I dont even bother looking where anything is made anymore. It’s an exercise in frustration.
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Shipping costs and tariffs have negatively impacted the prices of many goods made in China. Companies are always chasing the current LCC for goods manufacturing. Yesterday it was Mexico, today it is China, tomorrow it will be somewhere else…
There is a company in Baltimore that makes a business of assembling printed wiring boards for US companies that used to go to China. The price per board was significantly less, but the extra costs were what turned the buyers off. Being in the other side of the world made communications difficult. If a problem occurred there is often a significant delay until both sides can discuss the problem. There were numerous problems because the Chinese manufacturers had quality problems. Maybe the biggest issue was replacements, causing the US buyers to make late deliveries to ther customers. In particularly difficult sutations the US buyer would have to visit the Chinese factory and that is a delay of at least 24 hours.
Getting off topic but businesses seem to be re evaluating the risks of doing business with China so are moving to other countries.
Yes, that is another reason for many of those industrial moves to other nations.
We have a long time PCBA contractor in Shenzhen. They do full turnkey manufacturing. They can even make the custom transformers and chokes we specify. They have state of the art automated inspection and board level testing capability. Delivery is typically the same as stateside contractors. They are so fast and seamless, we also use them for R&D prototyping spins. They find errors in our BOMs and Gerbers before we do. The tariffs are primarily what is hurting business with them. A majority of our fabrications and castings come from machine shops there as well.
In some cases there’s no other option than to outsource the job to Asia. Some years ago, working on a prototype instrument design, I needed a flexible connector attached to a circuit board using a thermal bonding method, only needed 6 pieces. Believe it or not I couldn’t find anybody in Silicon Valley possessing the needed equipment. I was sort of shocked, didn’t think attaching the connector would ever be a show-stopper. I had to mail the materials to Hong Kong, where they made the attachments, then mailed the completed ass’y back to me.
My information is stale, the article I read was published at least 5 years ago. I did it expect them to stand still, nor did I expect that all Chinese manufacturers would be similarly afflicted. I’m not bothered that Chinese manufacturers exist, but I am bothered by industrial and military espionage and huge government subsidies that put manufacturers outside China out of business.
They have been buying up land here. mostly close to military bases. now that is a little scary.
A few of the scientists working on the Manhattan Project (WW II era) were said to be informing Russian counterparts with progress reports. Their objective in that case (by my understanding anyway) was that it is safer overall to avoid the situation where only one country possess the technology.
Yeah names are named. People can justify their actions. What if hitler would have gotten the atomic bomb? Another talks about the smuggling of heavy water away from Germany to the uk.
What exactly are Chinese patriots and who estimated that there are 50,000 of them?
More to the point, what does any of this have to do with cars??
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The rising price of everything, decided for a white castle double cheesburger and a medium coke for a snack, $5.24. It seems with car parts and everything else, we will charge what we can get.
The first full-time job I had after graduating from high school was working in a factory which manufactured printed circuit boards. I learned how to operate the wave solder machine, how to solder fine-pitch and surface-mount components, how to use the infrared SMD station, and how to inspect finished boards for poor solder joints. Of course, I lost the job when the plant closed, and production was sent overseas. This is an essential skill, and an essential industry, which we as a country have given up in the name of corporate greed.
I still repair printed circuit boards, including HVAC control boards, circuit boards from home electronics, even computer motherboards–especially when damaged I/O ports, failed capacitors or MOSFETs are the problem.
Heard on news today, price of airplane tickets is up close to 40% from last year.
What about the prices of airline tickets compared to 2018? Prices dropped during the main part of the pandemic. My tickets to LA and Santa Barbara were low during the summer of 2021.
No idea what I paid before but I paid $630 from Minneapolis to Boston this year. Best I could get. Of course then check the price of rental cars at about $1000 a week.
As oil prices continue to crater…
Of course not, but it is important to correct the messenger when he hasn’t been keeping-up with the news, and is spouting misinformation.
Yup!