[HN Gopher] Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory
___________________________________________________________________
Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory
Author : stacktrust
Score : 113 points
Date : 2022-08-14 19:44 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (toolguyd.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (toolguyd.com)
| ajaimk wrote:
| Isn't Milwaukee tool owned by a Chinese company? Some irony here.
| tzs wrote:
| Yes. They are owned by the Hong Kong company Techtronic
| Industries, which also owns Homelite, Hart, Oreck, Dirt Devil,
| and a few others. Ryobi Power Tools and Ryobi Outdoor Equipment
| are also Techtronic Industries brands, under license from
| Ryobi.
|
| Techtronic Industries bought them from the Swedish company
| Atlas Copco in 2005.
|
| Here's an article on who owns what in power tools [1].
|
| With some of the licensing deals, the same brand might actually
| come from two different companies. Emerson owns RIDGID and
| makes tools under that name, but also licenses the name to
| Techtronic. Emerson seems to make the non-powered RIDGID tools
| and Techtronic makes the powered ones.
|
| It looks like maybe 6 companies cover pretty much every power
| tool brand that most people in the US are likely to find at
| Home Depot, Lowe's, ACE, Walmart, and so on.
|
| I just wish that they would get together and agree on battery
| standards for their cordless power tools, so that batteries
| could be interchanged.
|
| My first lithium battery cordless tool was a bundle from Black
| & Decker of a weed whacker and a hedge trimer. Since then I've
| added a B&D drill and a B&D impact driver. I now need a
| cordless leaf blower and although it looks like some other
| brands would fit my needs better than B&D I'll probably go with
| B&D just to avoid getting another battery system (and will
| probably by the tool only since I have enough B&D batteries and
| chargers already--I don't use enough tools simultaneously to
| need more than the three batteries and charges I already have).
|
| There are some adapters to allow mixing batteries, for example
| this one allows using Black & Decker 20V batteries on Bosch 18V
| tools [2], so it might be feasible to branch out from B&D
| without having to deal with a different battery system.
|
| [1] https://www.protoolreviews.com/power-tool-manufacturers-
| who-...
|
| [2] https://powertoolsadapters.com/products/black-
| decker-20v-to-...
| stacktrust wrote:
| _> I just wish that they would get together and agree on
| battery standards for their cordless power tools, so that
| batteries could be interchanged._
|
| Paging the EU regulators who mandated USB-C for smartphone
| chargers.
|
| Another comment mentioned that DRM is coming to tool battery
| platforms.
| loufe wrote:
| Yessir, it's a subsidiary of Techtronic Industries,
| headquartered in Hong Kong.
| [deleted]
| stacktrust wrote:
| https://archive.ph/N5pPO
|
| _> [German] Chairman Horst J. Pudwill, a former Volkswagen
| executive ... co-founded the company in 1985 as a maker of
| rechargeable battery packs for cordless tools. It then made
| tools for do-it-yourselfers on a contract basis for Sears
| Holdings Corp. 's (SHLD ) Craftsman brand, among others. Then
| it bought control of brands, including rights to the Ryobi
| name outside Japan, Royal vacuum cleaners, and Homelite
| garden tools. The big move was the $626 million purchase of
| Milwaukee Electric Tool and Germany's AEG Power Tools -- both
| premier brands used by professionals -- from Atlas Copco.
|
| > Techtronic can also take new tools from the conceptual
| stage to production in as little as six months, thanks to
| 24/7 collaboration among designers in Asia and Techtronic's
| "concept centers" in Hong Kong, South Carolina, Germany, and
| Britain._
| silisili wrote:
| They've got a lot of bar to raise. Really all TTI hand tools have
| always been rather meh, so this could turn the tide.
|
| For anyone interested, apparently Craftsman also just opened a
| huge hand tool plant in Texas.
|
| Nice to see a little resurgence in locally sourced stuff.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| Milwaukee's battery tools are pretty great (M12 and M18 lines),
| but their hand tools aren't particularly good in my experience.
| So "raising the bar" for them would be just making hand tools
| that people want to buy over the competition.
|
| Made in the US is fine/good/whatever, but what I want to see from
| them is tools that are just good in their own right. I want to
| see their hand tools top Project Farm charts like their battery
| stuff. Time will tell.
