Crap work from a "high end" Chinese prototype shop

[implmex]

Hi eKretz:
I had a customer once for whom I routed holes into electronic enclosures.
They had flat injection molded plates for some of them into which I routed cutouts for USB ports and other things.
Hundreds of thousands of them.
The plates were all the same and I offered to build them a mold with interchangeable inserts for I think it was 5 grand at the time.
They refused.

So they would have these blank plates molded for 50 cents apiece.
I would then take them and cut a bunch of holes in them for a buck apiece.
They could have molded them for 50 cents apiece with all the features already in them, no shipping two ways, no processing fees, no delays while I set up and cut these shit miserable parts, no three times the price.

I even offered to build them the mold for nothing , and sell them the parts for what they were paying to do them the dumb way...they would save both the shipping and the delay.

They refused.

So were they stupid?
Were they ignorant and stubborn?
Were they ignorant and unresponsive to reason?

Remember, these were folks who could put their pants on the right way 'round, and they could communicate in full sentences using the right words in the right order.
So they weren't stupid.

Turns out I had a candid conversation with one of the purchasers, and I was told they would not authorize expenditures from the capital budget without a major crisis to justify it, but operating expenses were OK even if it made no sense.
They couldn't get past paying a buck and a half for a molded part because they were used to paying 50 cents,. so no free mold for them.

No appeal to reason made any lasting impression on the collective, even though the individuals all could meet the criteria referenced above that I used as basic markers to define "stupid" versus "not stupid".

So I make the distinction based on that experience.

Cheers

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

 

[eKretz]

Hi eKretz:
I had a customer once for whom I routed holes into electronic enclosures.
They had flat injection molded plates for some of them into which I routed cutouts for USB ports and other things.
Hundreds of thousands of them.
The plates were all the same and I offered to build them a mold with interchangeable inserts for I think it was 5 grand at the time.
They refused.

So they would have these blank plates molded for 50 cents apiece.
I would then take them and cut a bunch of holes in them for a buck apiece.
They could have molded them for 50 cents apiece with all the features already in them, no shipping two ways, no processing fees, no delays while I set up and cut these shit miserable parts, no three times the price.

I even offered to build them the mold for nothing , and sell them the parts for what they were paying to do them the dumb way...they would save both the shipping and the delay.

They refused.

So were they stupid?
Were they ignorant and stubborn?
Were they ignorant and unresponsive to reason?

Remember, these were folks who could put their pants on the right way 'round, and they could communicate in full sentences using the right words in the right order.
So they weren't stupid.

Turns out I had a candid conversation with one of the purchasers, and I was told they would not authorize expenditures from the capital budget without a major crisis to justify it, but operating expenses were OK even if it made no sense.
They couldn't get past paying a buck and a half for a molded part because they were used to paying 50 cents,. so no free mold for them.

No appeal to reason made any lasting impression on the collective, even though the individuals all could meet the criteria referenced above that I used as basic markers to define "stupid" versus "not stupid".

So I make the distinction based on that experience.

Cheers

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

Hmm, again, I think your and my distinction are a little different. In that case, it was the person who created those purchasing department rules that was stupid. One can be stupid in one way and brilliant in others... It's not a pass/fail type of thing, I think. For instance, even a brilliant person can do something stupid, or make a stupid decision. That doesn't make them a stupid person overall. DAMHIKT...

 

[Mike1974]

In another life... the company I worked for built a shop in the
same thing, cheap labor, crap quality and skills. When I went over there they were in the process of setting tools offline.... endmill in a drill chuck. . Mazak live tool, dual spindle, probing, tricked out more or less <wait for it> making washers essentially +/- .5mm tolerances... and STILL made lots of scrap parts. But hey the management :::saved::: money in operating and labor costs, so bonuses all around! A year or two later, different managers, same thing, bonuses bonuses bonuses
edit: not tomention, those lathes were probably at the low end of budget, bought variaxis (with turning capability), large (60" maybe in X?) pallet swap Mazaks, hori's with 4-5' tall tombstones...

 

[R. Dan]

About 20 years ago the company I worked for wanted to dip their toes in the Chinese vendor waters. We had a particular welded ass'y we wanted to revise to a steel casting. Sent a casting drawing to a broker and asked for prototypes. A couple months later I had 6 prototype castings sitting on my desk. They were the most perfect clean steel castings I ever saw. We ordered 10k of them through our broker. The castings came in 6 months late and the were the worst POS castings I've ever seen. Mismatched parting lines, porosity, scale, castings not even snagged at all. We ended up scrapping about 9,950 of them. But they were cheap. Lesson learned.

