There's a show I really like to watch on the Discover channel (or maybe the History channel) called "How it's made". I'd really enjoy a look into some of the manufacturing facilities in China that Walthers uses. Are they really more efficient? I have been quite happy with their quaility.
Jim
1. What are the people that USED to manufacture/engineer the products doing for a living now?
"Hi! Welcome to Wal-Mart. Here's your cart."
And what does this have to do with the model railroad industry? The OP was posting about Hornby and its move to manufacture in China.
And since you've gotten so far off topic....."
Thanks Andre ......
BTW .... Alsom, the French maker of TGV trains and other stuff announced they are considering plans to construct a manufacturing plant in Chattanooga, TN. The change in exchange rates has resulted in several big foreign companies considering moving manufacturing to the USA.
I doubt Hornby is one of them, however.
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
jim22 wrote: There's a show I really like to watch on the Discover channel (or maybe the History channel) called "How it's made". I'd really enjoy a look into some of the manufacturing facilities in China that Walthers uses. Are they really more efficient? I have been quite happy with their quaility.Jim
Thats a GREAT idea. I second that notion.
Dallas Model Works wrote: Sooner or later, China will have a better standard of living -- workers will have better compensation, etc. -- and then everything will be more expensive everywhere!Maybe manufacturing will move back to North America then.
Sooner or later, China will have a better standard of living -- workers will have better compensation, etc. -- and then everything will be more expensive everywhere!
Maybe manufacturing will move back to North America then.
Well they can move the stuff overseas to another third world Nation to start the cheap process all over again. Maybe out of Africa this time.
Reversing the current Intermodal Shipping from west to east is really going to be tough.
hobo9941 wrote: 1. What are the people that USED to manufacture/engineer the products doing for a living now?"Hi! Welcome to Wal-Mart. Here's your cart."
Would you like a number one meal and a happy drink?
Eventually not even that.
Things have a way of evening out over time. Back in the early 60's there was a book by some Frenchman warning about the American juggernaut and how it was going to take over everything. Can't remember the guy's name or the book's title, unfortunately. It didn't exactly happen the way he predicted. Not even close.
The problem with being a "juggernaut" whether you're British, American, Japanese, Chinese, orwhatever is that you eventually get complacent. Then someone comes along and outdoes you at what you thought you did best and you then have to start playing catch-up. China's not just just our competitor. The Chinese are also competing against all other industrialized countries, too. The Sharp (Japanese) LCD TV sitting next to me is made in China. 30 years ago, I bought a Hitachi (also Japanese). It had been manufactured in Taiwan. I seriously doubt that you can trust a brand name anymore to determine where a product actually originated.
With the dollar dropping against other currencies, it's making it cheaper to manufacture things here. The Japanese auto makers (among others) learned that lesson at least 20 years ago when the yen became so strong.
To return this to something more about trains, GE has a strong presence selling locomotives to China http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/24/magazines/fortune/ge_china.fortune/index.htm
http://ge.ecomagination.com/site/products/cevo.html
Boeing sells jets to Chinese airlines: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200511/20/eng20051120_222762.html
http://seekingalpha.com/article/45096-china-southern-to-buy-55-boeing-737s
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/07/29/ap/business/mainD8BL3R508.shtml
The company I used to work for has a strong presence in China and sells manufacturing equipment for making semiconductors. In all those addresses, I see no manufacturing plant, although there's an engineering and research center (among several worldwide).
http://www.appliedmaterials.com/about/china_addresses.html
AMAT's the world's largest maker of semiconductor manufacturing equipment in the world. It was 4th or 5th when I first went to work for them. Tokyo Electron is the second. And, again, to bring it back on topic, you can thank Applied for making equipment of vastly increasing yield which means the chips are ever cheaper. Them's the chips used in those DCC systems that have declined in price and increased in functionality since first introduced. But then again, we all know the hobby is too expensive, the manufacturers are driven by greed alone and that, in the end, it doesn't matter anyway since the hobby's on its deathbed.
