It's painfully obvious if you want to make something in very much any western country. There are very few firms you can subcontract CNC work or PCB assembly. Then the costs are so high, your product will be dead on arrival price wise, but also there is lack of skill and capabilities.
Unless you are dealing with companies that supply to the military, you'll get poor workmanship and months long lead times. Might as well just give up or...
Just subcontract work to China. Sure, there is many crap suppliers, but once you find good ones, it's another league in very much every aspect. Parts take days to deliver, not months and are top quality.
I think many people don't realise that we are very much in the middle of shit creek and without a paddle.
> Unless you are dealing with companies that supply to the military, you'll get poor workmanship and months long lead times. Might as well just give up or...
This is true even if you deal with companies that supply to the military.
> Just subcontract work to China.
The thing that kills me is that dealing with China is so much easier than dealing with anywhere else.
Part of it seems to be an attitude thing. Like, if I shoot somebody in China an email, it will inevitably be answered within 24 hours, and more likely within 4.
Send an email to an EU or US company, and you're often (I'd say typically) going to wait days for a response. I've never seen that, not once, in dealing with a Chinese firm. What's more, if you're buying from their B2B megamarkets (like 1688.com) they almost always have live 24/7 customer service and procurement support available on chat.
The other part is that, if you know what you're doing, it's less risky. I was chatting with a French vineyard owner a couple of years ago. He was pulling white vines to plant more red varieties, because his best clients, the Chinese, preferred reds. He told me that dealing with China was easy -- they'd always pay in advance, and a handshake deal was always honored. Dealing with the US, in contrast, was a nightmare of legal quicksand, double-dealing, and Net-30 that always seemed to turn into Net-90.
The more I read about this kind of thing, the more I wonder what it would be like to up and move to a bustling tech center in China like Shenzhen or similar. Where there are stores in walking distance selling electronics parts. Where you can walk into a shop and get PCBs made. Where you can meet and talk shop with fellow makers who are not just LARPing arts and crafts but actually doing cutting edge manufacturing. Has anyone done something like this?
I work for an electronic device ODM/OEM maker in Shenzhen. In the business sector, but was once heavily involved in R&D.
It is true that you can walk into a shop and get electronic parts. It is also true that you can get PCBs in a shop, but probably pre-made ones.
For serious business, you probably want to ask for samples from serious suppliers. But usually, you will get the parts you asked for on the second day, or within a week or two for a simpler PCB.
It used to be "walking distance" for all electronic components, maybe 10-20 years ago, but since the cost of living has increased in Shenzhen, factories are moving away from the center of the city. But still, if you really want something today, within a 1-hour drive, you can get what you need.
There are a bunch of interesting accounts which basically boil down to the following: you can do in Shenzhen in a few days that which would take weeks to months in the US or EU (well, most of western civilization). Take "Ten Days in Shenzhen" at https://www.karimyaghmour.com/blog/2018/01/ten-days-in-shenz... or Bunnie Huang's blog at https://www.bunniestudios.com/ . It stems from the fact that everything is local. You don't have to wait for product to get shipped across the country for each individual step in manufacturing when you can just walk / taxi / bus it between the manufacturers in a day or two. Iterating is fast.
TSMC has a similar work ethic. They have process engineers running experiments 24/7 that each build on the results of the previous shift. When's the last time Intel could hire folks with that kind of dedication in Oregon?
Netflix has a documentary called The Factory which touches on the kind of cultural differences between workers in the US vs China that is rather enlightening.
In fact, China has a complete surplus of productive capacity because of its large population. Every path that can lead to remuneration by meeting demand is crowded with people.
Or it's a good thing for consumers, but cruel for workers. He has to work at any time, otherwise he will lose this job, because there are too many people who can replace him. They even work overtime overnight, not complying with labor laws.
China doesn't have what I'd say good labor laws. But you can't jsut lay someone off at a moment's notice. This generally means that employees stay around, build expertise, and generally have progression to care for when building a career.
The US... I'm sure we all know the story. So much bearacracu and crazy turnover. So many times I'm communicating with a partner and then things stall because that partner's liaison was suddenly gone. No backup to pick up the ball, no sense from anyone else on what this context really was. So at best it's weeks spent re-aligning on stuff previously discussed. Worst case you end up ghosted and your partnership silently dies (at least from my end. I'm sure higher up the law firms are being revved up).
There is also culturally just a lot of disdain here. Hyper-individualistic culture can make it hard to work together at times. Be it because of pride or because they are barely keeping themselves afloat. There's very little stability and it's long gotten to a point where the dysfunction reflects outwards, publicly on display. Especially these days with Vulture capitialists grabbing brands to pick off what remains instead of trying to turn a company around.
A friend of my girlfriend owns a textile factory near the Shenzhen/Canton area. Once I was told, "We have like 3 days off for a 7-day holiday, 2 days if it gets too busy". Yes, Labor Laws here are less effective.
On the other hand, I have been trying to help a client in the US to find the right local partner to work with. It's a nightmare. The companies I contacted either ignored me or the contact person left the company after a few emails exchanged, and we had to find another contact person.
We finally found the current partner who's really helping.
It's really harsh to me. I used to believe the US was the beacon of hospitality and entrepreneurship. My belief has collapsed.
As few and far-between as the CNC machine shops and PCB assemblers are in the west, it's even fewer if you want something even moderately sophisticated for making a high-tech product like stamping, spinning, heat-treating, electroplating, coating, anodizing, rubber-overmolding, photo-etching, screen-printing, and so on. At that point you basically buy machines (probably from China) and do it all in-house, or you send it to China where, as other commenters point out, you'll get an affordable quote back within 24 hours.
But once you're having your parts heat-treated by one Chinese company, electroplated by another, and over-molded by a third, you really may as well move the whole production line there.
The writing has been on the wall for quite some time. It became quite obvious when the Arduino wave took the hold and people started to design their own PCBs and realized that they can get their designs done in China much cheaper and faster. It was by now over 10 years ago - this was the moment when the opportunity was really lost.
>I think many people don't realise that we are very much in the middle of shit creek and without a paddle.
To be fair, the current powers are trying to pretend we're rafting in a chocolate river, because we won a golden ticket and it's gonna make us rich. Whether that's on the adminsitration for lying or the people for believing, that's for the reader to place blame on.
> I think many people don't realise that we are very much in the middle of shit creek and without a paddle.
Yep. I've watched things for some time, and I think almost everyone is stuck in a "I was 20 years old and things were like X" mentality. Including their take on China capabilities.
Yes, China was the place you outsourced cheap BS that had horrible quality to 25 years ago for stupid cheap labor and materials.
Today? You are not outsourcing to save money, at least in the direct sense. You are outsourcing there because it may be the only place in the world that can get shit done for you in a reasonable time with a reasonable competency level.
And at this point? It's basically the entire value chain short of product marketing and branding for many products. All the technical design knowledge is located there for the most part, and operates at lightspeed compared to the US.
If we went to war it'd be over as soon as the weapons stockpiles got depleted - only one side has the capability to manufacturer at scale. And it's not even like a mismatch - it's an ability vs. complete inability.
Unless you are dealing with companies that supply to the military, you'll get poor workmanship and months long lead times. Might as well just give up or...
Just subcontract work to China. Sure, there is many crap suppliers, but once you find good ones, it's another league in very much every aspect. Parts take days to deliver, not months and are top quality.
I think many people don't realise that we are very much in the middle of shit creek and without a paddle.