use Dirty and poorly maintained machines Old warp beam, chairs and a desk obstructing the factory floor

Yarn piled up so high and deep that access to back sacks is almost impossible Exhibit 5: The inventory rooms had months of excess yarn, often without any formal storage system or protection from damp Different types and colors of yarn lying mixed Yarn without labeling, order or damp protection

No protection to prevent damage and rustSpares without any labeling or order Exhibit 6: The parts stores were also disorganized and dirty Shelves overfilled and disorganizedSpares without any labeling or order

Exhibit 7: The path for materials flow was often obstructed Unfinished rough path along which 6 heavy warp beams were taken on wheeled trolleys every day to the elevator, which led down to the looms. This steep slope, rough surface and sharp angle meant workers often lost control of the trolleys. They crashed into the girder or wall, eventually breaking the trolleys. So now each beam is carried by 6 men. At another factory both warp beam elevators had broken down due to poor maintenance. As a result teams of 7 men carried several warps beams down the stairs every day. This was slow and dangerous, with two serious accidents in our time at the factory. A broken trolley (the wheel snapped off)

Exhibit 8: Routine maintenance was usually not carried out, with repairs only undertaken when breakdowns arose, leading to frequent stoppages. Parts being cleaned and replaced on jammed loomWarp beam being unloaded off a broken loom Loom parts being disassembled for diagnosisWorkers investigating a broken loom

11 Exhibit 9: Quality was so poor that about 20% of manpower was spent on repairing defects at the end of the production process Workers spread cloth over lighted plates to spot defectsLarge room full of repair workers (the day shift) Non-fixable defects lead to discounts of up to 75% Defects are repaired by hand or cut out from cloth

Extended exhibits Additional Indian photos Additional Chinese photos

The weaving looms are typically bough second hand from Europe & US USAItaly Germany UK

Producing cloth involves first getting the warp yarn aligned and then weaving the weft yarn at right angles Before weaving there is warp yarn only (threads in just one direction) After weaving (adding the weft yarn) there are threads in two directions, hence the check pattern

Typical Indian factory scene – somewhat chaotic but working

Better organized factories have areas demarked with lines, and use trolleys to move equipment round only in these areas

Offices have some basic computer equipment (this was one of the most high tech firms, most have two or three PCs which are about 5 years old)

The ERP operator in one of the firms who had been kindly providing us with the weekly performance data

Almost all the non-management labor in Tarapur (near Mumbai) were migrants from the North West (Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa etc).

Factory workers usually share rooms in town or live in make-shift accommodation – this is a typical building and mess surrounding it

Typical scenes near factories in Tarapur (4 hours north of Mumbai). In Mumbai you never see any green space like this as land is too expensive In fact the only time I ever saw a piece of open space in Mumbai during a visit in It was about 1 acre of scrub-land with almost 100 people appearing to be playing one huge game of football on it. Saurabh (who I was travelling with) corrected me – it was not one game of football, but about 10 games of cricket, with these all criss-crossing each other. So you have to be sure which ball went with which game. No wonder Indian cricketers are so good!

More typical scenes near the factory On the right you can see the ubiquitous auto- rickshaws (nicknamed “autos”). They are basically motorbikes with a chassis around them to act as a taxi. These are very common across developing Asia – for example the Tuttuts of Thailand. Interestingly, these are banned now in central Mumbai, and also in many Chinese cities (like Shanghai) due to pollution and safety concerns.

Typical view from the factory window (a chemical factory)

You also notice an amazing amount of stuff on the streets – here some concrete pipes are either abandoned or awaiting sale

Advert near a factory - for some reason there is no economics offered?

Weavers walk or cycle to work

Signs like this in the factory are very standard – when banks make loans they use the buildings and equipment as collateral, and check monthly

Some of the equipment is ancient – this is a 30 year old warping loom

Workers constructing an effluent treatment plant (to reduce pollution from dyeing chemicals). Apparently required for exporting to Europe.

Fabric dyeing vats (fabric in put inside with dyes, heated and stirred)

Firms made fabric for shirts, suits and furnishing (shown here). This is then used as an input by the apparel and furnishings industry.

Jacquard looms (more advanced, requiring double height ceilings)

Plant managers office – pretty basic and very noisy (70 weaving looms are behind the camera). The low ceiling second floor above houses mending.

Some factories have been buying new hi-tech equipment – this is a horizontal embroidery machine (the design is shown on the LCD).

A warp beam on a trolley. Warp beams contain yarn woven in one direction (the warp) and to make fabric need yarn woven in the other direction (the weft). There are hundreds of these beams in typical factory.

The Accenture team arriving at one of the factories. These are gated, primarily to check workers on exit to limit theft

Finally, firms often have problems with unions so resort a variety of unusual hiring practices (a non-union monkey) Note: intended as a joke! Photo courtesy of Kevin Boudreau from a metal forging firm

Extended exhibits Additional Indian photos Additional Chinese photos

Chinese factories were more modern buildings with notably more cars (and almost no bicycles) When I visited China in 1992 and 1994 there were bikes everywhere just like India, now they are almost completely gone

Factories are large, spacious and well laid out – in fact they look cleaner than many US and UK factories I’ve seen

Chinese Factories also had much less manpower – typically one worker per 10 looms (one per four looms in India)

The looms were all purchased new – in this case from Toyota

Chinese factories had better worker facilities (water coolers, worker canteens etc.) although like India the workers were there 7 days a week for 8 to 12 hours each

A Chinese worker checking quality on the loom – a basic piece of Lean manufacturing (check quality before the end) This type of thing was a stark contrast to India, where I never saw a worker checking fabric on the loom (in China I saw this in every factory I visited). This is part of the broader Lean mentality of fixing problems as rapidly as possible

Another Chinese worker checking quality on the loom – this time for a cotton loom (the picture before is for polyester) Polyester is much easier to work with (breaks less and does not produce nasty lint that covers the factory). But polyester retails at a discount to cotton, so both types of yarn are used, often in composite materials.

Chinese factories had about 70% women. In India women only worked in checking and repair (more dexterous work) All employees I saw in China were young (less than 30 I would guess) so there is clearly a demographic question here about where are the older workers, and what happens when these workers age? I India I saw many more middle aged and even older workers in the factories (although almost all men outside mending)

A warp sizing machine (wraps the yarn around warp beams plus starches it to increase yarn strength)

So much cotton dust in some corners of the factory that it looks like it’s snowing In early 1800s Victorian cotton mills this fluff would get in workers lungs and cause long- run lung damage and eventually death. I presume (hope) it’s no longer such a serious problem, but the factories are typically very dusty because of this.

This is despite the air filters and cleaning that occurs

Textile mills tend to cluster – this was across the road for the factory we visited in Shengzezhen (near Shanghai)

Drawing – this is labor intensive but machines do exist to do this, but are currently too expensive to be worthwhile

The weaver of the month showing of his machine