Those Crazy Russian & Chinese Guys.

Steve Smith · Feb 10, 2014

2bits said:
But this chinese thing is a lot different. It is a lowering of America's lifestyle to be equal to the rest of the world, (by the powers that be!) Enough of this geo political talk, and political correctness.

So you think American lifestyle is better than all of the rest of the world?!!

And if any country is responsible for the lowering of America's lifestyle, it's America.

Steve.

2bits · Feb 10, 2014

Steve, I should have said to the level of the third world. My apologies! But you my friend are headed toward the same fate as the US. If you have followed what your leaders and ours have been saying in the last few years, that we need to be on parity with the rest of the world. In other words " a lowering of our standard of living".
That goes for you, me, and everyone else in the developed world.
But we all stick our heads in the sand and hope it goes away. It isn't. I don't know about you, but I will never become a subject.

Steve Smith · Feb 10, 2014

2bits said:
Steve, I should have said to the level of the third world. My apologies! But you my friend are headed toward the same fate as the US. If you have followed what your leaders and ours have been saying in the last few years, that we need to be on parity with the rest of the world. In other words " a lowering of our standard of living".
That goes for you, me, and everyone else in the developed world.

It's just the natural progression of things. We had our time as the self appointed rulers of the planet with our British Empire, the US more recently had its time as world superpower No. 1 and now it's soon to be China's turn.

There's not much we can do to change it.

Steve.

lxdude · Feb 10, 2014

250swb said:
The people running factories in China don't come up with ideas for producing crap off the top of their head. It's not like they wake up in the middle of the night with a brainwave for how to sell shit. They make crap because entrepreneurs from around the world are ordering it by specifying cheap shoddy materials and bad design.

The Pentax adapter knockoffs are a copy of the Pentax design. They are not bad because of design or even materials. They are bad because they are poorly made-- bad workmanship, bad quality control.

Steve Smith · Feb 10, 2014

lxdude said:
The Pentax adapter knockoffs are a copy of the Pentax design. They are not bad because of design or even materials. They are bad because they are poorly made-- bad workmanship, bad quality control.

And if you paid the same for it to be made in the US or the UK it would be even worse.

Steve.

lxdude · Feb 10, 2014

Steve Smith said:
And if you paid the same for it to be made in the US or the UK it would be even worse.

Steve.

That could be, but the exchange rate with China means they can make it right and still sell it for the same price.

I'd bet even Pentax could sell their genuine adapters for a lot less before they started losing money- they just don't have to.

Steve Smith · Feb 11, 2014

lxdude said:
That could be, but the exchange rate with China means they can make it right and still sell it for the same price.

And they do. But the reason most people source from China is to reduce cost as much as possible. They go for the cheapest option most of the time.

Earlier, I said I was biased as I work for a Chinese owned company. This is it: http://www.johnsonelectric.com/en/index.html

It is not the stereotypical Chinese company as thought of by the rest of the world. It's a huge company which owns businesses around the world. It employs many continuous improvement schemes as used by Japanese companies such as Gemba Kaizen.

Steve.

benjiboy · Feb 11, 2014

How much of the Western prejudice against Oriental manufactured goods is racial, and conforming to racial stereotypes ?, quite a lot I think, and the fact that in many cases they can produce goods that are at least as good if not better that retail cheaper, and that's not just because of "coolie wages" it's largely because of much more modern factorys and hi-tech machinery, manufacturing techniques and a committed labour force.
I'm old enough to remember WW11 when the popular Western perception of the Japanese was that they all wore glasses, had buck teeth and couldn't fight, even my father who fought against the Japanese Army in Burma, who use to say they were good soldiers also thought "they were good jungle fighters because they were used to the jungle in Japan", there is no jungle in Japan.

lxdude · Feb 11, 2014

My point is that the adapters are bad because of poor quality control. It is often taken as a given that quality costs. But the adapters are not bad because of poor machinery. They are bad because the manufacturer does not value quality in the product. It costs no more to make a part that's good than to make one that's bad. The Chinese adapter I bought was out of parallel, which caused flange distance to be short on one side and the bayonet to jam on the camera.
If operators aren't taught to load the part into the machine properly, and the product quality monitored, the parts will be crap. I know from working in production that most operators who are hired to load the machine and push the button are not interested in the job. They must be trained how to do the work properly and held to it.

blockend · Feb 11, 2014

lxdude said:
I know from working in production that most operators who are hired to load the machine and push the button are not interested in the job. They must be trained how to do the work properly and held to it.

