Made in China???
- Thread starter William Jesse Magnum
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grymster2007
New member
True… to an extent. The machine tool controllers now manage many of these parameters and the machines are capable of consistently reproducing features that would prove near impossible on conventional machine tools, with or without subsequent hand-fitting. The Chinese are buying better equipment. They are and will continue to be capable of producing high-quality goods. For goods where quality matters to us, they’ll provide those with sufficient quality. For those that don’t much matter to us, they’ll continue to sell us disposable crap.
Luckily I have one account worth almost $1,000,000 that requires surgical pins to be machined down to and OD of .012" with features half that as well as a coming to a point and needing to be free of a cut off nib. We make it on a completely cam driven sliding headstock machine in Switzerland. Citizen tried to duplicate it on their Swiss type CNCs and fell on their face.
We also produce components for hard drives on purely cam driven machines, some in volumes of over 30,000,000 pieces year. They have less variation and are by far less expensive than those produced on CNC.
I am not saying CNC does not have its place, actually a growing place in machining. We run more CNC Decos than anybody in the world and also are getting more and more into Index multis. At the same time we have a couple hundred cam operated Swiss lathes and they are all booked out 12-16 weeks. There have been jobs lost to China and its "throw more people at it" mentality. We beat them down hard though when it comes to anything where real quality matters like hydraulics and medical devices. I feel for guys running only Acmes or Davenports. They are doomed. If you focus on the truly specialized capabilities you can survive and prosper.
China CAN supply quality, the question is will the manager running the factory you deal with decide to supply you with quality. It is, as has been explained to me by one of my Sing coworkers, the little emperor syndrome. Everyone wants to be their own emperor and things like keeping promises, performing work as promised, and honoring contracts are secondary. Those who live there understand it and they are constantly amazed when we do not.
If over there you catch someone changing materials or makign a profit by cutting corners that shoudl be off limits it is expected, even accepted. Everyone there who is in a management position is looking to get rich quick and the best way to do so is with short term gains. Make hay while the sun shines and when the bottom drops out make certain you have moved on to making money elsewhere. They are not surprised at the recent recalls, even the execution of the head of their "FDA" for allowing cut rate products on their markets. Nobody expects quality so nobody is suprised.
We ship many of those computer hard drive parts into China. The quality assurance departments are insane there for incoming products. They assume every supplier is cheating, must be cheating, or they wouldn't be in business. The result is a level of inspection that is out of this world on incoming products to a Chinese facility, but the same old garbage goes out... They accept that the incomming inspection is needed, and a cost of doing business but assume the next guy down the line is the one who should be worried about their quality. What kills us is we intentionally try to provide a good product and are crucified for it. We need to have a full metalurgical analysis of raw material performed by an outside lab at least once a year because they refuse to accept the certificates from our Swiss mills. They refuse to accept them because they know the certs from Chinese mills are probably bogus so they assume the rest of the world must be also.
China has problems and while fine for a $40 DVD player they are completely unsutied to production of anything where a culture of quality is really needed.
If over there you catch someone changing materials or makign a profit by cutting corners that shoudl be off limits it is expected, even accepted. Everyone there who is in a management position is looking to get rich quick and the best way to do so is with short term gains. Make hay while the sun shines and when the bottom drops out make certain you have moved on to making money elsewhere. They are not surprised at the recent recalls, even the execution of the head of their "FDA" for allowing cut rate products on their markets. Nobody expects quality so nobody is suprised.
We ship many of those computer hard drive parts into China. The quality assurance departments are insane there for incoming products. They assume every supplier is cheating, must be cheating, or they wouldn't be in business. The result is a level of inspection that is out of this world on incoming products to a Chinese facility, but the same old garbage goes out... They accept that the incomming inspection is needed, and a cost of doing business but assume the next guy down the line is the one who should be worried about their quality. What kills us is we intentionally try to provide a good product and are crucified for it. We need to have a full metalurgical analysis of raw material performed by an outside lab at least once a year because they refuse to accept the certificates from our Swiss mills. They refuse to accept them because they know the certs from Chinese mills are probably bogus so they assume the rest of the world must be also.