| nimbius wrote:
| i apprenticed on armstrong and milwaukee tools and can confirm
| about 15 years ago they spun off a cheap Chinese line that was
| complete garbage compared to the USA line. good enough for
| tightening the occasional bolt but fell apart under daily use.
| bombcar wrote:
| They appear to have really stepped it up on the new hand-
| tools line.
|
| Not sure it is exactly worth the premium, but the ones I have
| are very nice (just get them on sale is all).
| _Adam wrote:
| I don't think this will make much of a difference aside from the
| branding advantage. The quality of a mass-produced product like a
| consumer hand tool isn't a function of the country in which it is
| made but rather of its design. All the decisions made during that
| process and all the cost / performance considerations made are
| what determine the ultimate outcome.
|
| It's common to blame Chinese manufacturing for cheap tools, but
| this gets the causation backwards. We wanted cheap tools and
| sending production overseas was the only way to get them. In fact
| because less is spent on labor, a better quality product can be
| had for the same price.
|
| So bringing it back here without increasing the cost to the
| consumer means altering the design to make it cheaper to build,
| or banking on supply chain efficiencies to make it worthwhile.
| cplusplusfellow wrote:
| I tend to disagree with this in many ways. Chinese products are
| often made from subpar raw materials like steel, which can be
| much more brittle than steel sourced from US, Germany, and
| Mexico.
| kube-system wrote:
| Professionally engineered products have their steel specified
| by physical attributes, not country of origin. If it meets
| the spec, and passes QA, it meets the spec.
|
| That being said, not every plant makes every type of steel.
| Higher end steels are the types of steels that western
| manufacturers can compete on, so it is often what they
| specialize in.
| cplusplusfellow wrote:
| Some countries declare steel to have certain properties and
| they do not have those properties.
|
| This is a certifiable fact.
| kube-system wrote:
| Manufacturers can and do test steel for compliance and
| will demand remediation from suppliers if it exhibits
| issues. I have first hand experience.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| >So bringing it back here without increasing the cost to the
| consumer means altering the design to make it cheaper to build,
| or banking on supply chain efficiencies to make it worthwhile.
|
| As much as I like some Klein tools that are made in the USA,
| they have a few that are cheaper-quality when compared to their
| cheaper-price Chinese alternatives.
|
| If I can't find USA, I'll at least look to Taiwan, having spent
| time there and seen how hard the people work.
| mmsimanga wrote:
| I don't know anything about manufacturing but I wonder if
| problems associated with outsourcing IT overseas are not also
| experienced in manufacturing.l? Wouldn't having the factory
| closer give you same benefits as being able to walk across to a
| fellow developer and discuss some issue.
| juve1996 wrote:
| Of course - they can iterate much faster. I know firms in the
| US that would have to wait 3 months for a prototype to ship
| for testing. 3 months. Think about how much time is truly
| wasted?
| bombcar wrote:
| This can happen - if the company is setup to allow that.
| There was some GE product that was brought back in-house next
| to the developers and the assemblers talking to them shaved
| 35 steps off manufacturing.
| lumost wrote:
| Is this really true? Cutting quality doesn't buy you much if
| your cost per unit is primarily driven by labor. If you
| manufacture in a high cost country, you may be forced to
| compete on quality.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > The quality of a mass-produced product like a consumer hand
| tool isn't a function of the country in which it is made but
| rather of its design.
|
| I don't think you've read all the posts by people with actual
| experience in manufacturing. Give the same "design" to two
| different factories and you get two different results.
| Manufacturing matters.
| kube-system wrote:
| Yes, but it's a little bit of both because there's a feedback
| loop in the demand for a product and the expertise and attitude
| of a local industry.
| moonchrome wrote:
| Thing is a customer is willing to pay disproportionately more
| for a "reliable" country of origin, brand, whatever - so you
| can afford to throw in better components/QC on top of higher
| labor cost etc.
|
| Many things are this way - you don't pay premium price for a
| budget brand even if they end up performing the same as premium
| brand.
|
| Also you don't outsource production to China to get better
| quality, you outsource to cut cost - that always leads to worse
| products down the line.
| googlryas wrote:
| If you ever try to get something built in China, you really
| need to know what you're doing, or the manufacturer will
| violate your specs all over the place in order to profit an
| extra 1/10th of a cent per unit.
