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General Motors announces it will close Holden Adelaide operations in 2017
gtc:
Yes, the manufacturers at the quality end of a particular market still tend to be in the developed world, but it doesn't take long for things to change. When I was a kid, "made in Japan" meant junk. It didn't take long for that situation to turn around (ironically because of American training in quality control).
China's worry would be a big fall in exports, for whatever reason, as their home market cannot yet afford to buy all of their production. They need to manage growth carefully in case they get too far ahead of themselves. They appear to be doing that management.
Meanwhile they buy US long term bonds to finance American credit, so Americans can buy more Chinese goods.
StephenSLR:
--- Quote from: gtc on January 11, 2014, 11:33:01 AM ---When I was a kid, "made in Japan" meant junk. It didn't take long for that situation to turn around (ironically because of American training in quality control).
--- End quote ---
Quality is all about machine tolerances and materials used. How much you want to pay for an item will usually determine the quality.
Some factories produce junk because their market is people who can't afford high end items. They make a killing doing so as there's a few billion poor people around the world who can't afford what we can. The problem is when unscrupulous retailers pass off this junk as something better than what it is or at a higher price than what it's worth.
Fender guitars found out they were losing so much of their market because people couldn't afford a real Fender and went for cheaper guitars, they set up a factory in Japan and produced the Squier brand of guitars, still made by Fender but in an Asian country using cheaper components.
s
gtc:
--- Quote from: StephenSLR on January 11, 2014, 11:54:37 AM ---Quality is all about machine tolerances and materials used. How much you want to pay for an item will usually determine the quality.
--- End quote ---
That's right.
The key challenge for Japanese factories at the time was to get statistical control over the manufacturing tolerances. Deming taught them how to do it and there was no turning back. Their government bestowed many awards on him. The irony is that while renowned expert Deming was showing the Japanese how to ramp up quality and they took very good notice of him, American manufacturers all but ignored him for decades, until they suddenly woke up to their own serious QA problems, especially in motor vehicle manufacturing.
StephenSLR:
--- Quote from: gtc on January 11, 2014, 10:00:05 PM ---The irony is that while renowned expert Deming was showing the Japanese how to ramp up quality and they took very good notice of him, American manufacturers all but ignored him for decades, until they suddenly woke up to their own serious QA problems, especially in motor vehicle manufacturing.
--- End quote ---
If they applied the same QC it'd no doubt push up the price, it would've worked for a while but eventually someone would twig that labour, materials, land, set up costs, govt. fees, etc., etc. are all cheaper in developing countries. In general the Germans still put out many high quality products but you pay a hefty price for them.
s
Jethro:
:grin: :grin: :grin:
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