Parts of the story will feel terribly familiar to anyone who has had much manufacturing done in China. Sometimes, things go smoothly, but in the worst cases, li

Parts of the story will feel terribly familiar to anyone who has had much manufacturing done in China. Sometimes, things go smoothly, but in the worst cases, like this one, there's a huge mismatch between 'Western' quality demands and the output of their Chinese partners. The typical pattern will be for the manufacturer to start sending back work which is totally unacceptable. When their partner protests, the manufacturer will grudgingly raise the standard to 'barely tolerable'. Time runs out, exhaustion sets in, decision makers don't want to draw attention to the fact that they chose the wrong manufacturer - so the client has to lower their standards. Caltrans officials were amazingly naive and blinkered if they weren't aware of the long history of stories just like this one. Perhaps they did know the history, and they thought they would be protected by quality checks embedded in the contract, but that's just more naivety. Contracts don't have much power in that environment, particularly when your project is already falling way behind schedule. Blaming 'The Chinese' though, is stupid. Caltrans was in charge of this deal. If they chose the wrong partner and didn't stay in control of things, they are responsible.