|
| But, big companies don't really have that excuse, because they
| should know what they're doing.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Yep, suddenly they will change the type of plastic used,
| changed the ratios of plastics, use less copper (wires,
| pcbs), replace the brand name electronics with cheaper
| knockoffs and qa rejects from other factories, replace the
| type of glue, etc. Basically you need a QA team there to
| monitor every step of the production, or they'll try to screw
| you everywhere they can.
| arecurrence wrote:
| Reminds me of even Apple recently having problems with one
| of its suppliers pulling a bait and switch on lcd screens.
| solarkraft wrote:
| This sounds like perfectly efficient capitalism. Is it
| really not this way in other countries?
| jefftk wrote:
| You negotiate for one grade of steel, initial rungs are
| that grade, but over time some manufacturers will start
| substituting a cheaper grade and hope you don't notice
| ("quality fade"). In most countries employees would see
| that as unethical, and companies would risk
| whistleblowing and fraud suits if they went ahead anyway.
| stacktrust wrote:
| Milwaukee (TTI) is vertically integrated, i.e. they own their
| factories in China.
| solarkraft wrote:
| ... that's possible? Don't companies from outside china
| have to set up joint ventures with a chinese company?
| arecurrence wrote:
| Milwaukee is owned by Techtronic industries, a Chinese
| company
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _they own their factories in China_
|
| This isn't as protective as one would imagine. Unscrupulous
| floor managers will still swap materials, run the crap and
| sell the good stuff.
| stacktrust wrote:
| Wow. How would floor managers benefit from that kind of
| swap?
| umeshunni wrote:
| They sell the higher spec ones on the side to their
| buddies?
| stacktrust wrote:
| Wouldn't the lower spec ones fail QA checks on factory
| floor?
| fn-mote wrote:
| And as the other posters tell you, possibly failing QA
| checks is not stopping profiteers from attempting these
| kind of changes. Constantly. It's a numbers game.
| Expected profit based on how long until your swap is
| discovered.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Not if the floor manager controls the factory floor QA
| checks...
| stacktrust wrote:
| If factory owners really want integrity from software-
| executed QA checks, they can require HQ authorization of
| software and config updates on factory floor equipment
| that is equipped for local tamper detection of control
| planes.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| By pocketing the difference.
| stacktrust wrote:
| Ah, pocketing the delta on input costs. Hopefully the
| drop in output QA metrics would be detectable via
| software.
| natpalmer1776 wrote:
| Same way it happens outside china in other industries.
| You know a supplier who sells material / service for
| $BUDGET minus X, in exchange for swapping the PO you get
| a portion of X from the supplier via back channel means,
| while company is now paying $BUDGET for lower quality
| material / service that costs supplier less.
| karmicthreat wrote:
| Because the factory manager is the one selling product
| out the back door.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| This is definitely the case in med tech, devices and Pharma.
| Many manufacturers avoid China because you can set a spec but
| you can't trust the outgoing QA testing. You can do incoming
| QA testing, but then you are double testing and losing a lot
| of efficiencies when those things would be best done at the
| supplier
| londons_explore wrote:
| You do spot incoming QA testing.
|
| And if you find any issues, you test the whole shipment.
|
| And then you compare the results to the outgoing QA test
| results.
|
| And if any results can't be explained by failures relating
| to shipping, then you fire your supplier.
|
| You let them know ahead of time that this is the procedure
| you'll apply, and then they'll do proper QA testing.
| jbay808 wrote:
| > The quality of a mass-produced product like a consumer hand
| tool isn't a function of the country in which it is made but
| rather of its design
|
| There's a lot more to production quality than just product
| design. Quality of materials, manufacturing tolerances, heat
| treatment, surface cleanliness, quality control procedures,
| tooling wear, order of operations, assembly jig design, and so
| on. Some of those may be affected by the country in which it's
| made, and some may not. While you may say those are "design" in
| that the designer specifies the material they want, whether
| their product really gets made the way they envision is not
| always up to them.
|
| And even when it comes to just design, I'll say one thing: I
| have a lot more confidence in the designs produced by designers
| whose desks are within walking distance of the production line.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| > _In fact because less is spent on labor, a better quality
| product can be had for the same price._
|
| In theory yes, but in practice it doesn't seem to ever pan out
| that way. When was the last time a company that moved its
| manufacturing from the US to China to increase profits didn't
| also cheap out on materials, quality control, and customer
| service?