It might have something to do with the fact the part sells for £7 with free shipping to the UK. What do you think the lathe operator's cut of that is to keep his mind concentrated on the job?

Steve Smith · Feb 11, 2014

You can find crappy products made in any country.

Steve.

Mainecoonmaniac · Feb 11, 2014

So true

Steve Smith said:
You can find crappy products made in any country.

Steve.

Right now, China has a reputation for making crap. Today, it's really not the Chinese. It's manufacturers wanting a low cost per unit items when Chinese factories make crap. On the other hand, Apple make Iphones, laptops and computers in China. Apple has very strict quality standards with fit and finish.

lxdude · Feb 11, 2014

blockend said:
It might have something to do with the fact the part sells for £7 with free shipping to the UK. What do you think the lathe operator's cut of that is to keep his mind concentrated on the job?

I worked many years in manufacturing, setting up machines and supervising operators who worked for minimum wage. Train them how to do it right, hold them to it, get rid of them if they don't, and you will have a high quality product.

You are making the common mistake of thinking that low price must mean low quality. That is wrong. The Japanese demonstrated that clearly. In the 70's people began to realize that Toyota Corollas were much better built than Cadillacs and Lincolns.

Mainecoonmaniac · Feb 11, 2014

Very true

lxdude said:
I worked many years in manufacturing, setting up machines and supervising operators who worked for minimum wage. Train them how to do it right, hold them to it, get rid of them if they don't, and you will have a high quality product.

You are making the common mistake of thinking that low price must mean low quality. That is wrong. The Japanese demonstrated that clearly. In the 70's people began to realize that Toyota Corollas were much better built than Cadillacs and Lincolns.

But it comes down to management style too. This is a great radio show that shows the corporate culture between GM and Toyota.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/403/nummi

lxdude · Feb 11, 2014

Yes. It all comes down to management. My experiences have convinced me that there are serious problems in US manufacturing management. Some companies do a great job, but there are sooo many that do not.

Mainecoonmaniac · Feb 11, 2014

Economic system also plays a very big part of manufacturing. Old China and Russian economic systems are communist system. It's a command economy and the government dictates what to make and how to make it. The US and European systems are demand economies where demand dictates what is made. As all of us know, consumers demand better, faster and cheaper. Communist system's goal is to fill the government quota. Correct me if I'm wrong. BTW, I'm not a hardcore capitalist.

blockend · Feb 11, 2014

lxdude said:
I worked many years in manufacturing, setting up machines and supervising operators who worked for minimum wage. Train them how to do it right, hold them to it, get rid of them if they don't, and you will have a high quality product.

You are making the common mistake of thinking that low price must mean low quality. That is wrong. The Japanese demonstrated that clearly. In the 70's people began to realize that Toyota Corollas were much better built than Cadillacs and Lincolns.

I agree, which is why I said this earlier in the thread:

blockend said:
I recently bought a Yashica/Contax to Fuji adapter and the dimensions were incorrect for the aperture pin to engage. The adapter was a very nice turned piece of metal, cheap but as well made as you could ask for, yet someone had set the CNC machine incorrectly. I have an FD to Fuji adapter, it works fine, a Yashica to EOS ditto, but a Nikon to EOS adapter rattles around in the mount. The mechanical quality of them all is good, the engineering tolerances are poor. It's as easy to set a computer properly as wrongly.

However I'm forced to conclude that the per unit profit must be pennies, and there is a point where prices are so low it removes incentive somewhere in the production line. Either settings drift as tools wear, and it's easier to send out crap and refund than fix it, or the operator is so disincentivised by his pay that he really doesn't care. Currently the cost of an adapter is barely more than the postage cost of sending a couple of films to a UK lab. So we're buying Christmas cracker production quality and prices, that happens to be a nicely machined 'precision' photographic item.

