[_Adam]

I don't think this will make much of a difference aside from the branding advantage. The quality of a mass-produced product like a consumer hand tool isn't a function of the country in which it is made but rather of its design. All the decisions made during that process and all the cost / performance considerations made are what determine the ultimate outcome.

It's common to blame Chinese manufacturing for cheap tools, but this gets the causation backwards. We wanted cheap tools and sending production overseas was the only way to get them. In fact because less is spent on labor, a better quality product can be had for the same price.

So bringing it back here without increasing the cost to the consumer means altering the design to make it cheaper to build, or banking on supply chain efficiencies to make it worthwhile.

[thaumaturgy]

There's a great YouTube channel, Project Farm (https://www.youtube.com/c/ProjectFarm/videos), that features a single guy testing, grading, and comparing all kinds of things you might find in your garage. He's not sponsored and tries to be objective throughout the process. It isn't perfect but he puts a ton of effort in and for backyard science it's pretty good.

Anyway, he mentions country of origin for a lot of tools and there's a clear trend towards better results for items made in the USA.

Obviously China is perfectly capable of producing high quality products, but regardless of the details of the causes, the end result is that "made in the USA" is a reliable signal for higher quality products.

[nostromo]

China has a “caveat emptor” culture that I suspect plays a role in this.

In most western countries and other countries, like Japan, selling counterfeit or barely functional products is seen as somewhat shameful. But in China it’s often seen as being clever or cunning.

Chinese consumers are used to this and are very cautious about what they buy and from whom, and of course negotiating a reasonable cost for the goods being sold.

In the US and most of the west, consumers feel entitled to a basic standard of quality, even at the lowest prices.

This leads to consumers being confused in the west when they buy very cheap goods from China and the quality is crap. Well, yeah, you got what you paid for.

[eru]

This discrepancy is not necessarily a bad thing. It's basically how western companies why manufacture in China can add value, by doing that kind of quality control and building a reputation.

(Of course, Chinese companies can do the same when they sell to foreigners.)

[collegeburner]

yea i've seen the attitude extend to college here, we generally have some idea that cheating is wrong but most of the chinese students i met seemed to think it was fine if they could get away with it.

[VectorLock]

My SO is a professor at a university with a lot of foreign students and she mostly only has to deal with cheating with this cohort of students.

[Teever]

It's not that it's seen as merely shameful in other countries, it's that it's seen as fraudulent and illegal.

Trying to play fraud off as a cultural difference and misunderstanding is frankly bullshit victim blaming.

[londons_explore]

'barely functional' isn't fraud. And in most cases the cheapest made in china product is barely functional.

It's only deliberately selling nonfunctional products that would meet the definition of fraud.

[granshaw]

Plus selling barely functional products under a DONGJOY etc brand isn’t fraud, only trying to sell a counterfeit Prada bag under the Prada brand is (and only in Western countries at that)

[ungamedplayer]

No matter what it says on the tag , if it looks like Prada but it isn't from Prada, someone is getting frauded

[Teever]

There are whole industries where it's unacceptable to ship 'barely functional' products -- aeronautics for instance.

We should be striving to expand this to more industries not the other way around.

[eru]

Different standards for different contexts.

Not everyone shares your preferences.

[Teever]

If you're selling something to someone who has a reasonable expectation that it is of a specific level of quality and it's not and you don't tell them that, it's fraud.

[solarkraft]

Whether you're angry about this depends on which culture you subscribe to.

[wyclif]

I dunno, I think just about any person would be angry if the Chinese-made electric clippers they just plugged into a wall outlet exploded in their hand.

[bityard]

For hand tools, the highest rated brands tend to be German or Japanese, with US made tools coming in second or third. Just my observation, anyway.

[voxadam]

Some the the best power tools come from Liechtenstein. Hilti makes a solid tool but they're far from cheap.

[Aperocky]

I would be interested at the price points of these comparisons.

If the ones he bought from China is 1/4 the price it seems a bit unfair to expect the same quality.