| clhodapp wrote:
| Apple comes to mind.
|
| But yes, it seems very rare.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| Even they are suspect. The quality of the batteries in
| MacBooks at our office has been terrible. Lots of them
| swelling up and splitting the case apart.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Battery swelling is rarely poor manufacturing.
|
| Nearly always it's poor design of the battery chemistry
| or battery management system.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Indeed, the quality of the keyboards is lousy these days.
| A classic case of lack of attention to detail in
| manufacturing.
|
| And this is AFTER they fixed the infamous design flaw on
| mine:
|
| https://thenextweb.com/news/what-hell-apple-butterfly-
| keyboa...
| doodlebugging wrote:
| >The quality of a mass-produced product like a consumer hand
| tool isn't a function of the country in which it is made but
| rather of its design. All the decisions made during that
| process and all the cost / performance considerations made are
| what determine the ultimate outcome.
|
| I have to disagree with this. The quality of consumer-grade
| hand tools is a function of who controls the manufacturing
| process and quality control procedures. It has very little to
| do with who writes the specs, approves the engineering
| drawings, or selects the materials. The quality depends on how
| closely the whole process was monitored and controlled by the
| entity who is attempting to have the tool produced. If they
| can't or don't closely watch the process and have robust
| reject/accept criteria then the tool can appear in the package
| to be fully up to spec without actually hitting any of the
| design specs.
|
| >It's common to blame Chinese manufacturing for cheap tools,
| but this gets the causation backwards.
|
| This is not true. Blaming Chinese or Indian etc manufacturers
| is actually pinning the tail in the correct spot on the donkey.
| As mentioned by at least one other respondent, Chinese
| manufacturers will substitute inferior materials and violate
| other specs at will unless you have eyes on the process and the
| right to test and reject everything out of spec.
|
| >We wanted cheap tools and sending production overseas was the
| only way to get them. In fact because less is spent on labor, a
| better quality product can be had for the same price.
|
| Don't include me in that "we". I had no part as a consumer in
| the decision to send production overseas. In fact, whenever
| "we" would go out to buy a new tool or tool set we would always
| consider where the product was made in the purchasing decision
| precisely because we had previously bought a tool from a
| company that had moved production to China or India and later
| had that tool prematurely fail in normal use. The production
| location is a strong indicator of quality.
|
| Price only comes into the equation when you are purchasing a
| tool that you may only use once. In that case you are taking a
| chance that the product will last long enough to finish your
| task. Harbor Freight mostly sells tools made in China and other
| foreign countries. Tradesmen take their business to HF because
| the return policy is lenient enough that if a tool fails you
| can take it into their store and walk out with a new one in a
| few minutes after describing the nature of the failure and the
| reason for the return. Hand tools like drill bits,
| screwdrivers, allen wrenches, hand wrenches, etc tend not to be
| as durable as an equivalent 50 year old Craftsman, Proto, S-K,
| Snap-On, etc. tool. I have watched HF drill bits untwist while
| trying to drill a hole through a pine 2x4. That is a quality
| control failure.
|
| The false idea that spending less on labor gives the consumer a
| better product for the same price ignores the reality that it
| simply doesn't work like that and sounds like something that a
| person who had never owned or used hand or power tools would
| say. You might have a career in marketing if you can get enough
| potential customers drunk enough to believe that shit.
|
| >So bringing it back here without increasing the cost to the
| consumer means altering the design to make it cheaper to build,
| or banking on supply chain efficiencies to make it worthwhile.
|
| One can also alter the production method by using improved
| tools or techniques and materials.
|
| At the end of the day though when your job pays for the tools
| you will use and requires you to do certain tasks day in and
| day out then you will find that the employer will frequently
| have a short list of approved tool vendors so that you will
| have to pay for a tool that is not on the approved list. This
| helps insure that techs have durable tools that are fit for
| purpose and have a proven history of performance so that the
| company and the techs will not have to constantly replace tools
| that would not have failed had they chosen more expensive, more
| reliable brands.
|
| Tool branding is everything and people who use tools absolutely
| care about where they are made and who owns the company making
| them. Reputation is everything with some things.
