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Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

toolguyd.com

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Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

#11

Post by oneplane »

I'm not entirely sure how any of this matters. Tools and what bar they have to pass are just design choices. If you design a tool to be bad, it will be bad, no matter who manufactures them or where. At the same time, if you don't have good quality assurance/control and no tests that the manufacturer has to pass, then the design doesn't matter, because the product apparently doesn't have to meet the design specification and the whole design is practically arbitrary.

The only true change to the product that could happen is either a design change, or a change in available resources. Some multi-axis CNC machines are apparently not legally available everywhere in the world, so that could be a locality factor. On the other hand, plenty of companies design assemblies with complex components manufactured in various places around the world to be integrated elsewhere later on.

Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

#13

Post by kube-system »

_Adam wrote: post #9

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 tool…

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.

Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

#14

Post by moonchrome »

_Adam wrote: post #9

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 tool…

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.

Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

#15

Post by googlryas »

_Adam wrote: post #9

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 tool…

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.

Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

#16

Post by stacktrust »

_Adam wrote: post #10
stacktrust wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The human author of the text and this well-known blog is Stuart Deutsch, https://twitter.com/toolguyd Toolguyd has an active community (e.g. 100+ comments on this post) with real-world experience, challenging claims made by the blog.

Wow. AI is now good enough that writers are considered robot until proven human.

One could also draw an inference about readers, rather than writers.

Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

#18

Post by BugsJustFindMe »

_Adam wrote: post #9

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 tool…

> 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?

Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

#19

Post by ajsnigrutin »

googlryas wrote: post #15
_Adam wrote: post #9

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 tool…

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.

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.

Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

#20

Post by stacktrust »

googlryas wrote: post #15
_Adam wrote: post #9

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 tool…

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.

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