Oh well, enough. People are going to believe what they want to believe.
Andre
Well I'll chime in with my TWO CENTS WORTH!
A friend of mine flies RC helicopters and is 18 years old and is the reigning National RC Heli champion.He lives in Ft Wayne Indiana, and recently one of his sponsors "Futaba Radio Systems "along with another of his sponsors ( major hobby company) sent him and his Dad to Taiwan(all expenses paid) for a a Heli Expo. While there , they visted one of te factories where ARF helicpters are made ARF stand s for "Almost Ready to Fly".Anyway this facory had three floors, many employees,( no air conditioning, no health insurance plan), and they work for the EQUIVALENT of 25 CENTS US funds an hour and are happy to do so!Okay, they work for TEN DOLLARS a week!
How many Americans will work for TEN DOLLARS a week?Well guys , here's your answer!!!!And our politicians keep letting American jobs leave the country, so next time your asked to support your local POLITICO ask him or her their stand on US jobs leaving the country!!!But yet many of you will easily fork over money to help them out, only to have them empty your pockets more later on. My answer to all of them when they ask for campaign funds? Go to CHINA and ask DUDE!!!
Oterwise GO POUND SAND!!!! As another example, look up a company called Nitro Model Products.They make RC ARF airplanes.Most of them are LARGE MODELS and built very nicely, high quality, and are DIRT CHEAP . I myself can't SCRATCH BUILD or buy a KIT and all the materials to complete it for the prices these models are offered at and they ARE COMPLETLY BUILT , just add engine and radio and go fly!If I built it myself, the cost would be at MINIMUM , TWICE what Nitro sells for!
Model airplanes (RC) has been my other hobby for years, but the hobby also has been effected by "GLOBALIZATION". Get used to it folks, GLOBALIZATION and CHEAP overseas labor is a FACT OF LIFE!!!
TheK4Kid wrote: And our politicians keep letting American jobs leave the country, so next time your asked to support your local POLITICO ask him or her their stand on US jobs leaving the country!!!
And our politicians keep letting American jobs leave the country, so next time your asked to support your local POLITICO ask him or her their stand on US jobs leaving the country!!!
What do you want, more laws to force private businesses to be run the way you want?
Midnight Railroader wrote: TheK4Kid wrote: And our politicians keep letting American jobs leave the country, so next time your asked to support your local POLITICO ask him or her their stand on US jobs leaving the country!!!What do you mean, "letting" them do it?What do you want, more laws to force private businesses to be run the way you want?
I would be happy if they would ENforce the laws we have now.
Midnight Railroader wrote:Are those companies producing goods overseas breaking the law?
when they use lead in the paint they are. However I was refering to double standard of illegals getting away with being here, not paying taxes, getting free "everything" I end up having to pay for, taking jobs away from us ( and I ,m not talking about picking lettuce, look around), disrespecting our country, crime, gangs, etc.etc.
Well, the US importers do not specify lead paint, and I dpubt it can be demonstrated that they violated our laws for that.. Also, the Chinese government punished the minister whose job was to oversee production in Chinese plants. He was executed because of lead paint, tainted food products, etc. It was reported that they guy was accepting bribes to look the other way.
The major importers of Chinese stuff routinely inspect plants in an effort to control quality, paint ingredients, treatment of workers, and so on. However, that brings up another issue. It's been reported that there is cheating by Chinese factory managers when Americans conduct audits.
Again, I'll say that the USA negotiated the Chinese trade deals in the late 1990's, and that China subsequently joined the WTO. So there's no point in sour grapes and beating up your current elected officials. Our government is striving to make sure that China complies with its terms of the agreements.
Not like US corporations, which always play by the rules, never try to skirt regulations, and would never, ever try to bribe anyone.