| fabfabfab wrote:
| 100%. I worked in the heart of semiconductor manufacturing.
| Quality primarily a result of systems such as COD (Contain-
| your-own-defect), SPC (statistical process control),
| inspection metrology (traceability to NIST, MCA,
| reproducibility, repeatability, etc.), 5M+E (man, machine,
| materials, methods, measurement and environment), copy exact,
| etc.
|
| What OP is talking about is that good tools are the ones with
| better design. OP mistakes the technical term "quality" with
| "good design". Quality is producing things as per
| specifications and allowable tolerances.
| stacktrust wrote:
| _> Tool branding is everything and people who use tools
| absolutely care about where they are made and who owns the
| company making them. Reputation is everything with some
| things._
|
| Good chart of tool company owners,
| https://www.protoolreviews.com/power-tool-manufacturers-
| who-...
|
| _> It may surprise you to know that only a handful of power
| tool companies own your favorite tools. That's right, most
| tool brands fall under a parent company that also controls
| additional power tool manufacturers and brands._
|
| At this point, reputation and branding needs to be separated
| out to the level of tool lines or even model numbers, e.g.
| Ridgid tools, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32453919
|
| _> After signing the deal in 2003, TTi took over the
| production of Ridgid power tools. These tools are licensed
| for sale only at The Home Depot, and all of these tools are
| produced by TTi, not Emerson. However, TTi does not own
| Ridgid or the rights to the brand name. Rather, TTi has a
| licensing agreement with Emerson that allows them to produce
| and distribute the tools under the Ridgid name._
|
| While most Ridgid power tools are made in China by TTI, the
| well-regarded Ridgid shop vacs are made in Mexico by Emerson.
|
| Ridgid toolboxes are made in Israel by Keter, which also
| makes enclosures for Milwaukee Packout and Home Depot's Husky
| brand.
| thaumaturgy wrote:
| There's a great YouTube channel, Project Farm
| (https://www.youtube.com/c/ProjectFarm/videos), that features a
| single guy testing, grading, and comparing all kinds of things
| you might find in your garage. He's not sponsored and tries to
| be objective throughout the process. It isn't perfect but he
| puts a ton of effort in and for backyard science it's pretty
| good.
|
| Anyway, he mentions country of origin for a lot of tools and
| there's a clear trend towards better results for items made in
| the USA.
|
| Obviously China is perfectly capable of producing high quality
| products, but regardless of the details of the causes, the end
| result is that "made in the USA" is a reliable signal for
| higher quality products.
| nostromo wrote:
| China has a "caveat emptor" culture that I suspect plays a
| role in this.
|
| In most western countries and other countries, like Japan,
| selling counterfeit or barely functional products is seen as
| somewhat shameful. But in China it's often seen as being
| clever or cunning.
|
| Chinese consumers are used to this and are very cautious
| about what they buy and from whom, and of course negotiating
| a reasonable cost for the goods being sold.
|
| In the US and most of the west, consumers feel entitled to a
| basic standard of quality, even at the lowest prices.
|
| This leads to consumers being confused in the west when they
| buy very cheap goods from China and the quality is crap.
| Well, yeah, you got what you paid for.
| Teever wrote:
| It's not that it's seen as merely shameful in other
| countries, it's that it's seen as fraudulent and illegal.
|
| Trying to play fraud off as a cultural difference and
| misunderstanding is frankly bullshit victim blaming.
| londons_explore wrote:
| 'barely functional' isn't fraud. And in most cases the
| cheapest made in china product is barely functional.
|
| It's only deliberately selling nonfunctional products
| that would meet the definition of fraud.
| solarkraft wrote:
| Whether you're angry about this depends on which culture
| you subscribe to.
| collegeburner wrote:
| yea i've seen the attitude extend to college here, we
| generally have some idea that cheating is wrong but most of
| the chinese students i met seemed to think it was fine if
| they could get away with it.
| WheatM wrote:
| systemvoltage wrote:
| > The quality of a mass-produced product like a consumer hand
| tool isn't a function of the country in which it is made but
| rather of its design.
|
| The point isn't about quality, the point is about having
| manufacturing capacity to turn these places from making tools
| to making aircraft parts in a pinch when shit hits the fan.