 

[PackardV8]

same thing, cheap labor, crap quality and skills. When I went over there they were in the process of setting tools offline.... endmill in a drill chuck. . Mazak live tool, dual spindle, probing, tricked out more or less <wait for it> making washers essentially +/- .5mm tolerances... and STILL made lots of scrap parts.

Again, in China,I saw European brands turning out parts and machines as good as they could do at home. When I investigated the how and why, the Europeans built their own factories, kept their own technical and QC staff on site. Nothing got shipped unless it was as good as back home.

Most US wanted to do it all online, a virtual company; so management just banked the savings, took their bonuses and hoped to be on to another company before the inevitable shite hit the fan.

jack vines

 

[Scottl]

About 20 years ago the company I worked for wanted to dip their toes in the Chinese vendor waters. We had a particular welded ass'y we wanted to revise to a steel casting. Sent a casting drawing to a broker and asked for prototypes. A couple months later I had 6 prototype castings sitting on my desk. They were the most perfect clean steel castings I ever saw. We ordered 10k of them through our broker. The castings came in 6 months late and the were the worst POS castings I've ever seen. Mismatched parting lines, porosity, scale, castings not even snagged at all. We ended up scrapping about 9,950 of them. But they were cheap. Lesson learned.

Likely the bait castings were carefully investment cast and the switch castings done as sand castings by subcontractor foundries. Kind of like the 3D printed crap on ebay where the photos are of high resolution printed parts or even sometimes machined parts.

 

[Pathogen]

In the times I have had parts to QA I failed them for the least little bit of problems. Once it was learned what we wanted the parts were incredibly consistent and better than anything made on this continent with a price that allowed us a profit instead of closing the doors.

If you work with them it can save a company from going down here in corporate owned heck.

 

[winger]

The shop I work in, gets a pallet of parts (not the same every time) in almost every month from a nearby company. Molded parts that need to be modified to fit. Pretty good profit, not much to the fixturing and end mills last. Not sure if it is the shop in China screwing up or the local engineers designs that are the problem. The parts look good and load consistently in the fixtures.

Dave

 

[michiganbuck]

Here is a $2000 not-road-worthy China electric pickup truck that actually costs about $8.000 You can't close the door when in low gear, but it only goes 25MPH so no need to close the door.

 

[Vecair]

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

That is exactly what I experienced when in China in the aircraft market. Always how cheap first from other buyers. I won't go into detail but the products I purchased were top of the line but I paid the 'correct' price. They are putting spacecraft on Mars so their build quality is not in question unless it's how cheap can you put spacecraft on Mars. Anyone can produce crap, even us.

 

[GregSY]

Brilliant people who are stupid? Isaac Asimov, the brilliant biochemist and author, never learned to drive a car. Well, he did eventually because he caught so much flack over it, but all agreed it was 'barely' driving a car.

 

[PegroProX440]

We get some parts made in China occasionally. I am fairly impresed with what I have seen recently as far as quality, and that is also what bums me out. They (at least this particular vendor) have caught up to the rest of the world with good equipment and processes.

 

[implmex]

Hi PegroProX440:
Yeah, the good ones are pretty good so long as you specify EVERYTHING.

The thing I find extraordinarily common though, is that the models are deficient or the drawings are deficient.

This arises for two main reasons in my experience.
First, with an Alpha design (first kicks at the can) so much is unknown that much of the design is most easily solved by trial and error from a "Best Guess" start point.
Second, with bright young engineers (and stupid ones of any age) they can't dimension and tolerance a drawing for shit, so to make a successful part from that start point is hopeless unless the prototyper wants to be intimately involved in making it work as he or she is making the parts.

For example, when it's obvious that a part needs to swivel with respect to another, there needs to be clearance between the pivot and the pivot bore...if it's not specified it must be inferred, and you cannot do that as soon as two or more people are working on the build and neither gets to see the assembly or question the engineer.

For this particular part, there's no reason the company that milled the part could not have made the oring pockets the proper size...the shitty looking countersink had zero effect on the function, and they did OK on everything else that the drawings specified (except that Csink).
But the engineer assumed a 1/2 mm XS by 2 mm ID oring is actually those dimensions...how would he know they are any different until he's been burned at least once.