The Chinese motorcycle industry suffers from similar issues, products that fit the description 'motorbike', while having few to none of the tolerances we expect for a working motorcycle, presumably because it costs a quarter of an equivalent.

lxdude · Feb 14, 2014

lxdude said:
If you think those bosses are above shaving where they can, you're dreaming. How about the toys with lead paint, and the pet food with melamine in it to fool the tests for protein content that killed people's pets here? Or the same substance, for the same reason, in their domestic-market baby formula?

lxdude said:
The harmful products I mentioned, and others, have done a lot of harm to China's reputation. ... China has got to clean up its act.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/11/us-autos-aston-china-insight-idUSBREA1A0SD20140211

Not low quality- deliberate fraud.

Dali · Feb 16, 2014

Mainecoonmaniac said:
Economic system also plays a very big part of manufacturing. Old China and Russian economic systems are communist system. It's a command economy and the government dictates what to make and how to make it. The US and European systems are demand economies where demand dictates what is made. As all of us know, consumers demand better, faster and cheaper. Communist system's goal is to fill the government quota. Correct me if I'm wrong. BTW, I'm not a hardcore capitalist.

And the financial system drives the economic one. Who gave China the manufacturing predominance we see today by transfering manufacturing resources from the West to the East if it is not Wall Street? Who wants a maximal return for every $ bet in the financial casino? Why is it the first time in US history that today's citizens are poorer than the previous generation when at the same time finance growth is exponential? Who is leading USA: Obama or the FED?

Capitalism vs communism is a smoke screen. Those who really rule the world are way beyond such paradigm.

benjiboy · Feb 16, 2014

Give it another fifty years and see how "crazy those Chinese and Russian guys" are.

Steve Smith · Feb 16, 2014

benjiboy said:
Give it another fifty years and see how "crazy those Chinese and Russian guys" are.

They are not crazy at all. Whilst it's common for westerners to have a five year plan for their businesses, Chinese companies usually work to much more long term goals. A one hundred year plan would not be unusual.

Steve.

benjiboy · Feb 16, 2014

Steve Smith said:
They are not crazy at all. Whilst it's common for westerners to have a five year plan for their businesses, Chinese companies usually work to much more long term goals. A one hundred year plan would not be unusual.

Steve.

The Chinese had a highly technically advanced and mercantile society when we in Britain were painting our faces with woad and living in mud and wattle huts, and long before the U.S.A. had been discovered. I find it very concerning how the Chinese are building infrastructure projects for governments in Africa and South America like oil refinery s, hydro- electric schemes, and buying up companys and resources all over the World. I think that China by the middle of this century will be be the predominant World power, whether we like it or not.

Jim Jones · Feb 16, 2014

I spent several years in Japan in the 1950s and 1960s. They were producing some excellent tools and other equipment. The reputation for Japanese junk was often caused by overseas importers more concerned with price than quality. Some Japanese companies were happy to oblige them. This is true in other countries today. Their manufacturers sometimes try to copy something as simple as a clothespin without analyzing its function or insuring that it works correctly. Why not? They can still foist them onto importers who only resell, not use, the product.

Steve Smith · Feb 17, 2014

Jim Jones said:
The reputation for Japanese junk was often caused by overseas importers more concerned with price than quality. Some Japanese companies were happy to oblige them.

That is exactly the reason for the current perception of Chinese goods.

benjiboy said:
The Chinese had a were painting our faces with woad and living in mud and wattle huts.

And they will have a highly technically advanced and mercantile society when we in Britain are back to living in mud and wattle huts.

Steve.

benjiboy · Feb 17, 2014

It's a cardinal error both in warfare and life in general to underestimate the enemy, the Chinese won't be satisfied with the cheap end of the market forever just as the Japanese weren't after WW11, now they have their foot in the door they will start producing high quality luxury manufactured goods of a quality and a price that Western companys can't compete with, because make no mistake this is economic warfare.

Those Crazy Russian & Chinese Guys.

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency