Products Made Offshore

You're right. In most cases goods from other parts of the world are not only, the only option, but they are often, just fine.

It's been a collective effort on our part. A joint project of greedy government imposing high taxes, well intentioned government, imposing insane environmental rules, corporate greed, and a populace that demands low prices.

We have given away the farm...........now we must buy our milk and eggs from elsewhere.

When I was a kid, the finest toys came from Germany (Marklin, Schucko, Lego), from the UK and US. Same happened with tools and machinery. On the other hand, cheap stuff and toys were "Made in Japan". Over the decades, Japanese industry evolved to the highest possible standards. The same will happen in a much shorter time span with Chinese and other third world products.

I think you are right.

We have exported our most precious commodity, QA.

And all in the name of profit.

I believe in capitalism, but I believe the Chinese are unencumbered politically, I remember those days...

Actually, many electronic products are made by hand, in China anyway:

http://www.megeb.com/revealed-iphone-and-ipad-assembled-by-hand-made/

"iPhone and iPad could be called a product that is assembled by hand or "hand made" although not 100%. Because, there are 141 steps that most of the production line workers directly involved hand. While the iPad, requiring 325 production steps also involve the hands of workers.Inside the Foxconn's factory, there is not many visible robot or automatic machine that helps the process of making these two Apple flagship products."

The prominent statement is incorrect. The UK imports large quantities of products from China and many other countries, as do many others, principally because the home economies cannot compete in many areas in price-sensitive markets.

There is still plenty of scope in the high-quality, high-value end of things to find niches and Unique Sales Propsitions.

Counterfeit products are the "junk" products we see. The attendant labels, such as CSA certifications, are so authentic looking that only the most sharp-eyed inspectors can spot the difference. Unfortunately, the supply chain is often victimized by an unscrupulous or unknowing supplier who contracts the work out to a subcontractor with less-than-stellar qualifications.

1. Junk made mass production machinery produces junk.

2. Mass production machinery made in China is junk.

3. Mass produced goods are junk.

If UN lay down safety standards for every product manufactured or sold in any part of the world there won't be any problem.

There is some truth in Ronseto's theory. iPhones are considered the industry standard and are made in China. Harbor Freight tools are made in China (not the industry standard). 99 cent store stuff is made in China (poor quality).

A quality car, motorcycle or airplane is still not made in China. Yes, parts are made there and some are of good quality, but in regard to complete cars, Chinese cars like Chery Motors cars are not brought into the US, because of quality.

A few years ago, I delivered a Pontiac Torrent (twin to the Chevy Equinox). When I pulled the car into the parking garage, it had trouble starting. When I looked at the Monroney sticker, it showed the engine (3.4 L V-6) was sourced from China! The first generation Equinox and Torrent are not known to be good cars with most of the problems being engine related. This is the same 3.4 L V-6 that GM has built in the US for years.

Here's a question for the mechanical engineers and machinists out there. Why can Honda build a little four cylinder engine that runs smoothly (it's uncanny how smooth Honda 4 cylinder engines are), lasts a very long time and is very efficient? You would think that the Big Three could've taken one apart and reverse engineered their own (of for that matter China). Maybe there is a bit more to manufacturing when it comes to complex mechanical items.

I kind of agree with your observations only to a point. As long as the raw materials were also coming from the US, and only the labor component of the manufacturing processes are being supplied by the 3rd world countries, then your observations are correct.

Most of the problems if any that may affect product qualities are and can be directly attributed to the type or quality of the raw materials used. Specially true if raw materials were also supplied or derived locally from the same 3rd world place without US quality assurance and supervisions.

As personally experienced, in '60s while involved in the manufacturing process of industrial power devices, we imported insulated copper (magnet)wires from China. My company experienced premature product breakdowns /malfunctions and forced to recall due to inferior quality raw material. The faults were directly attributed to the supplied substitutes in-between shipments from that country.

Excellent point about the materials. We can also add in things like heat treatments, coatings, chemical converstions, platings, tolerances, and other hard-to-copy aspects of products. Those factors are almost always discriminating factors when considering that socket set from Harbor Freight compared to Snap-On or even some well known brands that are made in China but under exacting standards.

They (China and others) will get better. It's a matter of time. I'm old enough to remember when made in Japan meant tinny, chintzy, crappy, cheap products.