You have a point, Midnight Railroader. however, I would think it's individuals who are guilty rather than the actual corporations. Fudging accounting for reports to shareholders and the SEC are examples of individual cheaters (or handsful of them conspiring). Those who are caught are prosecuted.
There are some areas in question however pertaining specifically to China. Example: Both the Chinese government and the Walton family (WalMart stockholders) made large contibutions to the 1996 Presdential campaign. Subsequent to that, the China trade deals were completed and those campaign contributions evidently paid for themselves.
Yep....
I notice, BTW, you recall the Museum of Science and Industry's original Santa Fe layout. I grew up near Chicago, and remember that layout fondly.
Please remember that this is a Model Railroad forum.
It's not about immigration.
It's not about political campaign contributions.
It's not about "exporting" jobs overseas.
Cost and quality of models made here and elsewhere should be valid topics, but straying too far into other areas tends to degrade the quality of the discussion a lot. OK?
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Folks:
I work as an engineer. I design tooling for drop forgings which are made in our plant. It is not offshore. One of our 3500 lb hammers, in fact, tends to slosh my coffee around. Manufacturing, therefore, is quite dear to my heart, to the point where a careless and thoughtless professorial type who starts prattling about how we don't need it anymore might just as well have spit tobacco juice in my eye.
Now, let me say that I have nothing against the Chinese at all. In fact, I think they should have become a major industrial country long ago. They're Yankees. But they had all that colonial stuff, then that Communist stuff (which they unfortunately still have). However, I draw the line at handing them all the fun stuff.
I notice a few common misunderstandings in this thread:
-Chinese goods would cost 4x as much if made domestically
Nope. A great deal of the perceived price difference is from our present willingness to accept minimal quality if the price is cheap and a "lifetime guarantee" (end user QC) is available. For instance, take Reed pipe wrenches, made in USA and of excellent quality, a joy to use. A reasonably good imported wrench like a Kobalt of comparable size costs nearly as much, perhaps five dollars less (on a $30 tool). Kobalts in fact are not quite as good as Reed. Not a huge difference, is it?
Go to Harbor Freight, and you can probably find "the same wrench" for $10...but it's not. It looks the same, but it's made of cheaper material, less carefully, and with minimal or no QA. In practice, tools like this are worthless. Oh, they're "guaranteed" -- but beware. "Lifetime Guaranteed" once meant "We have confidence that this product will not need replacement". In many cases, it now means "We have confidence that we can build another cheap replacement when our poor-quality product breaks". See the difference?
I'm not saying that China can't make quality products. I'm saying that it costs them money, just like it costs us, and in many areas they are only competitive because we are willing to accept a lower quality if the price is right.
In fact, folks, if you keep all things comparable, the cost of a comparable domestic and imported manufactured product is much more similar than you might imagine - even something we might consider labor-intensive. Materials and energy are a much larger proportion of a product's price than we realize. The "savings to the consumer" for importing a labor-intensive product from China is not 75-90%. It's at most about 20%.
Sure, this seems like a lot for the manufacturer. In fact, nearly all of these mfrs. could make the same savings by streamlining their domestic processes, but importing is the lazy man's way out, if nobody cares about quality (which might inflate the cost to more than the domestic price). But what about us? What if we all realized that the choice we make is not between a $10 Chinese widget and a $40 American one, but between a $10 Chinese widget and a $12 American one? This is the question we must answer.
In model railroading in particular, we have a crazybackwards situation where a lot of Chinese goods are more expensive than domestic ones - a Lifelike trainset boxcar costs nearly as much as a US-made Bowser or Yardmaster kit. Bowser steam is some of the cheapest power out there.
Next misconception:
-Manufacturing is outmoded/gone in the US
Nope. This is a damaging one, because it discourages the skilled from taking up manufacturing arts as a profession, or studying its technology. I can't understand why so many kids want to stock shelves at S Mart instead of learning to weld, or run a lathe, or use a CAD station. I think people have this Upton Sinclair illusion, but the Jungle of the modern world isn't industry. It's retail hell.
