Don Tapscott And Anthony D. Williams

Highly collaborative approaches to manufacturing are not without risk. First there is a risk that suppliers and assemblers will gauge the market differently and create gaps in supply and demand. But with a variety of suppliers to choose from, assemblers can rely on multiple sources for common components, reducing the risks of undercapacity. Second, the lack of integration between suppliers and assemblers may lead to mismatched parts or suboptimal construction. Face-to-face relationships appear to be crucial to overcoming these challenges. In Chongquing, as in many other industrial clusters, informal networks share information about trends and market intelligence, and establish trust among a broad collection of employees and firms. People go to teahouses in their spare time, where entrepeneurs coordinate ideas for future design and knockoff projects.