If the average of the product he reviewed from China is cheaper than the ones from US, then they should be inferior in quality as well - it's a (mostly) free market and you get what you paid for.

[googlryas]

If you ever try to get something built in China, you really need to know what you're doing, or the manufacturer will violate your specs all over the place in order to profit an extra 1/10th of a cent per unit.

But, big companies don't really have that excuse, because they should know what they're doing.

[ajsnigrutin]

Yep, suddenly they will change the type of plastic used, changed the ratios of plastics, use less copper (wires, pcbs), replace the brand name electronics with cheaper knockoffs and qa rejects from other factories, replace the type of glue, etc. Basically you need a QA team there to monitor every step of the production, or they'll try to screw you everywhere they can.

[arecurrence]

Reminds me of even Apple recently having problems with one of its suppliers pulling a bait and switch on lcd screens.

[solarkraft]

This sounds like perfectly efficient capitalism. Is it really not this way in other countries?

[jefftk]

You negotiate for one grade of steel, initial runs are that grade, but over time some manufacturers will start substituting a cheaper grade and hope you don't notice ("quality fade"). In most countries employees would see that as unethical, and companies would risk whistleblowing and fraud suits if they went ahead anyway.

[ajsnigrutin]

Yep, there's a great book "poorly made in china" [0], where they describe the immaculate production facilities, hygene standards, etc... and after a short time, stuff like this:

> Bernie was disturbed by the finger-in-bottle exchange, when I told him about it. “I hope they are washing their hands, at least,” he said. Since the bathrooms had no soap, I told him that it was not likely.

> I explained to Sister how this could be a problem. She told me that she understood and would address the situation.

> “I will tell the workers not to put their fingers in the bottles when you are at the factory,” she said.

....

> The hair gel that we produced at the factory was green. One day, I noticed that the worker who filled the gel bottles had a skin condition. His hands were covered with the slick formula, and beneath the green, shimmery layer, I could see that the skin on his hands was peeling. Small, raw patches of flesh were exposed, and you didn’t have to be a dermatologist to see that his skin was infected.

> “We should probably do something about this one,” I said to Sister, trying to sound calm, while in my head alarm bells were ringing.

> Sister did not see the point. “Why?” she asked.

> “It might be a health issue?”

> “But the worker has done nothing wrong. It’s just an allergic reaction.”

> Trying to press the matter, I suggested that the worker might contaminate the product.

> Sister twisted around the argument. “How can he harm the product when it was the product that caused him the harm?”

etc.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/5116296

[tick_tock_tick]

How is fraud capitalism? A effective and working contract law system is one of the corner stones of capitalism.

[eru]

We have to be careful to distinguish between capitalism as an ideal, and as a description of what happens in the real world. (The same applies to socialism or any other -ism.)

Otherwise we will just engage in 'No True Scotsman' fallacies.

[chmod600]

True, but fraud is not at all specific to capitalism in practice or theory.

[throwaway9870]

No, perfect capitalism would include having perfect knowledge of the product, which is exactly the opposite of this situation.

[s1artibartfast]

This is definitely the case in med tech, devices and Pharma. Many manufacturers avoid China because you can set a spec but you can't trust the outgoing QA testing. You can do incoming QA testing, but then you are double testing and losing a lot of efficiencies when those things would be best done at the supplier

[londons_explore]

You do spot incoming QA testing.

And if you find any issues, you test the whole shipment.

And then you compare the results to the outgoing QA test results.

And if any results can't be explained by failures relating to shipping, then you fire your supplier.

You let them know ahead of time that this is the procedure you'll apply, and then they'll do proper QA testing.

[s1artibartfast]

In these industries it might take 5 years to switch suppliers. There are also specs that can't be tested at the finished good level, even destructively.

[eru]

Yes, that makes it harder.

You should probably run with multiple suppliers in the first place, so it's easier to switch between them? Of course, that extra overhead probably will eat into your cost savings.