|
| Having domestic manufacturing capacity of the shittiest tools
| is _far_ better than _only_ having designers that 'd twiddle
| their thumbs in war time, not knowing how to setup high volume
| manufacturing capability quickly.
|
| Most people here do not understand how difficult it is to make
| literally anything in high volume. Take the simplest thing like
| a puck of aluminum. Now, try establishing a manufacturing chain
| that can make 8 million of these per week. You'd be on your
| knees trying to make 1k a week, let alone 8 million. We're note
| even talking about having SPC or other systems that monitor
| quality. HVM is the most underappreciated aspect of engineering
| by far and it is trivialized by clueless media. Even the most
| educated people appreciate design over manufacturing.
| oneplane wrote:
| I'm not entirely sure how any of this matters. Tools and what bar
| they have to pass are just design choices. If you design a tool
| to be bad, it will be bad, no matter who manufactures them or
| where. At the same time, if you don't have good quality
| assurance/control and no tests that the manufacturer has to pass,
| then the design doesn't matter, because the product apparently
| doesn't have to meet the design specification and the whole
| design is practically arbitrary.
|
| The only true change to the product that could happen is either a
| design change, or a change in available resources. Some multi-
| axis CNC machines are apparently not legally available everywhere
| in the world, so that could be a locality factor. On the other
| hand, plenty of companies design assemblies with complex
| components manufactured in various places around the world to be
| integrated elsewhere later on.
| death_syn wrote:
| I'm interested in how these compare to quality Chinese tools like
| Harbor Freight's ICON line.
| kube-system wrote:
| Icon tools are Taiwanese
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Or, as the Chinese say, Chinese.
|
| Kidding, and Icon tools are quite decent.
| kube-system wrote:
| Most Taiwanese tools are pretty good in my experience. The
| best deals at harbor freight IMO are the Taiwanese tools
| that aren't branded "icon"
| walrus01 wrote:
| Anecdotal, but the Milwaukee packout modular stacking
| toolbox/rolling system has become wildly popular with electrical
| and low voltage + premises fiber contractors.
|
| Home Depot and several others have tried to clone it with their
| own cheaper house brands which are kinda okay, but not as good as
| the original.
| bradly wrote:
| Pack out is great. A great alternative to Festool's Systainer
| system.
| bombcar wrote:
| Packout has gone wildly successful, _far_ outstripping what
| Milwaukee thought it would hit.
|
| There's tons of stuff in the pipeline for it, too.
|
| The other "good" modular storage systems are made by the same
| subcontractor in Israel it seems.
|
| Though I find packout easier to disconnect compared to
| toughsystem2 and the systainers are nice but a bit fragile.
| whilestanding wrote:
| Increasingly looking like my decision to give up bootcamping
| myself into a coastal tech job and come back home to the midwest
| and work in a factory was the correct choice long term. Plenty of
| job security with all the onshoring happening. Ironically I'd be
| worried if I was in tech about the WFH trend and out of touch
| entitlement of the zoom class bringing about outsourcing again.
| Oh and the funny money ponzi scheme collapsing + that whole
| ageism thing..
| systemvoltage wrote:
| That's amazing, care to shed light on how you transitioned from
| tech to manf? What kind of things do you do?
| chaosbutters314 wrote:
| seconding as someone interested in your transition.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| This reads like AI-produced ad text.
| stacktrust wrote:
| The human author of the text and this well-known blog is Stuart
| Deutsch, https://twitter.com/toolguyd
|
| Toolguyd has an active community (e.g. 100+ comments on this
| post) with real-world experience, challenging claims made by
| the blog.
| _Adam wrote:
| Wow. AI is now good enough that writers are considered robot
| until proven human.
| stacktrust wrote:
| One could also draw an inference about readers, rather than
| writers.
| insaneirish wrote:
| > The human author of the text and this well-known blog is
| Stuart Deutsch, https://twitter.com/toolguyd
|
| I find him to be pretty reliable overall, and I believe he's
| drawn ire from some manufacturers due to his honesty.
|
| He also has a PhD (in materials science IIRC), FWIW.
| tacitusarc wrote:
| This post in particular, though, felt like a generated
| advertisement. There was too much repetition, too much
| promotion and strange wording.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| Indeed, I felt like a human editor could have cut the length in
| half without sacrificing anything.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| "AI" has come a long way, then!