I have a shadowgraph...I can measure these things...they cannot.
Also I was willing to make a trial block and keep comping out the toolpath until the orings could just pop in, then measure what I got afterward.

You cannot expect a typical vendor to do that for you...that's probably the most important service I sell, and the least appreciated until someone gets in a jam.

For every new startup, I see the same sort of thing...they think their design is done when they have their first iteration of the CAD model, and figure someone can just build it and it'll work.
In their minds, that someone can be anyone...that's the bit we have to teach them...that it ain't quite so.

So yeah, I agree, a decent vendor from anywhere can make good parts, but two things are crucial:
Not from that insufficient start point.
Not when they're "All Hat No Pants"

From that particular vendor I see a Lotta Hat

Cheers

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

 

[Terry Keeley]

Need I say more?

 

[rons]

Here is a $2000 not-road-worthy China electric pickup truck that actually costs about $8.000 You can't close the door when in low gear, but it only goes 25MPH so no need to close the door.

Useful on the golf course. All senior party members are offered these.

 

[Richard King]

You guys are lucky, I wrote a similar thread a few weeks ago and got scolded and the post was frozen. I warned everyone not to buy machines made in China as I have seen flawed ways that someone used an angle grinder instead of a hand scraper to fit the geometry. The bottom line is the almighty dollar. If people didn't worship the $$ and want a bargain places like Harbor Freight would not be flourishing and expanding. Everything I buy now I check to see where it is made, 9 out of 10 times no matter if it is a nail clipper or a T-Shirt the label says "Made in China". People used to complain about Japanese junk when I was a kid and now Japan is Quality, Japan's machine tool makers defeated the American Machine Tool Makers and now China is doing to Japan what Japan did to the USA.. If people watched news shows like Newsmax and not CNN you would see how China is building a new world class navy to control things. Have you seen how China is trying to control the free country like Taiwan? It's with power not negotiating.

They start making small parts, run the competition out of business trying to compete and then eventually bankrupt them, because some cheap buyer wanted a bargain plus some consumer wanted a bargain. Look at Walmart and where most of the products they sell for cheap are made. Look how they have bankrupted Ma, Pa small town stores, bankrupting them. Who's fault was it? The consumers who went to Walmart.. Your seeing it in small parts manufacturing now, in 20 years it will be countries going bankrupt. When I was rebuilding machines full time, I had a customer go to the $20.00 per hour rebuilder when I was charging $55.00 per hour. I was talking to the purchasing agent and he told me he knew the quality wasn't as good as mine and the machines would wear out faster, but their books looked better quarterly and he wasn't concerned what would happen in 10 years. It's sad how we've screwed ourselves and it won't get better anytime soon.

 

[RC Mech]

… I was talking to the purchasing agent and he told me he knew the quality wasn't as good as mine and the machines would wear out faster, but their books looked better quarterly and he wasn't concerned what would happen in 10 years. It's sad how we've screwed ourselves and it won't get better anytime soon.

The same thing is happening in production molding. There’s a press manufacturer called Borch? Something like that, Chinese. Prices are $100k for a 130k ton press, which appears to be excellent. Life expectancy is 1-3 years assuming you de-rate the press enough to make usable parts. Local service or warranty parts? Forget about it. It’s poor business sense from a sustainability and growth standpoint, but if you want to build an operation for cheap that looks impressive with a room full of presses and then sell to a company with more cash and fewer brain cells…

 

[Richard King]

Did you see this Chinese Punch Press company that has a cheap progressive die?

 

[Luke.kerbey]

I worked for a medical injection moulders in thier Toolroom. The business development use to sell the idea they could have a UK quality tool and Chinese prices.

Every tool was awful. None ever worked out of the crate. What happened every time was that we used to pull each tool apart inspect and rebuild them where they didn’t work. At cost to the company. If it wasn’t for Covid and the government work, they would have gone under by now.

I was lucky to be made redundant just before I was planning to leave. So I quite happily got paid off, just had to find a new job a shorter notice than would have liked.

I was always a good laugh opening those crates as we never knew what was going to wrong next time. Hidden welds, plates that pinch up when screwed down, flashing, rust, pick up…

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?
View attachment 374524

.

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:
View attachment 374525
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

 

[Scottl]

Did you see this Chinese Punch Press company that has a cheap progressive die?

The real reason the U.S. can't compete with China is the enormous number of tiny shops in 1 car garage type spaces supplying so many of the bits and pieces the bigger outfits use. Most of these couldn't function here due to regulations.