[s1artibartfast]

People do that too, but even with all these mitigations in place, the risk just isn't worth it.

No major medical company wants to risk recalling defective product by using a disreputable Chinese manufacturer. Unknowingly selling counterfeit product is a pretty bad look to the FDA and consumers.

This is the main reason why many procurement departments have a no China policy.

[throwaway9870]

QA testing is easier said than done. There are few firms the in the world that could do complete QA testing on a TV for example.

[nazka]

Ya for instance protein supplements. If you didn’t know you have to be very careful about the origin and the process the company use to produce those. But because it’s very hard to test even with an independent testing company, you have all kind of speculation about which company to avoid and the ones that are good because you can never know. So if you see one company doing shading things or not being 100% transparent then even if the production line is fine it’s still casting enough doubt in the “expert” users to avoid to buy them. And again testing was easy then all this won’t be here. We will just test the protein powder and that’s it.

[MichaelZuo]

Mass spectrometry is relatively common nowadays It’s more likely no one wants to pay the hundreds of thousands or millions necessary to do a full test of a single supplement.

[stacktrust]

Milwaukee (TTI) is vertically integrated, i.e. they own their factories in China.

[JumpCrisscross]

> they own their factories in China

This isn’t as protective as one would imagine. Unscrupulous floor managers will still swap materials, run the crap and sell the good stuff.

[stacktrust]

Wow. How would floor managers benefit from that kind of swap?

[natpalmer1776]

Same way it happens outside china in other industries. You know a supplier who sells material / service for $BUDGET minus X, in exchange for swapping the PO you get a portion of X from the supplier via back channel means, while company is now paying $BUDGET for lower quality material / service that costs supplier less.

[karmicthreat]

Because the factory manager is the one selling product out the back door.

[bobthepanda]

By pocketing the difference.

[stacktrust]

Ah, pocketing the delta on input costs. Hopefully the drop in output QA metrics would be detectable via software.

[umeshunni]

They sell the higher spec ones on the side to their buddies?

[stacktrust]

Wouldn't the lower spec ones fail QA checks on factory floor?

[solarkraft]

... that's possible? Don't companies from outside china have to set up joint ventures with a chinese company?

[arecurrence]

Milwaukee is owned by Techtronic industries, a Chinese company

[moonchrome]

Thing is a customer is willing to pay disproportionately more for a "reliable" country of origin, brand, whatever - so you can afford to throw in better components/QC on top of higher labor cost etc.

Many things are this way - you don't pay premium price for a budget brand even if they end up performing the same as premium brand.

Also you don't outsource production to China to get better quality, you outsource to cut cost - that always leads to worse products down the line.

[Aperocky]

> always leads to worse products down the line.

Counter point: Apple, they seems to be doing just fine.

China is not a magical place where there is boundless supply of cheap labor and bad product quality. Execution matters.

[jbay808]

> The quality of a mass-produced product like a consumer hand tool isn't a function of the country in which it is made but rather of its design

There's a lot more to production quality than just product design. Quality of materials, manufacturing tolerances, heat treatment, surface cleanliness, quality control procedures, tooling wear, order of operations, assembly jig design, and so on. Some of those may be affected by the country in which it's made, and some may not. While you may say those are "design" in that the designer specifies the material they want, whether their product really gets made the way they envision is not always up to them.

And even when it comes to just design, I'll say one thing: I have a lot more confidence in the designs produced by designers whose desks are within walking distance of the production line.

[BugsJustFindMe]

> In fact because less is spent on labor, a better quality product can be had for the same price.

In theory yes, but in practice it doesn't seem to ever pan out that way. When was the last time a company that moved its manufacturing from the US to China to increase profits didn't also cheap out on materials, quality control, and customer service?

[clhodapp]

Apple comes to mind.

But yes, it seems very rare.

[Tao3300]

Even they are suspect. The quality of the batteries in MacBooks at our office has been terrible. Lots of them swelling up and splitting the case apart.

