Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Has anyone read the book "Poorly Made in China"?

What were your thoughts about it? Is it worth the time to read it?

Here's what one review I just read stated about "Poorly Made in China":

"This award winning book blasts the roof off the myth that outsourcing to China can be done without a reduction in product quality. It reveals industry secrets, such as the dangerous practice of quality fade, which is the deliberate and secret habit of Chinese manufacturers to widen profit margins through the reduction of quality."

Brief summary of "Poorly Made in China"

I'm not someone who believes everything made in China is junk by any stretch, but I wonder how often the above activity happens? A Chinese company gets the contract to start manufacturing a product, and at first they produce a decent quality product to the original specs, but as time goes on they start to cut corners to make more money, knowing that it would be a while before the company selling the product will catch on. Is that what the book is describing, or is "quality fade" something else? I had never considered the idea of purposeful "quality fade," but apparently someone thought it happens enough to write a book about it.

The reason I put the question in this forum is that it seems that the high priced outdoors/hunting products most likely to be made in China are optics, so the question is most pertinent here, particularly with some optics manufacturers moving production of subassemblies or entire products from the U.S., Philippines, and elsewhere to China.

I'm sure that happens. But I do not think that it is a "Made in China" phenomenon. It used to be, for example, dad would always buy Fafnir bearings for our farm machinery repairs. Their quality deteriorated markedly over the years(Edit: They were still better than most, just not what they once were). Same thing with Craftsman tools. The last "Made in USA" Carhartt jeans I had lasted a fraction as long as they did when I first started using them. Now the production of a lot of that thing has shifted overseas, regrettably so I think.

Since you bring this up in the optics section, I will relate something here. When Zen Ray first started out in finding their own binocular line, they went to Japan to have it done. They went there precisely to avoid the "Made in China" stigma. As it turned out, the Japanese companies nearly broke Zen Ray right at the outset for doing the very same things mentioned in the link you posted. They had to go to China to get what they wanted. I know Charles at Zen Ray probably looses some sleep making every effort to stay on top of not falling into the "Chinese Junk" type of product. I imagine Vortex is not much different in their due vigilance in maintining product integrity either. The type of product we all know comes from China too, as well as other places. But whether it is a feature unique to Chinese manufacture might be a stretch.

I agree that I don't think the concept is isolated to the manufacturers in China. I think it can happen anywhere a company pushes its contract manufacturers too far on price (always a fine line when price is the #1 factor). Since China is currently the low-cost manufacturing center for many products, many of the manufacturers in China may be getting pushed too far on price/cost.

I'm still interested in hearing from someone who has read the book about whether it is worth the time to read it. I work with manufacturing facilities on a daily basis and have had a little training in product design and manufacturing engineering, so I'm curious about manufacturing in general.

This topic is right up my alley and it is good to see Steve here. I really find it hard to believe that the Japanese company, whoever that may have been that Zen Ray outsourced to practiced quality fade and almost broke the company. More than likely the cost of Japanese manufacturing to produce a quality product and the company trying to sell it at a competitive price almost broke the company. Sure a lot of manufactures have to cut quality to maintain a profit, but there is a difference in that and on a premeditated basis intentionally having a plan to cut quality to increase profits and deceive the contractor and the purchasing public. No, I do not believe they all do it, but it is possibly a widespread problem. I do realize that as manufacturing shifts to China that it does get difficult to alternatives especially at the price points that are offered, but I try my best to search for those, no matter what the product is and most of the time I am successful at finding a much better product at a competitive price. I shall read the book, as it behooves anybody to do so before making comments on the truthfulness of this practice and the books credibility.

I'm going to get a copy of the book, but I have seen something similar happen over and over again in the optics industry.

A company will be in the beginning stages of producing a new product, and invite a bunch of writers on some sort of get-together to introduce and "field-test" the products. Of course, the product is pretty darn good, especially for the price-point mentioned--though the company often does mention that it's a "pre-production" model, or a "first production run."

So the product gets written up positively, and then when the actual production model comes out it isn't nearly as good. In fact it may even be a POS. If questioned about this, the company usually explains that it's due to "increased costs" that prevented them from reaching the planned price point.