In fact, there are a ton of products made here -- even a lot of consumer goods. Read the label, folks. Furthermore, there is a huge variety of stuff that you and I never see at S Mart. Wire, conduit, tradesmens' tools, weapons, lots of stuff.
In this city, there are made steel forgings, aluminum forgings, iron castings, die castings, plastic moldings, boxes, coffee can lids, deodorant containers,concrete bridge girders, beer, snack cakes, catalysts, rolled rings, wire products, plastic pipe, electronic components, auto parts, weapon parts, airplane parts, a host of nondescript parts, and lots and lots of other things; and this is only scraping the surface. There's lots more. Factories are stealthy, and if you're not in manufacturing yourself you tend to overlook them. Many of the products would even be recognizable on those S Mart shelves - deodorant sticks complete except for the deodorant, for instance. What all these manufacturers have in common is that we can't find enough qualified applicants to fill all positions.
We have a strange hostility or ignorance of manufacturing in this country, in this era, which leads to the peculiar state in which people use US-made goods every day, while proclaiming or lamenting the imminent, past, or current demise or rejection of manufacturing -- and in the meantime, the manufacturers themselves keep on going, and wondering where all the welders and engineers are.
This leads me to my final point
-The drive to offshore goods is mostly economic
Nope. Not at all. The fact is, it takes brains and drive to make money in manufacturing, but people nowadays don't want to spend those. They want to stumble on a gold mine. The Chinese are in exactly the same place as their countrymen who reworked abandoned claims and opened restaurants in the Gold Rush days, and prospered while the 49ers went hungry looking for riches. I told you the Chinese were Yankees. A lot of the Chinese takeover of consumer goods, too, happened because domestic mfrs. went out through natural attrition and weren't replaced. This happened in model railroading - the domestic producers didn't survive multiple generations of ownership well, and the importers filled in the gaps. Had Mantua continued to innovate like they did in the 1950s, they'd be the ones filling the hobby shop shelves today, not Bachmann.
Way too many places just say "Manufacturing's too hard. Let's let Jiang do it." That's the biggest reason we don't make a lot of things, if you ask me. The attitude infects industry, too, and the set of attitudes that go with it. Laziness.
So you see the problem is complicated, but the solution is simple - make stuff here. You totally can.
There is some credit to be given to China. They are simply attempting to build their country up to a higher living standard, wouldn't you do what ever it took also. Look at history and you will see that this scenario will repeat. Japan went through this also. I must say that I wish Mexico would try harder for their poor instead of pushing them out of the country into ours, big topic for a different forum.
When it comes to quality you should blame the importer. Look at the Atlas VO1000, when Atlas realized that the units built in Korea were not worthy they moved production to China and the problem was rectified. They must have given the Korean firm many oportunities to fix the problem but they did not, yet it seems when there is a problem with the China manufacturer it gets fixed. Where would you put it? Quality control should be seperated from the manufacturer and made the responsibillity of the importer. The matbe the lead paint situation would be caught earlier on.
Remember also that this hobby is specialized and the volume on any paticular item will not carry any company for vary long.
John
MisterBeasley wrote:Please remember that this is a Model Railroad forum.It's not about immigration.It's not about political campaign contributions.It's not about "exporting" jobs overseas.Cost and quality of models made here and elsewhere should be valid topics, but straying too far into other areas tends to degrade the quality of the discussion a lot. OK?
Mister Beasley,
You are quite correct!I love Model Railroading, and perhaps I started to stray, sorry about that!Basically I keep seeing all these posts about costs of our hobby, etc, etc.I would like to see more of our trains and assocaited equipment made here in the GOOD OLD USA!!!Much of it used to be.
The "real" full scale railroads most of us model were!
Okay guys let's talk about MRR equipment made here and PATRONIZE them!