[AlbertCory]

Indeed, the quality of the keyboards is lousy these days. A classic case of lack of attention to detail in manufacturing.

And this is AFTER they fixed the infamous design flaw on mine:

https://thenextweb.com/news/what-hell-apple-butterfly-keyboa...

[londons_explore]

Battery swelling is rarely poor manufacturing.

Nearly always it's poor design of the battery chemistry or battery management system.

[systemvoltage]

> The quality of a mass-produced product like a consumer hand tool isn't a function of the country in which it is made but rather of its design.

The point isn't about quality, the point is about having manufacturing capacity to turn these places from making tools to making aircraft parts in a pinch when shit hits the fan.

Having domestic manufacturing capacity of the shittiest tools is far better than only having designers that'd twiddle their thumbs in war time, not knowing how to setup high volume manufacturing capability quickly.

Most people here do not understand how difficult it is to make literally anything in high volume. Take the simplest thing like a puck of aluminum. Now, try establishing a manufacturing chain that can make 8 million of these per week. You'd be on your knees trying to make 1k a week, let alone 8 million. We're note even talking about having SPC or other systems that monitor quality. HVM is the most underappreciated aspect of engineering by far and it is trivialized by clueless media. Even the most educated people appreciate design over manufacturing.

[cplusplusfellow]

I tend to disagree with this in many ways. Chinese products are often made from subpar raw materials like steel, which can be much more brittle than steel sourced from US, Germany, and Mexico.

[kube-system]

Professionally engineered products have their steel specified by physical attributes, not country of origin. If it meets the spec, and passes QA, it meets the spec.

That being said, not every plant makes every type of steel. Higher end steels are the types of steels that western manufacturers can compete on, so it is often what they specialize in.

[cplusplusfellow]

Some countries declare steel to have certain properties and they do not have those properties.

This is a certifiable fact.

[kube-system]

Manufacturers can and do test steel for compliance and will demand remediation from suppliers if it exhibits issues. I have first hand experience.

[nl]

> Some countries declare steel to have certain properties and they do not have those properties. This is a certifiable fact.

In general I'd say that some companies do this.

I did a quick search and found a few well-published incidents:

Kobe Steel (Japan)[1]

Japan Steel Works (Japan) - although this was faked inspection on manufactured components not raw steel[2]

Ossen Innovation Materials (China)[3]

Unsubstantiated reports of issues with companies from China, Germany, Italy and the US[4]

Le Creusot (France). Fake materials used in nuclear reactors[5]

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kobe-steel-scandal-ceo-id...

[2] https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14617459

[3] https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/307694/steel-supplier-ha...

[4] https://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=304464

[5] https://www.steelavailable.com/en/counterfeit-steel-big-worr...

[SV_BubbleTime]

>So bringing it back here without increasing the cost to the consumer means altering the design to make it cheaper to build, or banking on supply chain efficiencies to make it worthwhile.

As much as I like some Klein tools that are made in the USA, they have a few that are cheaper-quality when compared to their cheaper-price Chinese alternatives.

If I can’t find USA, I’ll at least look to Taiwan, having spent time there and seen how hard the people work.

[bluGill]

When I was a kid Taiwan was the place they made junk tools that broke. 40 some years later they have figured out quality. I expect China to figure it out, and in some places they have.

[mmsimanga]

I don't know anything about manufacturing but I wonder if problems associated with outsourcing IT overseas are not also experienced in manufacturing.l? Wouldn't having the factory closer give you same benefits as being able to walk across to a fellow developer and discuss some issue.

[juve1996]

Of course - they can iterate much faster. I know firms in the US that would have to wait 3 months for a prototype to ship for testing. 3 months. Think about how much time is truly wasted?

[bombcar]

This can happen - if the company is setup to allow that. There was some GE product that was brought back in-house next to the developers and the assemblers talking to them shaved 35 steps off manufacturing.