|
| It is a bit fawning, and the sans font looks like a cheap blog.
| The content itself doesn't feel bot-driven.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| hope it sticks! Sears/craftsman tools were well respected before
| they dumped production overseas.
| kube-system wrote:
| Craftsman tools were always just rebranded tools from other
| manufacturers. You can still buy many similar tools from the
| same US manufacturer with other names stamped into them.
|
| https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/craftsman-hand-t...
| blt wrote:
| This is good news, but Milwaukee is primarily a power tool
| company. Bringing power tool manufacturing back to the USA would
| be much bigger news.
|
| Project Farm is a YouTube channel that reviews tools. I've
| noticed that most of the made-in-USA products are relatively
| simple - hand tools, drill bits, adhesives, lubricants, and so
| on. Any complex assembly that includes electronics is almost
| invariably made in Asia.
|
| It feels like the remaining made-in-USA tools are those where the
| manufacturer doesn't need to do much more than maintain some old
| machines and keep them fed with raw materials.
| fyzix wrote:
| Low prices or well paid workforce...Choose one!
|
| This is a result of decades of regulations and labour laws.
| Paying Americans 10x more to make similar quality tools is a
| terrible business decision. This cannot be fixed without
| government incentives/handouts (eg. Chips Act)
| chongli wrote:
| You don't have to choose one. With automation you can have a
| small, highly paid, highly skilled workforce do the work of a
| much larger, low skill, low paid workforce and actually
| produce higher quality products at a lower price.
| happyopossum wrote:
| So you're picking low prices and an UNpaid workforce -
| cutting a workforce by 90% but doubling pay for the
| remaining 10% doesn't improve a local or domestic economy.
| abfan1127 wrote:
| Chips act doesn't fix this. we pay taxes. we pay people to
| administer these silly corporate welfare programs. Companies
| allegedly keep manufacturing here with cheap prices... but
| now the prices of those objects SHOULD include the taxes to
| do so.
| mc32 wrote:
| Agreed. It's not always straightforward but I also feel there
| is a disconnect when on the one hand people say the answer to
| worker's poor pay is "Unions!" and then on the other hand
| they want cheap things and also say that people have a right
| to cheaper things because that improves quality of life
| through increased purchasing power... Well, that's true if
| you have a professional white collared job. If you're in the
| lower middle class or in the working class... offshoring to
| cheaper locations is going to hurt the working class because
| now they are out of a job or have fewer choice jobs --their
| job market as a worker has no power --you want to get paid
| more, great, we'll ship production to Mexico or China. What,
| you want better pay for being a janitor? Great, we're getting
| cheap labor from unregulated guest workers and you're out of
| luck.
| stacktrust wrote:
| A handful of DeWalt power tools are "assembled from global
| materials" in USA, https://www.allamericanmade.com/where-are-
| dewalt-tools-made/ Jackson, TN Air
| compressors Hempstead, MD Drill and saw components
| Charlotte, NC Cordless drills, screwdrivers
| Greenfield, IN Grinder, recip saws, hammer drills
| rch wrote:
| Same for STIHL:
|
| > A majority of STIHL products sold in America are made in
| America of U.S. and foreign materials.
|
| --https://www.stihlusa.com/stihl-made-in-america/
| e-master wrote:
| Indeed, I had one of those - absolutely lovely piece of
| machinery, as most dewalt tools really.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| That manufacturing process is the result of bean counters
| determining it's a waste to ship boxed products that are 50%
| air overseas in a container. Ship the broken down components
| instead with denser packing and have a minimum wage worker
| bolt it together stateside. It isn't an enlightened return to
| domestic production.
| stacktrust wrote:
| It's a start. Next step is automation-heavy U.S. production
| of specific components.
| gurumeditations wrote:
| American manufacturing looks like low-wage workers making
| $12 an hour (a few years ago) making windshields. A real
| American manufacturing renaissance would be German, with
| high skilled trained professionals designing, building, and
| operating advanced machines to create complex products.
| Basically what the Chinese are continually getting better
| at.
|
| There is no hope. America can't even agree on giving
| community college to poor kids, let alone training a
| generation of toolmakers, electronic engineers,
| programmers, and every other profession involved in making
| things out of atoms more complex than a handtool or a
| radiator. This country is dying and wildly unstable
| politically.