TheK4Kid
Autobus Prime wrote: A reasonably good imported wrench like a Kobalt of comparable size costs nearly as much, perhaps five dollars less (on a $30 tool). Kobalts in fact are not quite as good as Reed. Not a huge difference, is it?
A reasonably good imported wrench like a Kobalt of comparable size costs nearly as much, perhaps five dollars less (on a $30 tool). Kobalts in fact are not quite as good as Reed. Not a huge difference, is it?
Given the choice, they'll choose the cheaper tool.
TheK4Kid wrote:Okay guys let's talk about MRR equipment made here and PATRONIZE them!
IF an American source offers what I want, sure. But that doesn't happen all the time.
Autobus Prime-EXCELLENT POST!!!
Laziness, corporate greed and lies!
That was a thoughtful commentary from Autobus Prime, and much appreciated. I don't see how "greed" fits into the explanation however. Companies are intended to be profitable to earn money for shareholders.
I looked again at the first post. It pertained to reasons why Hornby has model trains manufactured in China. It's typical of models imported to the USA, and much of this thread pertains to the title "Production in China".
Reasons for production in China pertain to manufacturing considerations as thoughtfully explained by Autobus Prime. There are other causes, too. One of them is our trade polcies. Politics do play a role in trade policies, and therefore, in this case, politics is relavent to the discussion. So I feel looking back at political history influencing China trade is not going to be harmful and is on topic.
spidge wrote: There is some credit to be given to China.
There is some credit to be given to China.
s:
I agree. They are willing to Make Things, and they have an admirable pragmatism. We need to copy some of that - to relearn to Do Something To Get Something, not to Get Something For Nothing. But...
Quality control should be seperated from the manufacturer and made the responsibillity of the importer. The matbe the lead paint situation would be caught earlier on.
No! No! A thousand times, no! *scream* *cry* *rant* *laugh* *pull out hair* *straitjacket*
You can't do that. Every time I see "Designed in Country A, Mfd in Country B, QC in Country A", I go through a minor fit, because you CAN'T control quality that way. Design, manufacture, and quality need to be an integrated whole. Otherwise there is no improvement, no innovation, and quality is just a bucket to catch the obvious errors as they keep right on being made. And when the bucket is here, and the production is there, there's way too much pressure to let errors slip through, or to allow a marginal product and say "Eh, it probably will be fine, we'll just replace it if it ain't." End-user QC. It must end!
But in any case, quality must apply throughout the manufacturing process. Imagine a Homer Price-style mad doughnut machine that keeps chucking out burned doughnuts. You can have somebody sort out the burned ones, or fix the machine. Which is going to produce a better product? In the second case, they'll be consistently right. In the first, they'll be all over the place.
Remember this, and repeat it again and again until it sticks: Quality is not a little gold sticker. Quality is what is *under* that sticker.
Midnight Railroader wrote: Autobus Prime wrote: A reasonably good imported wrench like a Kobalt of comparable size costs nearly as much, perhaps five dollars less (on a $30 tool). Kobalts in fact are not quite as good as Reed. Not a huge difference, is it? Problem is, Americans have been taught they shouldn't have to pay that $5. Given the choice, they'll choose the cheaper tool.
MR:
Not everybody - but way too many. I keep telling people this at the hardware stores. Probably this makes me a crank...but really, how many skinned knuckles is $5 worth?
One local hardware store has domestic threaded gas pipe with good QC on the threads. It makes up into proper joints most of the time. The home center has cheaper imported pipe. I have to buy twice as much, and return the stuff that won't work. In ripped open bags and all, with Rectorseal smeared on. I don't care. That's what they get for making me do their QC work. Maybe they'll learn.
We find the same thing in model trains. A manufacturer has notoriously inconsistent quality, but they'll readily replace defective merchandise, so that's all right then? No. It is not all right. Products should work right the first time. Defects should be the rare exception.
I'm sorry if I'm getting all cranky over this...I did get 4 hrs sleep last night after finishing up some house repairs.