[AlbertCory]

> The quality of a mass-produced product like a consumer hand tool isn't a function of the country in which it is made but rather of its design.

I don't think you've read all the posts by people with actual experience in manufacturing. Give the same "design" to two different factories and you get two different results. Manufacturing matters.

[eru]

Though I wouldn't necessarily blame it directly on country. Rather on culture.

As an example, manufacturing in southern Italy vs norther Italy might be rather different, too.

[dehrmann]

> It's common to blame Chinese manufacturing for cheap tools

Apple has shown exactly this: you get what you pay for in China, just like everywhere else. If you want quality and consistency, you can get it in China. It just costs more than low-quality from China.

[PeterisP]

The example of Apple does not show that you can simply buy quality and consistency in China, Apple's process shows that you can get quality and consistency in China by doing extensive integration and ensuring in-depth control over your suppliers' daily operations in China, not simply by paying more.

[doodlebugging]

>The quality of a mass-produced product like a consumer hand tool isn't a function of the country in which it is made but rather of its design. All the decisions made during that process and all the cost / performance considerations made are what determine the ultimate outcome.

I have to disagree with this. The quality of consumer-grade hand tools is a function of who controls the manufacturing process and quality control procedures. It has very little to do with who writes the specs, approves the engineering drawings, or selects the materials. The quality depends on how closely the whole process was monitored and controlled by the entity who is attempting to have the tool produced. If they can't or don't closely watch the process and have robust reject/accept criteria then the tool can appear in the package to be fully up to spec without actually hitting any of the design specs.

>It's common to blame Chinese manufacturing for cheap tools, but this gets the causation backwards.

This is not true. Blaming Chinese or Indian etc manufacturers is actually pinning the tail in the correct spot on the donkey. As mentioned by at least one other respondent, Chinese manufacturers will substitute inferior materials and violate other specs at will unless you have eyes on the process and the right to test and reject everything out of spec.

>We wanted cheap tools and sending production overseas was the only way to get them. In fact because less is spent on labor, a better quality product can be had for the same price.

Don't include me in that "we". I had no part as a consumer in the decision to send production overseas. In fact, whenever "we" would go out to buy a new tool or tool set we would always consider where the product was made in the purchasing decision precisely because we had previously bought a tool from a company that had moved production to China or India and later had that tool prematurely fail in normal use. The production location is a strong indicator of quality.

Price only comes into the equation when you are purchasing a tool that you may only use once. In that case you are taking a chance that the product will last long enough to finish your task. Harbor Freight mostly sells tools made in China and other foreign countries. Tradesmen take their business to HF because the return policy is lenient enough that if a tool fails you can take it into their store and walk out with a new one in a few minutes after describing the nature of the failure and the reason for the return. Hand tools like drill bits, screwdrivers, allen wrenches, hand wrenches, etc tend not to be as durable as an equivalent 50 year old Craftsman, Proto, S-K, Snap-On, etc. tool. I have watched HF drill bits untwist while trying to drill a hole through a pine 2x4. That is a quality control failure.

The false idea that spending less on labor gives the consumer a better product for the same price ignores the reality that it simply doesn't work like that and sounds like something that a person who had never owned or used hand or power tools would say. You might have a career in marketing if you can get enough potential customers drunk enough to believe that shit.

>So bringing it back here without increasing the cost to the consumer means altering the design to make it cheaper to build, or banking on supply chain efficiencies to make it worthwhile.

One can also alter the production method by using improved tools or techniques and materials.

At the end of the day though when your job pays for the tools you will use and requires you to do certain tasks day in and day out then you will find that the employer will frequently have a short list of approved tool vendors so that you will have to pay for a tool that is not on the approved list. This helps insure that techs have durable tools that are fit for purpose and have a proven history of performance so that the company and the techs will not have to constantly replace tools that would not have failed had they chosen more expensive, more reliable brands.

Tool branding is everything and people who use tools absolutely care about where they are made and who owns the company making them. Reputation is everything with some things.

