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Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

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Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

#291

Post by datavirtue »

silisili wrote: post #172
eropple wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got them mixed up. DeWalt is Stanley Black & Decker, which also makes modern, non-Sears Craftsman tools, along with a bunch of others--Bostitch nailers, Irwin, whatever's left of the Porter-Cable line, and upscale stuff like MAC (uses DeWalt batteries, as it happens) or Proto. Milwaukee is TTI, which owns Home Depot's exclusive Ryobi and Ridgid brands, along with Empire (measuring devices), Hart (Ryobi but for…

Pretty well summed up. It's an even hairier mess when you look at the details. For example, TTI licenses the Ryobi name from the Japanese Ryobi, and produces tools for Ridgid while not actually owning the brand. The odd one out usually forgotten is Positec. They have a rather interesting history, and today make the Worx stuff...which honestly aren't bad tools.

I bought a Worx oscillating tool and have abused the hell out of it. Still very reliable. Good stuff.

I have since switched to all Milwaukee however. The battery tech smokes everyone else and the high prices are easily justified by quality and productivity.

The productivity, and subsequent quality of work, from the Fuel line are worth upgrading from down market stuff. If you do your own work (remodelling etc) there is no comparing to the bbq dad tools (or harbor freight).

The weed eater is stellar. The blower can be operated with two fingers (you can hold it with one finger). Damn thing tries to leave your hand though...lol

Smallest hammer drill, short work of any masonry (with decent bits). Done. Move on.

Circular saw lasts all day under heavy use (6 xc battery).

Impact driver...it is always out and ready. Used constantly. Driving tapcons, building decks, working on the truck, drywall. All effortless. Every screw and bolt driven perfectly without issue.

Literally an investment.

Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

#292

Post by bityard »

wrycoder wrote: post #152
bityard wrote: post #148

It's not actually too hard to walk into a big box store like home depot or lowes and find US made hand tools. They tend to be higher priced but quality is pretty variable. Almost all the power tools are made in china, though.

Milwaukee is the respected name in professional power tools. It's great to see them opening a plant in the USA.

My experience with Milwaukee is that their power tools are better than average, but also much more expensive than average.

I got the impression from the article that they would only be making hand tools in this new factory, not power tools. Those will still be made in China. And like I said, it's not difficult to find US-made hand tools in stores today. So Milwaukee will be competing with the likes of ChannelLock, SK, and Snap-On. (And maybe Craftsman? I don't know where they are made anymore.)

Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

#293

Post by PeterisP »

dehrmann wrote: post #197
_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…

> 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.

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.

Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

#294

Post by bluGill »

hinkley wrote: post #242
bluGill wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dewalt seems to have at least as good a catalog of battery powered stuff. Things change all the time, a few years ago I settled on dewalt because I needed a chainsaw and Milwaukee didn't have one: now they do, but too late as i'm invested in dewalt batteries.

The usual advice is to figure out which tool you need the most, and pick the brand that has one of the best, then buy other devices in that line as you need them, to reuse the batteries and chargers. For me it was drills, and maybe circular saws, and Milwaukee was top on the former and top three on the latter at the time, so that’s what I went with. If I’d been more into saws or hand routers, I might have gone with M…

Dewalt and Milwaukee both make great tools. You won't go wrong choosing either, so long as they make the tool you need at all. I don't think you will regret Makita either, but their catalog doesn't seem as deep.

Go to one of the cheaper bands (which they probably own) and you may regret it.

Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

#295

Post by dmix »

barry-cotter wrote: post #267
dmix wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those rankings are for 15 yr olds. The US definitely is #1 when it comes to high-end university schooling. Even among high schools and prep schools the nation-wide US average might be mediocre in public schools but when it comes to the higher-end private schools the US is still easily #1 https://www.prepreview.com/ranking/world/high-school-ranking...

Who does better than the “West” at non-elite education then? Surely non-elite must include a lot of people who never go to university. The PISA or TIMMS rankings are about as good a ranking of those as you’re going to get.

The conversation you're replying to is about elite education, not the performance of the average American student...

That's a whole different conversation.

Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

#296

Post by doodlebugging »

fabfabfab wrote: post #74
doodlebugging wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 co…

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 desi…

>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.

Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

#297

Post by doodlebugging »

stacktrust wrote: post #60
doodlebugging wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 co…

> 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…

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.

Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

#299

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #243
padiyar83 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which non-Western countries are competing on creativity? As I see it, Asian economies like India, China, Japan, South Korea offer a reasonable competition to Western economies today. 1. Samsung is a very viable competitor to Apple in hand held + wearables creative space. 2. Indian fin-tech solutions IMO today are some of the best in the world. All I need is a phone to shop for things (from buying a car to paying fo…

Um, TSMC sources many parts which are made exclusively in America. The machines TSMC uses for all of its highest end semiconductor work come from a company called ASML which whilst being a Dutch company sources many of its most sophisticated parts from the U.S. and Europe. But before we bother to argue about what is and is not a knowledge economy, humor me this one possibility. Perhaps there is no such thing as a "kn…

> admit that the only answer to making sure an equitable portion of wealth made its way into everyone's pockets

This is the key difference between the two ideologies. One side believes equity should be distributed equally regardless of achievement, the other believes equity distribution is directly correlated to productive measures of success.

"From those with the greatest ability, to those with the greatest need."

Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

#300

Post by eropple »

alfor wrote: post #290
eropple wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got them mixed up. DeWalt is Stanley Black & Decker, which also makes modern, non-Sears Craftsman tools, along with a bunch of others--Bostitch nailers, Irwin, whatever's left of the Porter-Cable line, and upscale stuff like MAC (uses DeWalt batteries, as it happens) or Proto. Milwaukee is TTI, which owns Home Depot's exclusive Ryobi and Ridgid brands, along with Empire (measuring devices), Hart (Ryobi but for…

That really make me distrust those companies. If you build something good, make it under your name and only your name. Branding/rebranding/renaming smell like marketing gimmick and mean you are focused more on marketing trick than engineering. They could have a Pro/home line of product for different segments and still keep honoring the brand.

I...do not understand this take. Those names are their differentiating marks because most of them (not all, and TTI is more aggressive about this than most but their mark licensing is very long term) have existed forever and been aggregated together through different acquisitions.

SBD didn't invent DeWalt, they bought a company called DeWalt and expanded them to more tools.

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