"Donn Messenheimer" wrote in message
...
On 3/6/2012 10:48 PM, Wild_Bill wrote:
I happen to believe that the writing is on the wall, and it should be
crystal clear by now.. but I also believe that almost no one learns
anything.

Any product that needs to be built right, can't/shouldn't/won't be built
in China.

[...]

You are deluding yourself. There is a continuum of quality, and sometimes
top of the line with finer tolerances isn't needed and isn't cost
effective. China is going to keep manufacturing a lot of things, and the
quality is only going to get better over time.

40 years ago, people were saying the same things about Japanese
manufacturing. My younger brother was a fairly typical gearhead mechanic
in those days, and they all referred to Japanese cars as "Jap crap." Look
where that attitude got the American car companies.

A couple of decades later it was the South Koreans. Their stuff was
called junk. Today, LG appliances, Samsung electronics, Hyundai cars and
several other products are world beaters.

If you think China is not going to continue to grow and improve at
manufacturing, you are delusional and probably a menace to the safety of
your family and colleagues.

Chinese manufacturing will improve in quality, but it seems like it is
happening more slowly than Japan or Korea due an ingrained culture of
corruption from years of communism. Quality certs are routinely faked. The
only way to get real quality is to have a good personal relationship so that
the consequences of fraud become personal. Even then any crook in the
supply chain can screw things up. It requires a major effort on the part of
the customer to insure quality, but it can be done. Despite the issues of
worker exploitation, the iPad/iPhone production line seems to produce pretty
good quality.

Another advantage to manufacturing in the US is something that most
executives (who are mostly trained in juggling/counting money) do not
appreciate. That is the synergy that happens between engineering and
manufacturing. Each learns from the other. Without good interaction,
engineering might not ever know what did not work so well the first time.
They will not know what processes are easy or hard for manufacting.
Manufacturing might take a very long time to solve problems that engineering
could resolve very quickly, or manufacturing might solve it in a way that is
detrimental to the product in some way.