What Does Made In U S A Mean?

If I recall correctly around 1990 a Taiwan or Japanese refrigerator company manufactured a few faulty refrigerators," people lost there food " , the CEO competed suisaide and three workers went to jail . That was when customer satisfaction / Quality mattered where I worked
We went to the Moon when I was in school, I'll bet you nothing in that ship said made in China on it.
We got sold out to the communist .
 
Are we really going to do the how great America was and how much is sucks not thing?
 
The truth is both Chinese and Indian manufacturers do not recognize copyright or patents, and will copy anything right down to the last detail including the wording. I have seen and handled two Shure SM58 microphones, both marked "Made in USA" one genuine and one counterfeit Chinese. The difference in sound quality was huge, but physically they were virtually impossible to tell apart. In the UK we have a well known manufacturer of top quality electrical fittings called MK. Their 13Amp twin switch socket was copied so well that the only thing that identified them as forgeries was some of the printing on the packaging, and the fact that they didn't last more than a couple of months! These were not sold through big box or DIY outlets, they had been distributed through the trade suppliers and were traced back to Dubai Where they were offered as surplus stocks of the genuine item. Anything imported into the EEC area must carry a CE stamp to certify that it passes European safety standards. It was found that a lot of small domestic appliances were failing and causing fire hazards. When checking the CE mark it was noticed that it was slightly different to the standard CE mark used in Europe, and when the importers were questioned, they said "No, this is not a Certificate European mark, this stands for "China Export". This has now virtually made CE marking worthless, and the UK is swamped with consumer goods of dubious quality and safety, which carry a bogus CE mark and are often dangerous. Recently we have had posts on Engineering forums about fake Mitotoyu metrology equipment. This has a long history, in the 19th and early 20th century goods were on sale marked "Empire Made" They were actually made by the Empire manufacturing Company in Hong Kong. Caveat Emptor!

Phil
 
A few days ago, our bathroom ceiling heater/exhaust/light went south. The heater fan motor seized up and the the plastic grille melted before the the thermal cutoff opened. The unit was 21 years old so no complaint there. The unit was made by Broan and , on looking at their website, a complete set of replacement parts was available. However, the cost of a replacement grille and lens and a new thermal cutoff was almost 70% of the cost of a new unit.

When I installed the unit originally, I had done a thorough job of it and a fair amount of work would be required to fit a new unit. The same model number is still available so I called Broan technical support see if it were possible to use the old housing and just replace the internals. Don, the rep I talked to said "Yes, you can do a complete organ transplant on the unit. Nothing has physically changed in the fifty years that model has been sold." The wife picked up a new unit from the local DIY this evening and with five minutes work, the transplant was complete.

It is a refreshing change to see this kind of consistency in a product. And yes, it is made in U.S.A., in fact made right here in Wisconsin.

There is some hope yet!

Bob
 
when dewalt tools first started up they where claiming .."made in america"....all great till you pulled one apart and made in china ect was everywhere inside...i called them on it..along with the bbb.
 
I find it funny how several products manufactured in the early 1900s are still running today but yet now trying to get something to last 5 or 10 years is nearly impossible! Its not because we suddenly forgot how to build quality products...take your iphone for example- we could make the screens not break on it but then youd never have a reason to go out and buy the latest model. This is what they want. The sooner everyone realizes this the sooner we can start getting back to building quality products that our children and their children can enjoy!
 
Stuff now, especially from china, is designed with planned obsolescence in mind so the product will continued to be purchased. Old USA stuff was built to be QUALITY, which is why it still works today. As an engineer I had 2 jobs where I had to get documentation together so the products could be made in china or mexico. I could never figger out how we could have something made WRONG overseas, shipped stateside, reworked and put to market and make a profit.

I have been reading that companies are moving mfg back to the States, china is starting to become as expensive to make product as it is in the USA. In my current job I am teaching basic fundamentals of machining to future Engineers, I believe a fundamental knowledge off machining is essential to understand metal removal and shaping. I have worked with Engineers and designers that were book learned but had no practical, hands on knowledge of how metal is shaped.
 
Unfortunately the U.S. Engineering collages are teaching students to design things this way nowadays
Products are designed here and China manufacturers them with inferior materials. Bad X 2
Quote:
( Stuff now, especially from china, is designed with planned obsolescence in mind so the product will continued to be purchased. )
This Planned obsolescence also adds to the cost of the item , and the consumer also has to pay to throw this U.S. Designed Chinese crap away , and the landfills are getting full of U.S. Designed Chinese carp.
It's to late for me , but I feel sorry for the next generations
Ok I'll shut up now,
 
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