| stacktrust wrote:
| TSMC is flying recent American college graduates to
| Taiwan for 18 months of internship/training, in
| preparation for work at the TSMC fab in Phoenix, AZ,
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29676073
| collegeburner wrote:
| second the project farm recommendation btw. he's 100% the best
| source of trustworthy reviews with credible methods for tools i
| found, i check him every time i need a good tool.
| curiousgal wrote:
| The only reason I recognized this brand is because of Project
| Farm who delivers insightful tool review/comparison videos.
|
| Latest was published 4 hours ago.
|
| https://youtu.be/E-Xfv-7FFNk
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| I noticed at the most recent Milwaukee power tools event that
| they're really going all in on specialist tools. This is a strong
| signal that they're going to continue to cream the competition
| because irrational or not, people end up preferring a single
| battery platform, it's not guaranteed they'll stick to one brand
| for future power tool purchases but it's extremely sticky. The
| Milwaukee battery power tool ecosystem started off being better
| than the competition by having better battery technology on the
| market sooner. Now they're going all in on diversification of
| specialist tools.
|
| Should i buy a dewalt or makita or bosch battery power tool
| knowing that i can add other common tools in future or should i
| go Milwaukee and enjoy better battery choices, and a far far
| wider selection of power tools for future purchases?
|
| If i hadn't started out with team blue, I'd be buying team red. I
| might switch when i need to replace batteries next.
| bradly wrote:
| > I noticed at the most recent Milwaukee power tools event that
| they're really going all in on specialist tools.
|
| I hope this means a Domino and proper track saw competitor in
| the works.
| stacktrust wrote:
| Are there adapters to migrate between some battery platforms?
| londons_explore wrote:
| DRM is coming to batteries to prevent such adaptors.
| sbierwagen wrote:
| Yes. But for certain vendors and voltages it can make the
| tool much more bulky: the Milwaukee 12v is cylindrical and
| inserts into the grip while Dewalt 12 is rectangular, etc.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Not only that but is would add an extra failure point. Hand
| tools are made for rough use, and I certainly wouldn't want
| a flimsy adapter between my tool and battery.
|
| And I am just a home gamer. I can't imagine a pro whose
| living depends on reliable tools rely on hacks like these.
| These guys buy absurdly expensive Hilti tools because this
| is a brand they can count on, they can spend a couple
| hundred bucks on a pair of proper batteries.
| stacktrust wrote:
| Country-of-Origin (CoO) metadata can influence some buying
| decisions.
|
| https://www.madeinamerica.gov/
|
| _> When the U.S. government spends your tax dollars on American
| goods, we ensure our future is made in America. "Made in America"
| policies are designed to increase reliance on domestic supply
| chains and ultimately reduce the need to spend taxpayer dollars
| on foreign-made goods ... Various laws and regulations establish
| requirements for U.S. government procurement and assistance to
| support American manufacturing._
|
| https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/complying-ma...
|
| _> The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is charged with preventing
| deception and unfairness in the marketplace. The FTC Act gives
| the Commission the power to bring law enforcement actions against
| false or misleading claims that a product is of U.S. origin._
|
| April 2022, https://www.ftc.gov/business-
| guidance/blog/2022/04/ftc-charg...
|
| _> FTC charges battery maker in first case under Made in USA
| Labeling Rule ... the order prohibits them from making
| unqualified U.S.-origin claims unless they have proof that the
| product's final assembly or processing - and all significant
| processing - takes place in the US and that all or virtually all
| ingredients or components are made and sourced here ... The order
| further requires that any qualified Made in USA claims include
| clear disclosures about the extent to which the product contains
| foreign parts, ingredients, or components, or involved foreign
| processing._
|
| Some ecommerce tool sites have reliable CoO metadata and search
| filters.
|
| https://www.harryepstein.com/
|
| https://madeinusatools.com/
| selectodude wrote:
| Raises the bar from whom? Klein has been making tools in the USA
| for over a century.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Perhaps for Milwaukee. Any amount of turning back offshoring
| manufacturing is appreciated.
| joezydeco wrote:
| The new factory is in Milwaukee but they put a lot of money and
| effort into a new engineering center in downtown Chicago. I've
| been contacted by more than a handful of recruiters trying to
| fill positions there.
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