Crap work from a "high end" Chinese prototype shop

[implmex]

Good morning Everyone:
I've been getting some pushback lately from a customer who's discovered the magic of Chinese prototype shops.

"Your prices are too high...your deliveries are too long" etc etc.

So they sent a whole raft of parts off to be made and got them back in 3 weeks for some pretty impressive prices.
The shop they used claims to be a high end shop...no names, but that's how they market themselves.
"We're a high precision shop that will do wondrous things for you, fast and cheap."
I almost never get to look at the parts they have made overseas anymore, until there's a problem they can't bodge their way around with a Dremel and a hammer.

I got a call recently..."We can't put it together!".
Turns out they missed on something really simple...the oring pockets are too small for the orings.

"Marcus, can you fix it?"

So I get the part to look at...looks great from a distance, but holy crap is it ever rough when you get to the details:
Here's a shot...looks great right?


.

Of course the part wasn't square when I got it so first thing was to grind enough of it so I could get it accurately in the vise.
I recut the oring pockets; no big deal. (BTW they're 3 mm OD 1/2 mm XS)

Then I looked at the part in more detail under the scope while I was fiddling in the orings.
Here's what I found:

OK, it's just a countersink, but Jeeze, it sure do look like shit to me.
Nice edge breaks too!

I was getting ready to feel insecure about my ability to continue to compete...I think I just recovered my confidence!

So anyone who might be feeling the hurt of overseas competition...it's not so grim as it looks.
If this is what passes for high end, we can still be relevant!

Cheers

Marcus
www.implant-mechanix.com
www.vancouverwireedm.com

 

[UptownSport]

Here's fine grinding on Chinese lathe carriage
Everything exposed looks excellent.
There's a clear, consistent strategy

 

[Thunderjet]

OK, it's just a countersink, but Jeeze, it sure do look like shit to me.

Um,
That's not a counter sink.

That's a drill point made with a Jet drill press.

Show your "Customer" the reason you'll NOT be "fixing" anymore of this type of chicom crap.

When you attempt to "fix" this crap, you're literally engraving YOUR name next to the cheap crap you're forced to deal with.

What happens when your "customer" shows this shit to a competitor who thinks YOU did this stuff?

Loose /Loose!

 

[michiganbuck]

I was at a trade show and the little cute Chinese girl was interpreting for the China manufacturer all the buyer complaints. She was turning red-faced with saying those bad words to her boss.
She later came to our booth and said "Mr. Xxxx is a very important man who has many factories in China, he can make for you anything you need for a lower cost."
I was polite and thanked her for the card.

 

[GregSY]

About 10 years back, the company who owned our company had an erection in China. This erection was of a large factory with full machine shop, etc. After a couple years, the factory was in need of loading so the parent company made all of the companies it owned send a certain dollar volume of business there.

We really didn't have much they could even attempt to build, but eventually we sent an order for 10 exciter diode wheels. These are about 24" diameter, made of a complex aluminum casting with lots of machining. These are used on large generators (200MW and above) and spin at 3600RPM all day, every day, for decades. The wheels in bare form were about $25K each.

When the wheels arrived, we QA'd them and found the Chinese had 'substituted' materials, cut corners, and mis-machined them to the point we couldn't even remedy them...they all were scrapped.

 

[implmex]

Hi Thunderjet:
I've actually done very well for myself, fixing this sort of stuff.
I bought a laser welder years ago and fixed Chinese molds for decades.
It's been a good business for me...not so much now because I don't pursue it anymore, but it kept my Lovely Wife in milk and cookies for a very long time.

No one has thrown my work back in my face in forty years...most of the people in my catchment area know me or know of me as the guy to try when it's all gone to shit and they need help.
Now that I'm mostly retired (health reasons) I kinda play instead of busting ass like I used to do, and I can still make the rent.
These are nice little challenges and I do get well paid for my work.

Cheers

Marcus
www.implant-mechanix.com
www.vancouverwireedm.com

 

[eKretz]

Been there. Done that.

