Cloning...

[Jeffrey J Smith]

When it becomes cheaper to manufacture products in the US, then manufacturing will return to the US.

Ken - while much of what you say is indeed true, don't forget to add into the equation that there are countries like China that have been more than willing to compromise the health of their citizens and perhaps the planet to forward their own economies. As they start to realize that being able to see across the street in Beijing may be a good thing, costs will rise there, too. We all pay the price for cheap goods.

[David C. Roseman]

Wouldn't be SMC without a lively thread like this every few months. 18 posts so far, and it's still civil.

[Dan Hintz]

It seems to me that our government should not deal in trade with a country that admits to stealing our intellectual property, attacking our web, and all the other nefarious BS that China does to gain a competitive advantage. I could care-less that they claim to be Communist, more Capitalist Communism than anything. If the government is aware of such trespasses though, it's an easy albeit expensive solution (at least in the short term), cease trade with them or place injunctions on them.

I'm always amused when this point comes up, as if we're such saints here in the US. FACT: Every country spies on every other country to the extent with which they believe they can get away with it. How many times has the US been caught with its hand in the cookie jar, and by countries we call "friends"?

The problem is the US is at the top of the heap when it comes to useful info worth stealing... so we get to point fingers and say "See? They're ripping us off!". Of course they are, since we're the ones with something worth ripping off in the first place. If roles were reversed and we were the third-world country as they were just a handful of years ago, you can bet your sweet bippy we'd be trying to grab as many "free" ideas as possible, too. We'd probably try to hide it a bit better, call it American Pride or some such, but we'd still want to equalize ourselves with them as much as possible.

We (military and private industry) pay exorbitant amounts of money on R&D, create something useful, then someone takes a shortcut and steals the final product. It's that simple. But eventually we'll all be pretty equal, and the amount of theft will steadily decrease (or more likely, equalize across all participants, between those who can afford the R&D and those who can't).

[Dale Bonertz]

HUH?

You started it.

Nah, Robo did with his clone post. I just find it amusing at our double standards when it comes to our own pocket books versus others.

[Shawn Pachlhofer]

Some years ago this happened to Ruth Niles' excellent stainless steel bottle stoppers. Some guy shamelessly copied, milled, and tried to sell exact clones of her excellent stoppers. Some of us spread his contact information around and started a possibly impolite and loud barrage by email and other methods. I think he went away but that was a long time ago and don't know about the long term.

One thing might be to warn the community by listing the names of the companies to watch out for.

BTW, I watched your video today about the McNaughton coring tools. (I bought these long ago but never used them) I have to comment on how much I enjoyed the video - you have to be one of the clearest, calmest, and most professional and enjoyable presenters I have seen. I don't watch many videos and don't remember seeing any of yours in the past. Dang, now I'm going to have to look for some more.

Hey, here are Ruth's stainless stoppers if anyone is interested.
http://nilesbottlestoppers.com/stoppers.html

When I make stoppers, these are what I use.
Attachment 329655

JKJ

I don't remember hearing about Niles stoppers being cloned, but another product she sells - the Joyner Jig - was cloned by a person that now sells it under his product line..."Ron Brown's Best"

there was quite a heated thread about it on another forum where he claimed to have improved the jig...by selling a drawbar with it, and by selling it with a shot-blasted finish instead of the machined aluminium finish.

I doubt I will ever by another "Ron Brown's Best" product.

[John K Jordan]

"Ron Brown's Best"

Thanks. I'll put "Ron Brown's Best" on my personal watch list.

JKJ

[John Sanford]

Let's not forget POWERMATIC is owned by a US based tool conglomerate, JPW Industries. THEY CHOOSE TO SHIP THEIR MANUFACTURING OFF SHORE.

Actually, most of PM's manufacturing was shipped offshore when they were owned by Walter Meier Holdings, a Swiss company. WMH snagged up Powermatic in '99 after PM's parent went into bankruptcy.