[stacktrust]

> Tool branding is everything and people who use tools absolutely care about where they are made and who owns the company making them. Reputation is everything with some things.

Good chart of tool company owners, https://www.protoolreviews.com/power-tool-manufacturers-who-...

> It may surprise you to know that only a handful of power tool companies own your favorite tools. That’s right, most tool brands fall under a parent company that also controls additional power tool manufacturers and brands.

At this point, reputation and branding needs to be separated out to the level of tool lines or even model numbers, e.g. Ridgid tools, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32453919

> After signing the deal in 2003, TTi took over the production of Ridgid power tools. These tools are licensed for sale only at The Home Depot, and all of these tools are produced by TTi, not Emerson. However, TTi does not own Ridgid or the rights to the brand name. Rather, TTi has a licensing agreement with Emerson that allows them to produce and distribute the tools under the Ridgid name.

While most Ridgid power tools are made in China by TTI, the well-regarded Ridgid shop vacs are made in Mexico by Emerson.

Ridgid toolboxes are made in Israel by Keter, which also makes enclosures for Milwaukee Packout and Home Depot's Husky brand.

[doodlebugging]

Thanks for the chart. I find myself investigating any company that I have never heard about if only to learn what else they produce.

I think the licensing of a manufacturer name without that manufacturer being involved in production, quality control, or maintenance has probably cost consumers more money than just about any other market change.

There are too many products carrying a brand name associated with quality that are actually entirely produced, sold, and serviced by unrelated entities on licensing agreements. Many of those products are low quality "consumer grade" examples of things like lawn mowers, outdoor grills and kitchen equipment, power tools, yard tools, etc and are sold through stores like Lowes and Home Depot. A consumer buys one of these products thinking they have a high quality item and then later when it fails they find themselves in service limbo since the brand owner has no connection to the product and the manufacturer makes it difficult to reach any customer service information or punts the consumer to the brand owner people.

They have essentially purchased a license to a reputation for their products and have free reign to operate with no intention of maintaining the good will that reputation has among consumers. I don't understand why a company will license their reputation in a situation like this. The money must be great.

[fabfabfab]

100%. I worked in the heart of semiconductor manufacturing. Quality primarily a result of systems such as COD (Contain-your-own-defect), SPC (statistical process control), inspection metrology (traceability to NIST, MCA, reproducibility, repeatability, etc.), 5M+E (man, machine, materials, methods, measurement and environment), copy exact, etc.

What OP is talking about is that good tools are the ones with better design. OP mistakes the technical term "quality" with "good design". Quality is producing things as per specifications and allowable tolerances.

[doodlebugging]

>Quality is producing things as per specifications and allowable tolerances.

Exactly. Quality Control is verification of the fact that things were produced to spec with correct materials to allowable tolerances.

I think quality is the part where many offshore manufacturers are willing to cut corners and quality control is sporadic or absent. Thanks for this.

[kube-system]

Yes, but it’s a little bit of both because there’s a feedback loop in the demand for a product and the expertise and attitude of a local industry.

[lumost]

Is this really true? Cutting quality doesn't buy you much if your cost per unit is primarily driven by labor. If you manufacture in a high cost country, you may be forced to compete on quality.

[bamboozled]

Who actually wanted / needed cheap tools ?

Cheap tools were pushed on the majority of people.

[prawn]

People who need to DIY something but might only need to use the tool a few times. Or people who bought decent brand for key tools and then went budget to add a couple of extra pieces they couldn't otherwise justify.

How are cheaper tools pushed on people? There's a broad range at the hardware store and generally staff will encourage you to purchase premium brands.

[bamboozled]

At least my experience was, about 15-20 years back. All my local hardware stores were destroyed by bigger conglomerate stores.

They came into many towns, built huge stores, pushed cheaper products which crushed the competition (who sold good tools) then pushed cheap junk on most people which just ends up in landfill.

These stores didn't just sell tools, they helped DIY people know which tools to buy.

That is how.