Plan To Manage Supply Chains During National Holidays
By Syed Rizvi
One of the challenges of working in China is the national holiday system and coordinating a work schedule with your customers around national holidays.The three main national are the Chinese New Year (also called the Lunar New Year), May Holiday and National Day in October. Unlike many western factories, where the holiday schedules are staggered to maintain operations, in China mean something else: Factories often close completely to allow workers to go home to be with their families.

Combine that with the fact that most European and American do not overlap with Chinese and you have a situation where production schedule management is critical on both sides.
If you think about it, almost 40 percent of the year is taken up by and weekends when China isn't working, the west isn't working or neither side is working. Combine that with time differences and it's no wonder most everyone here in China starts to feel pressure just before a holiday starts.

Western Christmas and New Year's
7 days
Chinese New Year
7 days
Western and eastern and school Spring breaks (Easter)
3 days
China May Holiday
7 days
Western Labor Day
3 days
Western Summer Independence and National Days
3 days
American Memorial Day
3 days
Chinese National Holiday (October)
7 days
Western Thanksgiving
3 days
Weekends
104 days
Total
147 days

The numbers add up, so strategies for managing call for planning. A few tips:
Westerners often need to engage in expectation and sanity management around the Chinese holiday time. Pressure concepts like: pay a higher price to get some overtime work, or "they just have to work or we'll lose the contract," simply do not apply.

Plan the entire year with the in mind.
Think not only about the China holidays, but also about what you need to be aware of in your home country or in foreign markets.
Be clear on terms of operation. Many contracts will include a definition of "work days" a factory should follow.

Plan to have what ever you need done, quoted, shipped, packed, inspected, produced and/or delivered to be done the week before the holiday knowing that every day you go closer to the holiday you are living on borrowed time. Take the attitude that what you get done in the week before the holiday is really not early.

Communicate clearly to your customers that there is an upcoming holiday. Do not just assume they will remember the holiday time frame here in China. You might also stress the importance of and traveling to be with family here (particularly the Chinese New Year).

Make sure your factory is taking care of you before the holiday. If

your business uses workers who are paid or receive a bonus for piecework production, those workers may leave for home earlier than salaried workers. So administrative staff may be available, but work may slow or stop in the days before the holiday. If progress is slow and there is pressure, be sure your order isn't the one that gets bumped for completion after the holiday. A good relationship and pre-holiday visits to your supplier can help avoid this problem.

If your shipment date is just before or during a holiday, be sure to allow extra days for it to clear and be processed through customs. Customs officials do work right up to and through a portion of a holiday, but the pace slows significantly.
Getting shipping papers, buying quotas (for textiles) and VAT rebates all slow normal processes of business before a holiday.

If you are trying to clear a letter of credit or a wire transfer you will need extra days just before and after a holiday. Domestic transactions can be cleared over the holidays, but international transactions are more difficult to complete.
If you are traveling in China during a holiday, remember that it can be more crowded, expensive and slower than normal.

The national holiday system in China is a fact of life. Love it, or hate it, you have to deal with it and like most things the rule of the 5 P's applies: proper preparation prevents poor performance. Meet these challenges ahead of time and your production and shipments are unlikely to run behind.

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