Can't blame the Chinese for being the lowest bidder. We can blame JPW for moving US jobs where workers make a living wage to under-developed countries where people work for a pittance, and where environmental and safety issues are not concerns.

See "bankruptcy" above. The manufacturing jobs were already gone. WMH saved the non-manufacturing jobs.

What we can blame the Chinese for is the blatant ripping off of US and others designs and intellectual property. The aforementioned 60 Minutes report last Sunday 1/17/16 should have been an eye-opener to those who where not aware of the problem. the government of China has a stated policy of stealing intellectual property and then selling products made from it to the international market.

Those who are unaware of the problem are highly unlikely to be watching 60 Minutes. Most people in this country are aware of it, they just don't care until the downside hits them personally.

[Ryan Mooney]

According to a report published last April, 55% of all American households own stock in US companies. So, when you try to blame owners of companies for problems, you are trying to blame a majority of US households. There are a lot of people who don't even realize their retirement plan is invested in the stock market.

To right, and a lot of the problem is the value of quarterly "profits" over long term sustainability of the company. The amount of financial shenanigans that arises from that is astounding.

I'd bet a stale doughnut if you did a survey of companies who have kept manufacturing domestic there would be a relative preponderance of privately held enterprises.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Ryan,

I would disagree with you. I draw a small pension check from two large, well-known, global corporations. Both of them have many manufacturing plants around the USA.

One, for example, did build a new plant in China. The products manufactured there will be sold in China and other nearby Asian countries. The physical facts are that the equipment manufactured there are designed and made for use on smaller Asian patients. The equipment would be too small to use on the average US patient. Beyond that, China is where the current expanding market is for these equipment.

At the same time, this same company added manufacturing capability at one of their US sites and added several hundred jobs.

The equivalent equipment for sale in the US is still being manufactured in the US.

That same corporation is leading the way to bringing manufacturing back to the USA.

What? Yes!

In fact, they spent over $800,000,000 rehabbing several of their plants that were nearly idle in Kentucky. In the process of moving one product manufacturing back to the US plant, they actually made it more profitable and lowered the price by 20% to the consumer while doing it. The lesson learned by outsourcing was that it had some serious setbacks in being able to control quality, design and design changes. According to an article published by Forbes 3 years ago, it was short-sided decisions and a herd mentality by a number of MBAs with little experience in the real manufacturing world. One goal that was mistakenly followed "maximizing shareholder value". This from the same article published 3 years ago by Forbes.

[Ryan Mooney]

I would disagree with you. I draw a small pension check from two large, well-known, global corporations. Both of them have many manufacturing plants around the USA.
<snip>
The lesson learned by outsourcing was that it had some serious setbacks in being able to control quality, design and design changes. According to an article published by Forbes 3 years ago, it was short-sided decisions and a herd mentality by a number of MBAs with little experience in the real manufacturing world. One goal that was mistakenly followed "maximizing shareholder value". This from the same article published 3 years ago by Forbes.

Well there is always a problem when speaking in generalities I still reckon on the whole I'm mostly correct specific examples to the contrary. I do admit to lacking the motivation to try to assemble sufficiency of support evidence (and can find several other examples on the private side contrary to my statement as well).

The quality control and design issues span across other industries as well, I've seen the same thing in software. The interesting thing is that while you'd think folks would learn the lesson I've seen the same companies repeat the cycle several times with essentially the same results each time. The cycle over here seems to be somewhere between 5 and 10 years although in some of the more dysfunctional companies its been as short as a year or so. It would be interesting to know if the same cycle ends up happening with the companies you're mentioning in the long run (although the cycle should generally be longer given the overhead required for configuring manufacturing facilities as opposed to the less capital intensive overhead of moving intellectual capital around).

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Ryan, the fact they spent the amount of money to improve an group of existing plants in one general area tells me they won't be repeating the process too often. It's expensive to move manufacturing to outsourcing but it is also expensive to move it back.

