[tzaman]

I think you've missed the point. It's not about American/Foreign but the implications of outsourcing things to less developed countries.

My mom has a foundry here in Slovenia and at some point she decided to outsource production of some relatively easy stuff to China, because it seemed cheaper. Well, suffice it to say she stopped after the first batch arrived, in which only about 30% of products were up to standards, which are easy to track in die casting: a few precise measurements and an X-ray, all totalling 5 minutes of work.

So the point is (usually): underdeveloped countries === cheaper and less educated labour + less oversight + lower quality. A recipe for disaster. But as long as profits go up it's not a big deal, right?

[TeMPOraL]

> My mom has a foundry here in Slovenia and at some point she decided to outsource production of some relatively easy stuff to China, because it seemed cheaper.

Herein lies the reason. Chinese factories will manufacture things with as much quality as you want, provided you pay accordingly. Pay for a good product, you'll get a good product. Pretty much all of electronics you use, including the most high-end devices, was made in China. Most of the Western "Chinese = crap" stereotype seems to be because of Western companies, which pay for low-quality manufacturing.

Also, consider that this "less developed country" builds nuclear reactors, has a space program, and runs better metro lines than most of Europe. They somehow manage not to screw all of this up more than anyone else.

[mindslight]

> Chinese factories will manufacture things with as much quality as you want ... Pretty much all of electronics you use, including the most high-end devices, was made in China.

Agreed.

> Western "Chinese = crap" stereotype seems to be because of Western companies, which pay for low-quality manufacturing.

Eh? If I go on eBay/Aliexpress and order some consumer good, the only worthwhile thing I'm going to receive is the amazement at seeing exactly how far they skimped. I doubt choosing a more expensive listing would yield a better result. Nevermind the many stories I've heard of Chinese manufacturing autonomously substituting different part numbers on a BOM, causing a run to be reworked or scrapped.

This indicates the culture of "good-enough" cheapness belongs to China itself. Yes, it is possible to pay more (meaning supervise more) for quality production in China - if it weren't, everything wouldn't be made there. But this seems like getting quality in spite of Chinese customs.

[TeMPOraL]

> Eh? If I go on eBay/Aliexpress and order some consumer good, the only worthwhile thing I'm going to receive is the amazement at seeing exactly how far they skimped. I doubt choosing a more expensive listing would yield a better result.

I agree about Aliexpress (but note that general wisdom is, you don't buy consumer electronics there - on the other hand, electronics components like sensors, ICs, etc. are of perfect quality there). But most people in the West don't buy on Aliexpress, nor do they even know it exists. The general population's experience with Chinese manufacturing is all the crappy products they buy locally, that have the iconic "made in China" phrase written somewhere. Here you can blame the actual western companies that ordered production of this stuff.

[mindslight]

I've been quite (pleasantly) surprised at the quality of electronic components/tools I've ordered off of Aliexpress/eBay. And yeah the leading indicator seems to be how consumer-focused the item is - A while back I did a test with 4 random 5V1A phone chargers, figuring one or two would be shoddy. The best of the lot could put out 600mA - I didn't even bother opening them up for visual inspection.

I attribute the popular refrain of "Chinese crap" to general simplemindedness bemoaning the state of the world. Your average person is not likely to focus on where a product is made when it works. Since everything is made in China, broken->"Made in China" is the association that gets made.

It's not like people aren't aware that it's the Western companies cheapening things, but they won't stop supporting them and the general unifying factor is still "China". Take something like Harbor Fright - it's clear that everything the store sells is "Chinese crap", yet they're still patronized by the people complaining the hardest. I think people just like to complain rather than act.

[briandear]

So that sort of negates the cost savings then doesn't it? Chinese manufacturing can be good, but that's due to process management. With aircraft, we're talking a much higher level of competency than assembly lines.

[TeMPOraL]

> So that sort of negates the cost savings then doesn't it?

Not necessarily - it still may be (and is) that good quality bulk manufacturing in China is cheaper than equivalent-quality manufacturing in the West.

> With aircraft, we're talking a much higher level of competency than assembly lines.

Why assume that they don't have it? They've proven they have competency at manufacturing (the very device you typed your comment on is most likely a proof of that), they've proven they can run big projects, high-tech projects, etc. I'm in China right now; I look around and don't see people afraid of elevators or subways or the shitton of skyscrapers they're paving the ground with here. The big cities look just the same as big cities in every "developed" country - where exactly does this assumption of their incompetence come from? They're people just as we are, with engineering schools just like the ones we have.

