Chesapeake Corporation's manufacturing plant in Kunshan, China has become the first facility in China to receive PS9000:2001 certification for setting up a quality management system to produce printed pharmaceutical packaging.

Said Chesapeake CEO Andrew J. Kohut: "We take a consistent, common approach to quality throughout our global pharmaceutical packaging network. As a result, we were able to share information and expertise, which helped our new Kunshan plant gain certification in a very timely manner even though the facility just began operations in late 2007."

The Kunshan plant recently joined Chesapeake's global network of pharmaceutical packaging plants, which supply many of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies. The new plant offers design services and houses state-of-the-art equipment for digital plate making, digital label printing, high-gloss varnishing, foil stamping and laminating. The 36,000-square-foot facility complements Chesapeake's other plant in Kunshan, which manufactures plastic bottles for the pharmaceutical market, by adding the production of paper-based packaging for domestic and multinational customers.

Bacon's bottom line: The Chinese are moving up the manufacturing value-added chain -- and we're helping them do it. It's good to know that pharmaceutical packaging originating from the Middle Kingdom meets quality standards. But quality control is one of the main competitive advantages that American manufacturers enjoy in the global marketplace. Of course, Americans have no monopoly on such expertise, so the migration of those management methods to China is probably inevitable. It does make you wonder, though, what will be left for Americans to do in 20 years -- flip each other's hamburgers and file lawsuits against each other, no doubt.