14 April 2008

Quality Concerns Can Overseas manufacturers maintain high standards

Overseas production over trusted products - omron blood pressure monitors and Land Rovers Freelanders will they maintain their reliability?

Omron Healthcare Manufacturing officially put into operation its factory that manufactures blood pressure monitors in Binh Duong Province.

Located in the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park II, the plant can currently produce up to 5,000 monitors annually however a chinese official was keen to point out that figure is expected to triple within 12 months.

The factory, built in May last year, was designed to meet the rapidly growing demand for home blood pressure monitors around the world.

The products will be exported to US, Europe including UK, South America and Asia - all countries which have successfully produced the monitors for their home market

The news that Omron are hoping to rapidly expand the manufacturing operations in China follows the news of Land Rover's similar plight that their affairs will be controlled by an Indian corporation Tata

But the rapid expansion of factories that produce highly specialised equipment - whether it be medical apparatus or high specification vehicles is raising concerns with quality standard experts. Just as this article highlights the necessary quality standards for blood pressure monitors similar reports are produced for vehicles - see this example of an EU report on Freelander safety features

There's an interesting fact on the Freelander wiki entry claims that it will continue to be manufactured in the UK