 

[redlee]

We've seen your work Marcus and its top notch, quality comes with a price.

 

[Bill D]

During the goldrush San Francisco outsourced Chineese laundries to ... China. Turn around time was one or two months.
This service got repalced by busniesses in town after it became possibhle to employ workers who did not run off to the gold fields. Many had the word French or Swedish in their name for racist customers who were afraid to let asians see their dirty underwear.
Bill D

 

[rons]

Perhaps if those ChiComms companies had a employee stock purchase plan the work would improve.

 

[wesg]

Had some custom cameras we were using. Designer had them made from 4" x 1/8 square aluminum tube, aboutv4" long, tapped on the ends 2-56 for end plates. Mounting lugs. 1/4 thick fastened to the sides with 1/4-20 holes for mounting.

Sent off to China, came back milled from solid block. Beautiful parts, 4 pieces rolled into one, and everything fit perfect.

Like everything else in life, you get what you look for. Or deserve, maybe?

 

[rcoope]

That medical project I'm involved with of which Marcus is well familiar, lost about a year as it progressed to a start-up when some other engineering people took over the main design work and then sent prototype parts offshore to be made. That particular device only works if certain parts have hole tolerances, of around .001". The problem was that without the necessary accuracy, you couldn't tell if the concept really worked at all, so the our of tolerance parts were a disaster. We were trying to prove the basic architecture of the thing and from that, the viability of the company that would build it, so it was all on the line. Eventually my shop made a version properly and it pretty much saved the project.
The same thing happened more recently with some other prototype surgical tool 3D tracking devices a grad student designed. We were going to make them but didn't have the bandwidth due to other projects at the time, so they went offshore. A few weeks later one of our guys spend a few days making them work, like Markus, somehow laser welding them into shape.
Having said that, we have recently needed 32mm overall thickness foam core carbon fiber sheet, which we were unable to find anywhere in North America. We did find a Chinese shop that could make it so bought a couple of sheets at very reasonable prices for essentially a custom order. We haven't done the machining yet for the project but the material looks absolutely gorgeous. We've also bought custom plastic gift boxes from a company in Shenzhen to store laboratory materials at scale. In both these latter cases, I've been really impressed with the customer communications, like they have a whole lot of english speaking reps who can keep you updated on the job and shipment in pretty much real time. So it's definitely worth working with shops there, maybe just not for precision prototyping!

 

[mhajicek]

I find it's usually better, faster, and cheaper to "fix" parts like that by making new ones, unless there's a traceability requirement that the originals are used.

 

[PackardV8]

When I was in China a few times a while back, I asked why there were the quality problems I was seeing. Answer, "It's your fault. When we get a request from the US, it's never 'How good can you make it?' It's always, 'How cheap can you make it?'"

jack vines

 

[EPAIII]

There may be some truth in that. '

Purchasing departments should NEVER be allowed to purchase things beyond pencils and erasers. And I am not too sure about the erasers.

When I was in China a few times a while back, I asked why there were the quality problems I was seeing. Answer, "It's your fault. When we get a request from the US, it's never 'How good can you make it?' It's always, 'How cheap can you make it?'"

jack vines

 

[boslab]

There’s a good reason that China did not have the ability to produce a domestic ball point pen till 2014-15, and those were still too rough to work, pen tips and rollers made “ overseas “ Switzerland, Germany, France ,USA, and the ability to make them was the result of pings clubs death threats .
They make everything but poorly, inc steel, ( I’ve tested enough to see how bad it was, )
Quantity not quality, I’m glad the U.K. dumped the Chinese nuclear reactor !, it scared me knowing they couldn’t make a biro
Mark

 

[Scottl]

"Can you fix it?"

Quote them a price equivalent to you making them from scratch. Otherwise they will do this again and again, buying cheap junk and expecting you to fix it at a reasonable price. Do you really want to put your quality work onto this turd?

Basically they jilted you for Chinesium crap and expect you to bail them out. Kinda like the girlfriend who ditched you for another guy and expects you to solve problems he caused.

