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U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

fortune.com

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Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#161

Post by tempodox »

maneesh wrote: post #117
g8gggu89 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want a tour of your dorms and factories. Can you post pics of a bunch of the buffet meals, please?

Here's a tour of a few factories in Shenzhen that I made when I began doing my factory search for my company, http://pavlok.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0_blmix2IU

That site (pavlok) asks for my email and doesn't even say what the price of the product is supposed to be, nor any other details. They really expect people to donate their email address to don't-know-who for don't-know-what? I wonder how well that works.

Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#162

Post by hnhamdani »

maneesh wrote: post #117
g8gggu89 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want a tour of your dorms and factories. Can you post pics of a bunch of the buffet meals, please?

Here's a tour of a few factories in Shenzhen that I made when I began doing my factory search for my company, http://pavlok.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0_blmix2IU

your product reminds me of Quitter's Inc story by Stephen King. Don't know if that is a merely coincidence or you actually inspired by it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quitters,_Inc.

Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#163

Post by pyre »

superiortoyou wrote: post #125
brianwawok wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? I am honestly curious. I know for example that the US was very dirty in the early 1900s, but we had 100 million people. If China was dirty in the 2000s with 1.3 billion people, it stands to reason that China was more dirty, no?

Surely it's the opposite. China pollutes far less per capita than the US.

Less per capita can still work out to more in absolute terms.

Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#164

Post by zhte415 »

bobjordan wrote: post #54

Shenzhen China factory owner here. The costs are definitely rising in China for English speaking technical labor such as the engineers we need. We compete with companies like Apple and all the other foreign companies rushing to China these days to keep them employed. But we are still talking much lower salaries overall, for example, $30,000 USD/year for a degreed Sr. Electrical design engineer with 20 years experienc…

Thanks for the costs breakdown, I found it interesting. I'm in software, and in the North; there are definite similarities and differences.

For those reading this that are interested in software costs, here's a similar breakdown:

A Senior Developer (Java, C# being predominant technologies), with around 7-10 years' experience, or similar QA, good English language, makes around USD 25,000 per year. The market gets very thin at 10+ years, especially for English speakers in management, and ceilings at around USD 45,000 per year unless the person has had international placements. [At more junior levels, income is less, with starting salaries at around USD 6 - 8k per year.]

For those reading, this is gross salary (individual income tax at 15-30% for these salaries), but the company contributes around 40% in addition to this gross salary as social security benefit.

For a bigger city like Shanghai, add 30-40% to the above.

A software worker probably won't live in a dormitory. They'll have an apartment and mortgage, often close to their office complex (software parks are constructed as mixed commercial-residential developments over 20-30 square kilometers, with residential areas on the peripheral and offices / shopping mall in the center).

I'm surprised your rent is so low. Modern, international grade office buildings go for around USD 150 per square meter per year (or, around 2.5 Yuan per day). Bigger cities are a little more. On the outside of Shanghai it is around 3 Yuan per day for an office in a technology park in the outskirts of the city.

Local software parks also do food, but prices are more like $2.5 (15 Yuan) for a meal.

Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#165

Post by maneesh »

hnhamdani wrote: post #162
maneesh wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a tour of a few factories in Shenzhen that I made when I began doing my factory search for my company, http://pavlok.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0_blmix2IU

your product reminds me of Quitter's Inc story by Stephen King. Don't know if that is a merely coincidence or you actually inspired by it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quitters,_Inc .

I read that story afterwards! Very interesting.

Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#166

Post by maneesh »

tempodox wrote: post #161
maneesh wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a tour of a few factories in Shenzhen that I made when I began doing my factory search for my company, http://pavlok.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0_blmix2IU

That site (pavlok) asks for my email and doesn't even say what the price of the product is supposed to be, nor any other details. They really expect people to donate their email address to don't-know-who for don't-know-what? I wonder how well that works.

We have a 23% conversion rate on that email form.

That said, we are currently A/B testing the buy button on the front page, so 50% of people see the buy button right now.

Also, you can see the full shopping cart page at http://buy.pavlok.com

Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#167

Post by maneesh »

tarr11 wrote: post #135
maneesh wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a tour of a few factories in Shenzhen that I made when I began doing my factory search for my company, http://pavlok.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0_blmix2IU

I'm really curious how you do qa on an electric shock device? Do you have extra standards for medical devices that you have to meet for this product?

We use the jolt on ourselves, we test with a voltimeter, etc. No, we meet low voltage standards and need no certification.

Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#168

Post by jmngomes »

brianwawok wrote: post #92
BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #55

The next manufacturing frontier to cross is sub-Saharan Africa. We are starting to see signs of it happening. For example, I just bought myself some great shoes ( https://www.oliberte.com/men/ ). Since it is the last large severely underdeveloped place with cheap, young capable labor and lots of natural resources, this might actually be manufacturing's final frontier.

Is there enough political stability though? Outsider investors want some degree of stability to invest in large manufacturing plants. I am not a scholar in sub-saharan Africa, but I am not yet of the opinion that it is a stable place to set up shop.

...plus the big and traditional hurdles of corruption, and of getting customers to actually pay that longstanding invoice.

Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#169

Post by yellowapple »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #136
sien wrote: post #60

This has been predicted for a while. This has been said as early as 2010 and possibly even before that by about 2015 costs would equalize. In 2013 there was an article in The Economist on this: http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21569570-growin... Here is a key quote from the article: "BCG used to argue that companies unwilling to send their manufacturing to lower-cost countries were putting their very futu…

I was going to mention this as well, thanks for finding the economist article. Manufacturing costs are more than just the price of parts, sending people to and from the factory several times, communicating requirements, Dealing with tariffs and customs. For smaller runs it is definitely getting competitive in the US, but so far the parts suppliers haven't yet picked up on this. I'm expecting a midwest town or two wit…

My view is naturally biased (since I live in the area), but Reno/Sparks might very well be a potential site for such a mini-manufacturing boomlet. We've already got Tesla's Gigafactory coming in (albeit on the outskirts), and it sits on some pretty major rail and road routes (including I-80, which hits quite a few cities across the U.S.). Plus, taxes are low, which is generally a plus for a business.

Re: U.S. Manufacturing costs are almost as low as China’s

#170

Post by s73v3r »

jblow wrote: post #69
s73v3r wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"He could pay them $0/hr by not giving them the jobs." I've always found that to be the absolute shittiest of rebuttals, given by those who have absolutely no point whatsoever. This person is not "giving" anyone a job; they are not being seeing a group of people and saying, "Hmmm, they look like they could use some work. I will create some and give it to them." No. This person needed some work done, and they were off…

If you ever run a company you'll know that job creators exist. I had a bunch of money. I could have kept it locked in a box somewhere. Instead I decided to pay a bunch of people to help make something cool. Yes, that's a transaction, but for my part, I didn't have to engage in it. (In fact some days I kind of regret it, given all the garbage one has to put up with when running a company.) I could have kept the money…

"If you ever run a company you'll know that job creators exist."

No they don't. There are people who want work done, and people who provide that work. That's it. You're not "creating jobs" simply because you feel like you want to create jobs. You have decided that getting the work done will benefit you more than not having it done. That's it.

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