China has problems and while fine for a $40 DVD player they are completely unsutied to production of anything where a culture of quality is really needed.
Not good enough Musk
same issues you address plague our own manufacturing facilities (as well as banking, mortgage industry, food, medicine, auto, et al industries)...only we don't execute the miscreants. Only difference is China shoots the pendejo, and we just fire the responsible creep while giving the guy his golden parachute severence package equal to a hundred+ employee's salaries over a lifetime. In some cases, they get prosecuted, like Kenny boy from Enron, but he conveniently has a fatal arrythmia that ends the whole judicial scam...family gets to keep the ill gotten gains...so, I ask, what's different? We want everyone to be like America...so the Chinese are trying real damn hard to be and act like us when it comes to business...price you pay for advocating our perfect way of life.
same issues you address plague our own manufacturing facilities (as well as banking, mortgage industry, food, medicine, auto, et al industries)...only we don't execute the miscreants. Only difference is China shoots the pendejo, and we just fire the responsible creep while giving the guy his golden parachute severence package equal to a hundred+ employee's salaries over a lifetime. In some cases, they get prosecuted, like Kenny boy from Enron, but he conveniently has a fatal arrythmia that ends the whole judicial scam...family gets to keep the ill gotten gains...so, I ask, what's different? We want everyone to be like America...so the Chinese are trying real damn hard to be and act like us when it comes to business...price you pay for advocating our perfect way of life.
grymster2007
New member
It’s hard to beat a screw machine for knocking out large quantities of small, very precise components and running the 30,000,000 pieces/year for the hard drives on screw machines probably makes sense, but they would be components of relatively simple geometry. Modern machining centers, where one might produce most of the parts for say a firearm, can and do hold tolerances for form, size, location and orientation on features impossible to reproduce on a screw machine. The Chinese have and are acquiring more of these machines every day and they know how to use them.
To some degree that is true but can you trust them?
Yes Alnamvet, we certainly do have our share of crooks here. After haveing looked at both theirs and ours though I have to say their crooks are far worse and tend to be far worse in with regards to manufacturing. Nobody can make electronic money disappear like an American CEO but nobody can ship completely non-conforming garbage with a straight face like a Chinese one.
grymster2007
New member
That was my point from the beginning. We can trust the Chinese to ship us goods of a quality no better than that which we'll tolerate. In large part it's we who decide what they'll ship, not them. And yes, I'm guilty also. I buy cheap Chinese electronics, sneakers, razors and all kinds of other crap that is not so important to me. On the other hand I buy Japanese and German for cars and machine tools.... and American fly rods!
grymster2007
New member
We allowed that to happen. We're fine displaying a Chinese-made flag, so we've driven the American flag-makers out of business. Can't blame the Chinese for the fact that than can sell us cheap flags.
Mark my words. If we don't change the way things are going China will be the "World Power" in another 20 years and the U.S. will be a second rate power like England and Germany are now. Problem is, people don't WANT to spend the extra money on American products anymore when they can get it cheaper made in China. Loyality has gone by the wayside in favor of the almighty dollar, damn shame too.
Wow! What a thread!
Yep, my TV says Japan, too. My "buck" knife made in China is crappola! Japan is that multi-islanded nation (more islands now that we given back a few my uncle died to take). China is that big 'RED' chunk near Russia! in the long run they are going to eat our lunch as we feed them!
VISTA - have it and like it. The interfaces to some the MS applications require relearning - hard for some of us - but that, too, has been overcome in a very few (grumpy) weeks. The applications interface changes have zippo to do with VISTA O/S. Some, like Netmeeting may not be supported as well, a couple of my older printers do not have drivers in VISTA ... yet. But, my XP and W2000 platforms now sit idle.
Huh? I was using the DoD version of the internet before Sony was anchored on our shores. Maybe Al Gore invented ARPANet, too!!:barf:
Yep, my TV says Japan, too. My "buck" knife made in China is crappola! Japan is that multi-islanded nation (more islands now that we given back a few my uncle died to take). China is that big 'RED' chunk near Russia! in the long run they are going to eat our lunch as we feed them!