"Sorry honey, I can't get involved."

 

[eKretz]

"Can you fix it?"

Quote them a price equivalent to you making them from scratch. Otherwise they will do this again and again, buying cheap junk and expecting you to fix it at a reasonable price. Do you really want to put your quality work onto this turd?

Basically they jilted you for Chinesium crap and expect you to bail them out. Kinda like the girlfriend who ditched you for another guy and expects you to solve problems he caused.

"Sorry honey, I can't get involved."

That's the way we always did it. Especially as they had to wait a good while for the crap parts to get delivered in the first place and that had always put them right up against their delivery deadline. They always needed the parts fixed yesterday. Some of the parts I was able to update the procedures/ops on and get close enough to the China prices that we got the jobs back, especially as they took the crap work vs quality work into account on future jobs. It's important to review jobs for efficiency even if not up against low cost imported competition. That's just plain the right thing to do for your customers period, and creates a good working relationship. Some new tooling (maybe a carbide drill instead of HSS if there's a lot of drilling, say) and better setups (higher quantity of parts in one setup for instance) can really make a big difference.

 

[implmex]

Hi Robin:
I really like this quote from your post: "The problem was that without the necessary accuracy, you couldn't tell if the concept really worked at all"

I have always framed it this way:
"We want to test the quality of the design"
"if we make a crappy prototype, we'll never know if it failed because the design is bad or the execution is bad."

Most engineers get it pretty quickly, it is the non-technical people who have very little understanding of this fundamental rule and will create the most persistent pushback.

Increasingly this is a tide against which we, as prototype shops, swim in vain.
I have come to accept it and have re-selected the turf in which I want to play accordingly.
My goal remains to be a useful and valuable service for my customers, and to be able to bill them accordingly.
Sadly, I used to feed a number of small shops with some really talented and motivated owners in them...I can't do that anymore, and it's our collective loss.
Increasingly, I don't have a ready supply of talent and gear to get me out of a jam.

So I advise, I recommend, I cajole, and I fix things.
I am not that interested in what it will cost...if the way forward is as mhajicek recommends in post # 14, that's the way we go, but I base it on the technical feasibility and not the price.
If, for example they ask me to pick up a feature set to a ridiculous tolerance on a beat-up shabby part with no usable datums, I recommend a replacement and I tell them why, without getting too much into the relative cost of doing it one way or the other.
The driver is always finding a way to get the best possible outcome, so their problem will be fixed and they will come to me again.
They will pay for that judgement and expertise and they don't get to quibble.
If they do, they don't remain my customer for very long.

This could never have been such a part...it is blindingly obvious that a simple re-cut of the oring seats was going to fix what was functionally wrong with it...I pointed out its other shortcomings to you guys merely to make the point that there is too often a big gap between what they hype and what they deliver.

The reality of prototyping from China is much like the reality of 3D printing...I used to cut hundreds or thousands of prototypes from plastic on the CNC mill every year, but I cut almost none now.

This particular customer sent all their designs to me for consideration just one year ago...now they send me only a small fraction of that, and usually only when it's a design they have questions about, or nobody wants to make overseas.

Another customer of long standing makes all their parts in China but specifies them "material safe" on critical dimensions.
I then finish them in the areas where they care.
Nobody questions the fact that often it would have been MUCH less expensive to just make it right...I point it out to them but if they remain obdurate, I do it their way and bill them as appropriate.
It's actually rarely about stupid...it's usually about ignorant, and stubborn, or ignorant and unresponsive to reason.

As others learn about this model of prototyping, it will become more and more widespread...there's no point in screaming about it, but much value in adapting to it.

That's all about seeing the evolving new need for what it is and how best to meet it and still make money.

Interesting times for sure.

Cheers

Marcus
www.implant-mechanix.com
www.vancouverwireedm.com

 

[eKretz]

It's actually rarely about stupid...it's usually about ignorant, and stubborn, or ignorant and unresponsive to reason.

Hmm. I think that last one may fit "stupid," actually.