I am seeing the following trends:
- supply chain is moving to US (ex. Korean conglomerates, TSMC, Japan)
- cost of goods is rising as result of Made in US
- increased number of articles justifying this for improvement in quality
Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory
111–120 of 312 posts
Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Low prices or well paid workforce...Choose one! This is a result of decades of regulations and labour laws. Paying Americans 10x more to make similar quality tools is a terrible business decision. This cannot be fixed without government incentives/handouts (eg. Chips Act)
Just like climate change, allowing capitalists to invest in foreign countries to build their infrastructure, industries, and workforce all so you can then sell the end product in a fat market like the US for high profit, is fundamentally a political issue. Something that hurts us all long term but is so beneficial in many other ways to us at the same time, and makes lots of capitalists fabulously wealthy. It’s too la…
P R E A C H
Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory
#113This is good news, but Milwaukee is primarily a power tool company. Bringing power tool manufacturing back to the USA would be much bigger news. Project Farm is a YouTube channel that reviews tools. I've noticed that most of the made-in-USA products are relatively simple - hand tools, drill bits, adhesives, lubricants, and so on. Any complex assembly that includes electronics is almost invariably made in Asia. It fee…
A handful of DeWalt power tools are "assembled from global materials" in USA, https://www.allamericanmade.com/where-are-dewalt-tools-made/ Jackson, TN Air compressors Hempstead, MD Drill and saw components Charlotte, NC Cordless drills, screwdrivers Greenfield, IN Grinder, recip saws, hammer drills
My understanding was that those materials are more like electric motors and fully assembled control PCBs, not sheets of steel and spools of insulated wire.
Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don’t have to choose one. With automation you can have a small, highly paid, highly skilled workforce do the work of a much larger, low skill, low paid workforce and actually produce higher quality products at a lower price.
So you’re picking low prices and an UNpaid workforce - cutting a workforce by 90% but doubling pay for the remaining 10% doesn’t improve a local or domestic economy.
That really depends on whether the skilled workers and automation tech result in product improvements, new products, new industries, etc.
Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory
#115I noticed at the most recent Milwaukee power tools event that they’re really going all in on specialist tools. This is a strong signal that they’re going to continue to cream the competition because irrational or not, people end up preferring a single battery platform, it’s not guaranteed they’ll stick to one brand for future power tool purchases but it’s extremely sticky. The Milwaukee battery power tool ecosystem s…
> I noticed at the most recent Milwaukee power tools event that they’re really going all in on specialist tools. I hope this means a Domino and proper track saw competitor in the works.
Milwaukee 18v track saw: https://www.protoolreviews.com/milwaukee-m18-fuel-cordless-p...
Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory
#116I’ve met some Milwaukee engineers. They do a lot of computer simulation with commercial analysis tools in their design.
Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory
#117I 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…
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 too…
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.
Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
This sounds like perfectly efficient capitalism. Is it really not this way in other countries?
How is fraud capitalism? A effective and working contract law system is one of the corner stones of capitalism.
Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory
#119I 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…
> 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.
Re: Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory
#120I noticed at the most recent Milwaukee power tools event that they’re really going all in on specialist tools. This is a strong signal that they’re going to continue to cream the competition because irrational or not, people end up preferring a single battery platform, it’s not guaranteed they’ll stick to one brand for future power tool purchases but it’s extremely sticky. The Milwaukee battery power tool ecosystem s…
> I noticed at the most recent Milwaukee power tools event that they’re really going all in on specialist tools. I hope this means a Domino and proper track saw competitor in the works.
Domino is patented at the moment. But the patent expires very soon, in 2024 or so since the first domino jointer appeared in 2004. Soon after that similar devices should appear from many manufacturers, even China brands could join the fun.