Made in China ?

<p>All those who complain about Chinese manufactering, how do you post on this forum? PCs (all sizes), smartphones, displays: manufactered in China. So, indeed do avoid Chinese products, and good luck.</p>

<p><strong><em>All those who complain about Chinese manufactering, how do you post on this forum? PCs (all sizes), smartphones, displays: manufactered in China. So, indeed do avoid Chinese products, and good luck.</em></strong><br /> <em>This is funny -:).With a Siemens computer,looking at some Eizo display and from time to time from my Nokia phone.</em><br /> <em><br /></em></p>

<p>Now fellows its not nice to diss your banker, remember we own China a trillion dollars or more. The quality of China manufacturing has been rapidly improving, you probably fly on commercial aircraft with parts made in China. The name on the produce is the one responsible for quality when it goes out the door. Sometimes they are living on the name reputation but that won`t last long if the quality falls.</p>

<p>Jim</p>

<p>it's not chinese goods i worry so much about, it's the welfare of chinese workers! being an employee of the chinese communist party, inc., can be bad for one's health!<br>

i see a future for the rest of us that looks a lot like china does today...</p>

 

<p>The original working power supply in a 1985 IBM XT PC here is "made in China", that is 1/4 century ago.</p>

<p>There are very high quality and moderate and low quality "stuff" "made in China". The USA has great and poorly made "stuff" too.</p>

<p>Nikon made P&S cameras in China over 20 years ago that are excellent in quality.</p>

<p>Unless one looks at the QA involved in a product, worrying about the country of origin is silly.</p>

<p>In Batteries here I have some "made in China" mystery brand AA NiMH batteries that still work well, and they came bundled with an Olympus Digital camera from 10 years ago. They have the least self discharge of any AA NiMH's I own. With a TWO sets four of "made in USA" Energizer ACCU Rechargeable AA NiMH's , they self discharge an order of magnitude quicker. They also have leakage at the positive terminals and are only 3 years old. Thus the made in USA 3 year old ones are garbage batteries compared to the great made in China fine quality batterys that are 10 years old. The USA ones probably have an impure separator and brew of chemicals, thus bad quality control. In a spare digital Olympus I bought; I got a second set of these mystery brand made in China AA NiMH batteries, and they too are great with little self discharge. To use the made in USA NIMH's, I have to charge them the day before usage to avoid them being dead 5 days later. The made in China AA's can be charged and used 2 to 4 weeks later with little loss in capacity. The made in USA Energizers AA's here are a poor joke, bad USA made product.</p>

<p>About everything one buys today is made in China, since labor rates are lower. Your Imac, Iphone, memory cards, printers, PC are usually made there.</p>

<p>A lot of the time even when it says made somewhere else it usually means assembled somewhere else and the parts were all manufactured in China anyway. Especially with pc's and other electronic equipment.</p>

<p>Made in Germany, bah humbug, the parts probably came from Beijing!<br>

;-)</p>

<p>I started a thread sometime back, on the subject of <em>everything</em> being made in China:</p>

<p><a href="../off-topic-forum/00TsjD">http://www.photo.net/off-topic-forum/00TsjD</a></p>

<p>For one country to be the source for so much manufactured goods has to be economics driven. I don't think it's ultimately "healthy": there is over concentration of polution and energy consumption, imbalance of population density and onerous living conditions, massive shipping necessities, and so on.</p>

<p>But it bothers me to hear questions inferring inherent inferiority in the abilities of some group of people. That's been kicking around for a long time, dragged out enough it's even started a war or two.</p>

<p>If Apple iPhone were made in the USA or Nikon products were made only in Japan would folks pay more for these items? ( So the workers are paid more.) Some will pay some more; but not enough.</p>

<p>http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10649790</p>

<p>If Apple and Nikons competition uses lower cost labor they can sell their products at a lower cost.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Funny... as a lab technician in a manufacturing company I wonder how something made in any place could be better or worst than in another... ALL is made under specs, and if something is made with better or worst quality is because THE MANUFACTURER want it in this way</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I agree. The location is irrelevant, the way things are made is what is important.</p>

<p>I may be slightly biased though as I work for a UK branch of an American company which is owned by a huge Chinese company.</p>

<p>I cannot help saying something here. I am a Chinese. Years ago when I was working in a biomedical lab in a university in my country, I (and probably most of us) almost religiously believed that everything imported (other than made by my own brothers and sisters) should be better. Even water used in our experiments. Now, I have been working in the States for a couple of years, and I have seen so many crappy stuff we brought from wherever not "Made in China", including Made in USA, I have come to see the statement that "Made in China" is equal to inferior, is, eh, really interesting.<br>

BTW, I have Thinkpad and Toshiba notebooks that still work without any problem for over five years. They were made in China.</p>

<p>Wenshu, My MacBook, my guitar processor, my TV, and a bunch of my Nikon lenses...</p>

<p>...all made in China...</p>

<p>...all excellent...</p>

<p>There are some things that it matters very much where something is made, imho. All my high-end guitars are made in USA. Few, if any, guitars made in ANY other countries compare with them.</p>

<p>But with many other things... it's obviously possible to make some things excellently anywhere... including, of course, China.</p>

<p>Here we go again...the so called "grey market" issue in the US. Some insightful facts:<br>

Nikon has factories all over Asia. So do all the other camera manufacturers. It's Nikons decision as to where it manufactures its products. Its the same for all other manufacturers of goods all over the world.<br>

