Chinese-made items

[MikeP]

IGNORING any political/labor issues involved, I have to say that I have found some Chinese articles to be excellent quality lately. I'm beginning to think that the same thing that happened to "made in Japan" is happening in China.

Years ago "Made in Japan" items in the US were a joke - total junk that fell apart almost immediately. They went from that to goods that are considered excellent.

I wonder if the same is now occurring in China. I just bought a Chinese-made Guild 12 string Guitar and it is an excellent instrument in every way, from sound to playability to appearance. A couple of years ago I bought a $2500 violin from China, admittedly from a Chinese maker who had won international prizes for his (much more expensive than the one I bought) instruments, over instruments made in Europe/US. A violinist who currently lives in Mexico and was taught by the same conservatory/teachers who taught Itzahk Perlman, played it an was amazed at its projection and sound.

Apple products are made in China and, regardless of anyone's feelings re Apple as far as operation/systems are concerned, I don't think anyone will say the stuff is not well made/attractive.

10 years ago it seemed anything made in China was junk but it seems to me that is no longer the case. Just last year I needed a set of very small screwdrivers. I went up to the hardware store and, to avoid disappointment, selected a set labeled Made in USA. The little phillips literally rounded off on the first screw. I went back and bought the Chinese version of the same set and it's still doing fine.

I'm sure it all has to do with the specific company involved and the amount of quality control they are willing to apply. But it's interesting to see how things change - now stuff that used to be made in Japan by Japanese companies, and of excellent quality - some Nikon camera equipment is a good example - is being made in Thailand because it's not cost-effective to make it in Japan.

But I have to wonder that when China reaches that point, what country will they contract do build their products because they cost too much to make in China...the USA perhaps?

 

[GJH]

I am in the electronics business and everyone (and I am talking of hundreds that I know) who has ever started to have goods produced in China has had a QC nightmare. So a whole industry developed of companies that specialized in ensuring, first hand, that goods made by contract manufacturers were made to specs and with the exact parts on the Bill of Materials, basically acting as your eyes and ears over there. This even extends into making sure that the goods that leave the assembly line go into the right boxes, and those same boxes are the ones loaded into the containers that go on the ship. If you don't have complete on-site control, in general, they will try to screw you each and every time. Of course the big companies have their own crews their to supervise and QC. Those low prices don't just come from low labor costs and lax environmental regulation.

There was a very interesting article series in the NY Times a few months ago, that explained the main reason those jobs are not coming back here even if the playing field were otherwise level. We have an enormous shortfall in basic production engineering talent that would take generations to bring up to China's numbers. These are the people that create tooling, design production processes, material testing/logistics, and run the production lines. Remember the actual manufacturing is very automated, so the tendency is to ask, why not just have the machines here in the US? But in fact, thousands of these people with these skills are required to produce something like an i-Phone. Steve Jobs could decide to radically change the material and design of the phone screen right before production and FoxConn could immediately bring in another few hundred engineers, begin testing, sourcing and production within days. The facilities and more importantly the people to do that kind of thing simply do not exist here and likely will never exist here. I really encourage people to find and read that article, it was very well done and people I know in the biz thought so too.

By the way, I have two recent Apple machines, an i-Mac and a MacBook Pro. They're not all that... though better than their predeccssors of four years ago, build-quality wise. I guess based on my experience, all products from China are highly suspect until proven otherwise.