I am reminded of the 1970s when the ultimate of a corporation was to have its products made "off shore". Meaning low cost and higher profits. The asians picked up on this and made it profitable for all of us.

Let me back up to the 1950s when Japanese products were tin junk. They discovered that making quality products had a better yuan result than manufacturing junk. I am sure that the Japanese camera industry developed from this (and they are quite good).

Now the Chinese are following the same concept... they are following Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc.

I have a pony tail.

For years I've bought small diameter rubber bands designed for hair from an old US company that supplied them to the market with no issues.

I recently bought another pack of these bands and noticed a packaging change with a "Made In XXX" (insert prominent Asian country for XXX).

After trying fully a third of the several hundred bands in the package I found exactly ONE that survived tying back my pony tail.

Another $1.50US sent overseas for zero value.

I'm sorry but I can provide example after example of sub-standard goods being foisted on us by shoddy manufacturing and non-existent QA. The above is just the latest example and begs the question of how much is intentional as the likelihood of returning such a small purchase is nil.

Hooker

You can buy a haircut in the US. That'll show em.

Nah, gotta maintain my senior citizen biker image!!!

I'm not denying "made in xxx" can mean junk. I'm just saying they have the capability of producing quality. It's a matter for U.S. companies that deal with overseas manufacturers to oversee production and QA to insure those products meet U.S. standards. Shoddy goods carrying an American name brand reflects the company's number 1 priority; PROFIT. It's not a question of ability or technology; only profit.

In general, I agree. But I've also read numerous horror stories where US companies have used supposedly trustworthy expediters (locally based natives) that turn out a valid product on the first run to gain trust, and then dump huge amounts of junk product at "rock bottom" prices for subsequent deliveries.

By the time the US manufacturer realizes they've been duped, it's too late. They've got a ton of bad product that they must distribute or they'll go bankrupt, and then they've got to figure out how to get good product back in the pipeline and also deal with customer issues/loss.

But, like you said, the above scenario is usually based on profit over all else, not to mention a lack of understanding that business rules (ethics, etc) are not the same as with US/Euro centric trade.

Hooker

I've been out in Spain where there are many Chinese stores (and an incredible number of Chinese restaurants providing good quality scoff from local resources) which provide the goods that people think they want at a price that no-one else can compete with.

So the old dears buy, say , a car jump lead set for very little, and are very happy until they come to use it and find it struggles to conduct current through its copper coloured iron clamps. Similarly, they buy a cheap transformer and wonder why things go wrong - not realising that the voltage as given is nothing like what's on the terminals.

So everyone's a winner - the manufacturer, the shipper, the importer, the distribution company, the Government with sales tax, the store (as no-one can be bothered to return the piece) - except the customer who has paid for all this and is probably stuck with a car that won't start and whatever the transformer was attached to ,not working, assuming it didn't catch fire.

It's a form of economic warfare in which the above chain connives against the consumer.

I won't argue that the Chinese aren't capable of making quality goods. My question is: will they?

It's one thing to copy existing designs, or buy existing tooling, and churn out duplicates. It's a whole different world to design a new product that meets expectations.

Here's an example from my experience building electric vehicles. We needed a source of small electric motors, with controllers, sized for a small motorcycle. Electric motorcycles are a relatively new industry, without decades of past designs and tooling available. The Chinese have adopted electric motorcycles more than most other countries, and can arguably be said to lead their development. So we weren't shy about buying Chinese motors and controllers.

Well, we were disappointed in the delivered goods. First, delivery took three times longer than what was originally quoted (nine months instead of three). Second, the pieces looked sloppily assembled, and their identification markings did not match the catalog or even each other. Third there was little documentation, so we had to figure out how to connect the controllers to the motors ourselves. Fourth, some of the systems did not operate. After dissecting the controllers and motors we found that although they had used different colored wires to indicate different connections, they had not assembled the same colored wires to the same connection points - rendering their color code useless. It would be impractical to use these devices in production because we'd have to dissect and rewire every unit before we could install it and sell a completed assembly.

While looking for an alternative source we found a distributor who was importing Chinese motors. His price was expensive because he also had to test and rework every motor he received. He said that he threw away half of the motors he bought because they were so poorly made that they weren't serviceable or repairable.

So maybe the Chinese are capable of delivering quality goods. But do they have a culture to do so? Experience indicates that they don't.