Quite often a manufacturer will balance inventory by moving stocks of product from slow moving geographies to ones where there is a spike in demand. A dealer in the US will have no visibility of the source of product. When B&H place an order with Nikon USA, Nikon USA will source product from wherever there is availability of stock. Failing that a batch will be manufactured from wherever. Inventory management is managed by Japan so that their average cost of manufacture is kept as low as possible. More examples:<br>

Jeeps are made in Austria<br>

BMWs are made in South Africa<br>

Mercedes ML's are made in the USA<br>

iPhones are made in China<br>

Pontiacs are made in Australia<br>

Voigtlander are made in Taiwan<br>

Much of Leica is made in Taiwan<br>

Jaguar uses Ford engines<br>

Renault uses Nissan parts<br>

Bentley uses Audi engines<br>

Ferrari is owned by Fiat<br>

Richmond NASCAR diff and gearbox gears are made in China<br>

Anything made in steel in China comes from Australian or Brazilian iron ore.<br>

The M4 combat rifle used by US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is made by Howa in Japan. <br>

Is all this bad? Not at all. At the end of the day, its the reality of the global economy.<br>

IBM sells its iconic mainframe computers that cost millions of $$ all over the world, but the large disk drive arrays are made by Hitachi in Kanagara in Japan.<br>

Samsung in Korea make engine and drive assemblies for three different global car manufacturers.<br>

Warranties issued by global manufacturers are Global Warranties and are governed by international treaty agreements. Thats why when you buy a camera from a Hong Kong internet seller, your warranty is honoured by Nikon anywhere in the world. Nikon USA is just another distributor. There are no different production runs for gear destined for the US. The documentation etc with the manual with US references etc and warranty card are inserted at the end of the packaging process according to the destination for a particular batch that day.<br>

I hope this helps.</p>

 

<p>OK guys, thank so much for all your responses and help. I was just wondering, why Nikon does not let China to build, make or assemble, the D3 or for example the Nikon 300 mm f/2.8 ( both on 5k + ) but those "cheaper lenses" in compare to ? Just curiosity, nothing else. Don't get me wrong, if we are going to pay much less for a D3 made in China, by all means, let them build it and I will buy one but it is a bit odd that those very expensive Nikon items, are being build, made or assemble, in another country like Thailand, so why is that ? Because they do not trust enough or what is the reason ? Just curiosity !! Thanks again for your help. </p>

<p>It is important to note that the factories in China and Thailand are <strong>Nikon built, Nikon owned, and Nikon managed facilities</strong>. They use the same production techniques and the same quality control processes as Nikon factories in Japan. There is absolutely no reason to think the workers in these facilities are any less skilled or less dedicated to quality than those working in Japan.</p>

<p>As to why high end items like the D3 series and $5K lenses are built in Japan, there is considerably less competitive pressure to produce these at a lower cost. Nikon can for all intents and purposes charge the maximum that the market will bear for these premium products. Such is not the case for a 55~200mm DX kit zoom. Furthermore, with such expensive products, the cost of labour is a much smaller percentage of the overall input cost. And there is also the "snob factor" (evident in some of the replies above) that if it's built in Japan, it must be better quality. I suspect that Nikon needs to cater to this perception for its flagship products.</p>

<p>I have seen some "Made in Japan" lenses that were considerably poorer build quality than the "Made in China" AF-S 50/1.4G or AF-S DX 10~24/3.5-4.5G. And vice-versa.</p>

<p>It is not <strong>where</strong> it is made that is relevant, but <strong>who</strong> makes it.</p>

<p>It is common that companies keep the manufacturing and control of flag-ship products within headquarters.</p>

<p>I agree; maybe because it`s a research and developement reason. In fact, most flag ship products are the ones who receive the higher R&D efforts, being the rest of the production analogue items with removed features or with cheaper components (amongst many others).</p>

<p>It has been said that car manufacturers test their new designs, ideas, engines, etc. (excuse me, I know nothing about cars!) in the race tracks, and they later apply this concepts to the consumer models.</p>

<p>Just to add to Michael`s comment what Ross mentioned above about his bicycle; I`m a rider, too. Many years ago all medium-top range Trek bikes were made in the US, a few years ago only top carbon models, and two years ago only <em>one</em> flag-ship racing model... I`m sure they need at least one model to keep that <em>Made in USA</em> product. That`s good.</p>

<p>from <em>Back to the Future, Part III</em>:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Young Doc: No wonder this circuit failed. It says "Made in Japan".<br />Marty McFly: What do you mean, Doc? All the best stuff is made in Japan.<br />Young Doc: Unbelievable.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Dr James Penn on Chinese Batteries......<br>

"I do mean garbage. Literally the contaminant levels rival a high school lab experiment. These batteries are NOT to ever be used in mission-critical applications -- per DoD regulations. If you expect any battery to live anything close to a useful life, be sure it was NOT made in China.</p>

<p>I could not agree more. My critique would be even harsher. There is enough cheap tat coming out of China as it is. If the article coming out of China is cheap it is because of a combination of cheap wages and sub standard workmanship. I liken it to the stuff that came out of Japan just after the war. But the Japanese finally got to grips with their quality control. China has a long way to go.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>If you expect any battery to live anything close to a useful life, be sure it was NOT made in China.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>You cannot claim that everything coming out of any country is of poor quality because you know of one item which is not good.</p>

<p>Every country in the world produces goods at both ends of the quality spectrum. China produces both high quality and low quality items, as do the US, the UK, Australia, all European countries, etc.</p>