VISTA - have it and like it. The interfaces to some the MS applications require relearning - hard for some of us - but that, too, has been overcome in a very few (grumpy) weeks. The applications interface changes have zippo to do with VISTA O/S. Some, like Netmeeting may not be supported as well, a couple of my older printers do not have drivers in VISTA ... yet. But, my XP and W2000 platforms now sit idle.
Yes but without Microsoft - and Apple, of course - we may not have enjoyed the strong proliferation of the personal computer and without the PC the internet would have developed a lot slower.
My chief complaint with Vista is that it's a resource hog. The driver issues I can deal with but no PC OS, no matter how pretty, should be sucking down nearly a gig of memory at boot.
I know there are some stripped versions out there but I'm poking around to see how much of a fluff and extraneous shiznit I can get rid of. 
There is a huge difference. Japan never had the population to really take over. They slapped us silly with electronics and cars. They did so using Deming's teachings which we sent to them and they used, to our shame. They did not take the market with garbage but focused on the higher end products of the time. Japan also was the first nation to really look at using China because of their population problem. They exported plenty of manufacturing talent into China to make products which the Chinese have since taken and run with making everything from sneakers to stereos. Could anyone ever imaging Japan being a power in textile manufacturing? No way. Even now Japan is in a downward spiral as people are not having children anywhere near what is needed. There is nearly ZERO immigration. The countryside is depopulating and within a generation you are going to see a lot of real estate opening up in Japan, which will fuel a further drop in its value and grease the skids towards full collapse.
China though has a HUGE population, most of it looking for work. This provides not only a workforce Japan could never hope to match but an internal consumer base as well. Their standard of living is rising and as it does they will buy more with each passing year. Japan could not afford to really sink us because they would always need us. China though will reach a level of prosperity where it would hurt to sink America but would not be suicide.
Japan economically could and did hurt us but would not have, in a post WWII world, ever wanted to or been able to eliminate us as a economic and world power. China can and very well may. WE are a goose being fattened up for slaughter and they are the meat cleaver to do it.
Horse Pucky! The Internet was started by Armature Radio Folks who found they could send Packets of Data Addressed to a certain addressee. I too worked on a system called the DDN Defence Digital Net work, that came after Darpa.
Oh well!
Lenovo! Only because IBM Sold there Soles!
The Chines are going to be a force to Recon with. They sell us poison! ****ty goods and like damn fools we go back for more.
Yep! They are trying to kill the American Gun makers out of the picture. Law Suit here, Law Suit there. They become tired and have limited funds to defend them selfs.
Oh well!
Lenovo! Only because IBM Sold there Soles!
The Chines are going to be a force to Recon with. They sell us poison! ****ty goods and like damn fools we go back for more.
Yep! They are trying to kill the American Gun makers out of the picture. Law Suit here, Law Suit there. They become tired and have limited funds to defend them selfs.
grymster2007
New member
Maybe, but they have a long row to hoe and it is fraught with danger. They may very well collapse themselves. They may be building huge overcapacity in manufacturing, which would not bode well for them in the long run.
Meanwhile…. coming to a dealer near you….
Don’t look all that different than other low-end cars, does it? I would suspect the quality leaves something to be desired, and probably not even close to passing Cali emissions, but look what the Koreans have done in a few short years.
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Thunderhawk88
Moderator
That means my Rugers would be Lugers, and my Glocks Grocks?
o_0
excuse me? Lenovo makes extremely high quality system so I don't know what you're complaining about. Sold their souls? More like sold their failing PC division to a company that could improve it beyond all expectations.
So what exactly are you complaining about here?
That's due to a lack of quality control and regulation - see, the free market isn't always a magical self-regulating creature - not a concerted effort by the government or the people of China to harm us.
Want me to list the number of American companies that have sold poison food or deadly toys?Yes, there are problems with some of the products coming from China but we would be hard pressed to prove that their products have a higher rate of quality control issues than our own. And anecdotal evidence is not proof.