In general, I wonder how long it will take for companies to move back. I think that is the long term question and answer.

[Bill Boehme]

People like me are not supporting China. We are buying what we can afford. I can not afford to buy US manufactured machines and neither can most other people. American companies and factory workers priced themselves out of the woodworking machinery business a long time ago.

Art would you want to work for the wages that are paid in some Asian countries? How about benefits, vacation, etc?

In many cases copyrights and patents are being ignored. Of course it is easier and less expensive to "borrow" a design than to develop it yourself.

On one hand, one can justify their actions by saying that they can't afford to pay higher prices. On the other hand, by doing so, it is exacerbating the problem ... often driving companies to move production overseas in order to stay in business. But, if we want to assign blame to anybody, let's give an extra large helping to ourselves ... we the consumers are the end of the chain and the source of the money that keeps it going ... and we're addicted to our enhanced spending power (a nice way of saying that we are greedy just in case anybody missed my point). By the way Europe, Australia, Japan, and much of the rest of the world is going through the same questions that we are asking ourselves.

[Jason Edwards]

Amen Bill. If you want a good job for yourself, buy goods and services from your neighbors. Just look at all the great Mom and Pop businesses that have gone by the wayside when Walmart moved to town. Sure you save a little on the items you buy when you go there, but the Mom and Pops went out of business and their employees ended up in a blue smock working for less. It's the macro and micro economics thing they teach in any Economics 101 class. What is good for the individual (saving a few bucks at Walmart or Powermatic) is not good for society (keeping jobs in the US). So, when ever I can, I buck up and buy US. Fords and Chevies in the garage or driveway and a US Made lathe in the shop (you can guess the brand). Yes, I buy hardware from the local guys who know my name. I drive past the Walmart to get there.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Art would you want to work for the wages that are paid in some Asian countries? How about benefits, vacation, etc?

In many cases copyrights and patents are being ignored. Of course it is easier and less expensive to "borrow" a design than to develop it yourself.

On one hand, one can justify their actions by saying that they can't afford to pay higher prices. On the other hand, by doing so, it is exacerbating the problem ... often driving companies to move production overseas in order to stay in business. But, if we want to assign blame to anybody, let's give an extra large helping to ourselves ... we the consumers are the end of the chain and the source of the money that keeps it going ... and we're addicted to our enhanced spending power (a nice way of saying that we are greedy just in case anybody missed my point). By the way Europe, Australia, Japan, and much of the rest of the world is going through the same questions that we are asking ourselves.

Bill....are you saying the Asian workers would be better off not working, not having the income?

Amen Bill. If you want a good job for yourself, buy goods and services from your neighbors. Just look at all the great Mom and Pop businesses that have gone by the wayside when Walmart moved to town. Sure you save a little on the items you buy when you go there, but the Mom and Pops went out of business and their employees ended up in a blue smock working for less. It's the macro and micro economics thing they teach in any Economics 101 class. What is good for the individual (saving a few bucks at Walmart or Powermatic) is not good for society (keeping jobs in the US). So, when ever I can, I buck up and buy US. Fords and Chevies in the garage or driveway and a US Made lathe in the shop (you can guess the brand). Yes, I buy hardware from the local guys who know my name. I drive past the Walmart to get there.

Jason....I buy the best quality I can afford or justify. They also teach supply and demand in Economics 101. When the quality gets too bad the supply goes up because the demand is low. Care to spend an hour listening to my story about an American made Chevy Blazer, the absolute lack of attention to detail in assembly and the absolute lack of care on the part of customer service and management? It is an unwise personal financial decision to buy American just for the sake of buying American. It's been over 40 years since "Made In America" assured one of getting good quality.

You want my dollar? Earn it! Justify my spending my dollar for your product.

[Jason Edwards]

Ken you're right, some of those vehicles from a few years back like the Blazer left a lot to be desired. A turd with a flag decal is still a turd.

BUT, competition has been good for American industry. You should look at what they are doing now.