Fortunately, I caught on to this one very quickly many years ago, and since then have always insisted on seeing an actual production model before doing any write-ups. But even then the product can be changed after the first production run or two, and not just because the company that's making the company cheaps out on parts. Sometimes the company that contracted to have the binocular or scope built switches the source-factory in order to make more profit.

Of course, it can also work the other way as well. I know of several instances where when the quality of the contracted product fell off, the importer insisted on changes, or even switched factories to get the product up to their standards.

It all depends on the integrity of the companies involved. Some have integrity, and some don't.

I'm getting my PhD in Workforce Education and Development, and there are a lot of foriegn students in the program. One of them had done extensive consulting in China. He said the workforce there as a whole has a phrase regarding their work product that translates to "good enough".

The U.S. workforce uses that same phrase, I'm afraid. How many times on the job have you heard "good enough for govt. work"?

The problem in China is that by the time you source parts for your widget, you are dealing with potentially a dozen various factories. Unlike the U.S. where the players in the various sub-industries are known and have a lengthy history in business, over there, half of them popped up last week.

You might get great workmanship where your widget is assembled and where you as a company frequently visit, but it can be the sub contractor making a part or sub assembly that turns out to be garbage and wrecks your warranty budget and reputation.

The thing that worries me about Chinese made optics isn't the easily identifiable qualities, like glass or coatings or fit and finish, but how well were those o-rings made or that epoxy holding the erector in place?

If Zen Ray or Theron (just as an example) get a bad batch and go under, who's going to fix that set of binoculars in 5 years when the seals disintegrate?

the whole problem with china is one that our own country has created. I have a relative thats started a company, all they did was relable an existing product and market it in a way noone else had before. The point is all one does is go to china and says to them make it like this, or they even have products that noone is using and all you do is private label it or change the design slightly. with china the attitude is WE ARE OPEN FOR BUSINESS. contrast that to here where you have unions and all sorts of regulations, labor costs are more and in some cases laws prevent the product from even being made. As a result there is not factorys that are willing to instantly produce a product, they don't exist, in china they are all over.

what is the american response more of the same. we bail out the car companies which was actually a bail out of the unions, instead of dealling with the real problems with the american car companies we fixed it temporary so the same problem will happen again.

in liberal parts of the country companies like winchester and boeing are leaving for labor friendly states of the south. the libs seek to keep this from happening. they say some here want us to be like europe, I believe that, guess what last time you looked what is made in europe of any substance besides great optics??

Everyone should read the book. One of the problem with China as I see it is that corruption is rampant and there is no legal recourse for contract issues. Corruption is a foundation of the culture.

TC

Any company that outsources their manufacturing and technology to China is simply paying to develop the competition that will one day bury them (potentially). Thankfully, this realization is finally starting to gain some traction.

The one true advantage that the Chinese have over us is National discipline, though it does appear to be faltering. Our capitalist system is incredibly productive but functionally amoral. How do we get our government, our investment sector, our businesses and our workers to put the overall health of our country's economy and future first. Hoping that market forces will somehow accomplish this is a pipe dream. I don't have the answers but it isn't hard to see that we're not all pulling on the oars together.

I worked in manufacturing for a frotune 500 company for 20 years both as a Plant CFO and Operations Manager. We had a sister plant in China and eventually they moved the entire product line over there. My observations during the time we worked sxs pretty much mirror what Mangnum Dood expressed. I also read an interesting book about Gen.Stillwells efforts in WWII and it holds pretty much true. Basically you are dealing with a culture that has not had much of anything their entire life and have made do with what ever they had. It is extremely difficult for them to scrap parts that exhibit only small defects that they would normally just make do with after all they are just a little out of spec. and if you hold or jiggle it just right you can get it to work 95% of the time. It's just their culture. If you have a pretty simple product with non critical specs they can do some decent assembly but if there is much decision making in the process then it can be another issue.