[noir_lord]

> Also, consider that this "less developed country" builds nuclear reactors, has a space program, and runs better metro lines than most of Europe. They somehow manage not to screw all of this up more than anyone else.

Not that I'm saying this is not true but you have to consider the sheer control of the media in China, would we hear about the screw-ups, you can cover just about anything up with that level of control.

[TeMPOraL]

They might not hear about them locally, but we probably would - China's control of media seems to be aimed more inward. I think we generally know about all of their big screwups in civilian sector.

Anyway, Western companies tend to also cover up as much as they can, and China is not North Korea. And they do have safety protocols.

[barkingcat]

Since China produces most of the electronics used in the US, you would be able to tell just how good a Chinese product can be even if the Chinese media is censored.

Think your Macbook Air is the best laptop you've ever used? That's made in China.

[theklub]

Who China? They screw up all the time...

[TeMPOraL]

So does everyone else.

[stickfigure]

I think you just illustrated the problem with the article - you've turned a personal anecdote into a fairly ugly stereotype. There are a lot of well educated, highly skilled, and generally underemployed people in El Salvador, Mexico, and - yes - China.

I'll be concerned when I hear statistical evidence of higher failure rates from overseas shops. There are plenty of anecdotes of developed-country maintenance crews making serious mistakes - including one responsible for crashing a Concorde and killing everyone on board.

[omginternets]

>you've turned a personal anecdote into a fairly ugly stereotype.

You seem to be implying that this personal anecdote isn't representative of a larger trend, which is strange.

It's certainly possible to do business with developing countries, but one has to be especially careful with regards to work quality. This is neither new or xenophobic. Claiming otherwise is absurd.

With aviation and other life-and-death products, I find these concerns to be especially relevant.

Moreover, I (respectfully!) contend that your comment is a prime example of political correctness pushed to a dangerous extreme. Just because it's a stereotype doesn't mean it isn't mostly true, unpalatable though that thought may be. It so happens that Chinese people eat a lot of rice, and Chinese manufacturers have a rich history of cutting costs by deceitfully degrading quality. These two statements are neither false nor bigoted.

[jinst8gmi]

> You seem to be implying that this personal anecdote isn't representative of a larger trend, which is strange.

In what sense does a single data point represent a trend?

> It's certainly possible to do business with developing countries, but one has to be especially careful with regards to work quality.

You also need to be careful of work quality from developed countries. There is no shortage of examples of shoddy work being done in developed countries.

[omginternets]

>In what sense does a single data point represent a trend?

It doesn't. It's the other way around: a single datapoint can be congruent or incongruent with an observed and measured trend. This is the case with the present example.

>You also need to be careful of work quality from developed countries.

You always have to be careful of craftsmanship, but to imply that there's no systematic variance as a function of national origin is disingenuous at best and insane at worst.

Again, I'm positively flabbergasted by the extent to which people want to play with words and run in circles around such issues, especially given the extent to which these problems are documented.

Has it really become that taboo to observe that certain countries have a poor track record, on the whole? Am I only allowed to criticize my home country, now?

[jinst8gmi]

There are many highly competent people and organisations in "developing" countries. It only makes sense to evaluate things on a case by case basis. Making blanket generalisations is not constructive as there are countless cases where naive generalisations and prejudices turn out to be false.

[omginternets]

>There are many highly competent people and organisations in "developing" countries

Yes, you're repeating yourself.

> It only makes sense to evaluate things on a case by case basis.

I disagree. Case-by-case evaluation is necessary, but general trends are highly informative, useful, and not intrinsically racist/xenophobe/bigoted.

You're arguing that we should ignore evidence on the basis of political correctness, and I'm arguing that this is silly and dangerous.

[varjag]

> You seem to be implying that this personal anecdote isn't representative of a larger trend, which is strange.

If you let me chime in: by odd coincidence, we use a Slovenian contractor for aluminium die casting of our products. We have troubles with missed deadlines, non-negotiated requirements (like rising minimum batch size years into production) and poor communication.

Does our isolated experience represent a trend with, shall I call it, Eastern Europe?

[omginternets]

>Does our isolated experience represent a trend with, shall I call it, Eastern Europe?

It may well be representative of a larger trend within Slovenia (or eastern Europe). I don't know.

I can only speak for China (and certain parts of Western Europe, i.e. Italy).

[tolien]

> I'll be concerned when I hear statistical evidence of higher failure rates from overseas shops.

The issue seems to be getting that evidence, when the airlines have a strong disincentive not to report broken planes and the FAA finds it hard (for reasons of resources and the mechanics of travelling to a distant facility) to surprise-inspect facilities. That's not unique to offshored facilities, though.

[sokoloff]

There are very clear requirements for reporting certain in-flight failures, and very clear requirements for dispatching with some equipment inoperative. In addition, log books can be inspected by the FAA for patterns of failure, or for information after a specific failure.

I think this is a complete non-issue for everyone except US-based Airframe & Powerplant mechanics. If you're worried about aviation safety, don't fly on regional carriers in Eastern Europe, South America, or any third-world country. Flying on any major (for flights operated by the major, not under a codeshare) is the safest form of long distance travel by quite a wide margin.

On the small private planes that I fly, we have annual inspections where the airplane is carefully inspected and in order to do that, lots of disassembly and re-assembly is required. It's inherently dangerous, and I do an extremely careful pre-flight and will not take passengers on the first flight post-maintenance. I've found an oil line only finger tight (dumped oil directly onto the exhaust at any speed over 1700 RPM), various electrical and avionics anomalies, and other smaller mechanical issues. And in my case, this is all done by FAA-certified, English-speaking, hard-working, dedicated A&Ps right here in the good old USA. That you can find examples of maintenance errors from overseas repair shops is unsurprising; it's because you can find it from any repair shop.

[pjc50]

The irony is that if you were to say in the US "I outsourced some work to Slovenia", they'd probably consider it "less developed".

Cheaper is nearly always poorer quality wherever you go. China is certainly capable of extremely high quality work (iPhone!), it's just that they market on a low-cost basis instead.

[the_mitsuhiko]

> My mom has a foundry here in Slovenia and at some point she decided to outsource production of some relatively easy stuff to China, because it seemed cheaper. Well, suffice it to say she stopped after the first batch arrived, in which only about 30% of products were up to standards, which are easy to track in die casting: a few precise measurements and an X-ray, all totalling 5 minutes of work.

So your expectation is that you can do it cheaper elsewhere to the same level of quality? There is high quality manufacturing in China and many companies do that. You can't expect to the the level of quality you want sending some plans over to a remote country to a dumping price.

For how good Chinese manufacturing can be just look at your apple computer.

[tzaman]

> For how good Chinese manufacturing can be just look at your apple computer.

The difference between Apple and FAA? Apple has nearly unlimited resources, so they can be present on site to make sure quality is top notch. FAA does not. Oversight makes all the difference.

[notahacker]

The FAA is not the only body in the world that pays attention to aircraft maintenance. Do you honestly think that airlines paying upwards of $500k for a maintenance check on a >$30 million asset that can do even more financial damage to their reputation have fewer resources and less interest in maintaining standards than the company that sells you a $500 phone which you'll probably trade in after 2-3 years.

[the_mitsuhiko]

First of all this discussion was about the mother of the person I replied to, not the FAA. Secondly this is not a question of money as it is a question of volume and communication. Manufacturing is not plane maintenance, it's about making a profit from margins. If you are willing to sacrifice a bit of your profit for a higher quality product and you have a large enough volume that producing in China even makes sense then you will be able to perform basic quality control.

Any outsourcing only makes sense if you have a high volume of goods. I can have a better quality control producing something here locally than to outsource it to the other side of the pond, even if the country is technologically more advanced than my own just because I lose the ability to oversee the process.

None of that is relevant to the FAA though. The FAA has a funding problem. It should play absolutely no role where planes are maintained. This is a general problem in the US where governmental oversight is traditionally badly funded. Even the IRS has not nearly enough employees for the job they do.

[briandear]

Also Apple can reject faulty products before they enter distribution. A faulty airplane repair isn't generally noticed until they sift through the wreckage.

[lentil_soup]

Then again most high end electronic devices are produced there, no? So it doesn't really add up

[ap3]

What about smartphones? Best quality smartphones are made in China.

Along with most of our electronic products - how do you reconcile that with your mom's anecdote?