One interesting little thing I learned over there. In the plant they had there was a campus that had an infirmary dorms and the factory. The workforce was made up of mainly young women from the outlying provinces . They would come and live there and work . I asked about this and I learned that they were recruited for 2 year contracts and they came worked there lived there and saved pretty much all of their $ as the room health care and board was part of their package. Once their contract time was up they would return home and have their wedding dowery saved. They seemed OK with it and I will say the dorms appeared to be adequate and similar to a college dorm. Exploitive?I would have to say yes to our cultural standards but it was probably better than where most of them came from and like I say they seemed happy with the arraignment. The pay was miserable about $.28 at the time and this was per the government. None the less we in the US knew our days were numbered at that kind of rate and eventually the rope was cut. It is interesting to note that we produced numerous variations of the product and could even accommodate some semi custom types of configurations. When they moved the product line to China all of that went away as they could never master the quick change overs it took on the assembly lines to do this. In the end the product line was reduced to a couple of high volume runners and the price cut to entice users to make any changes on their end to accommodate the narrower product line.

I read an interesting article on Germany...they have 2x the industrial base we have because they try to preserve the high paying manufacturing jobs. I would like someone to tell me who has benefitted from manufacturing in China other the the CEOS's of said corporations. I will give you an example. The Furniture business which was once a industrial beast in North Carolina. The raw material is shipped to China, they manufacture it and then ship it back and it isof lesser quality and then when it gets delivered to the port of Los Angeles it is trucked across the country. So US capital went to a country that does not have our best interests at heart, we waste oil shipping to and from and then across this country. Have the furniture prices dropped? No but the quality has. Cabinetmakers and other craftsmen thrown out on the street. Office staff cut all over the place but that CEO is bringing it in. [bleep] Wonderful and that is what we have created.

China has the ability to manufacture many things to the highest standards, after all we taught them how to do it. What they don't have is a culture or government that respects patent rights, copyrights, or even the written contract. Anything and everything is up for being copied or some other kind of swindle behind your back. You can have perfectly good binoculars made to your top notch specifications in China, but in a few months there's going to be knockoffs of your product for sale all over the internet and east asia. The "quality fade" that folks speak of is going to happen, it's just a strategy they use to increase the profit margins. The only way to stop it is to have a representative on the factory floor at all times making sure that they manufacture to the standards promised, otherwise it's just a given that they're going to start cutting corners, it's how they make their money. If Zen Ray or Theron or whoever doesn't have someone watching them constantly then their product quality is going to decline over time, it's a given. These companies might be able to duplicate the optics level of the European makers, but because of the nature of chinese manufacturing I'd only ever regard them as a throw away product, which is okay if you're paying throw away prices. I'd never regard them as a lifetime investment regardless of the warranty, these import companies might not even be around in five years.

One other thing, Chinese and Japanese manufacturing ARE NOT the same. Bells went off when I read the post claiming the japanese were doing the same stuff as the chinese. Someone's having smoke blown up their butt if they believe that. If Zen Ray left japan for china it's for one reason--china was cheaper. The japanese can build anything you want to the highest quality levels, and they'll do it forever as long as you pay what it costs.

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I don't think a lot of people grasp that fact.

Check out the recent well-written review by SteveC, on the new
ZenRay ED3 bincoular.
It describes some of the difficulty in product manufacturing in
China, all about "quality control".

This is already happening to Theron Optics. Take a look at these two links.

This link is to Theoron Optics' website. Look at their top-of-the-line Wapiti ED binocular (made in China):
Theron Optics

Now, look at the binocular in this link. This link is to a chinese manufacturer of optics that offers their products to the wholesale market:
Kunming Optics & Electronics mfg.

It's the same binocular.

I haven't read the book, just live the experience every time I am forced to buy something made there... CuminsCowboy hit the nail on the head.

I am in the Hi tech industry and there are a lot of horror stories about manufacturing practices in China. Every time they corner the market on some thing the price goes up and the quality goes down. I did some consulting work recently sourcing some specialty chemicals and I was shocked at the amount of stuff that we used have made here that now comes from China. They don't offer a lot in customer service or deviation in packaging size. If you have a quality problem you get great lip service and that's about it.

The other thing is forget about any technology secretes too or licensing agreements if you have a technology edge its not long before you had one!

I am going to have to pick up this book sounds interesting.

I havent read the book, dont need to, everything from that place is communist made trash, wish there wasnt so much of it here in the U.S.

Gunner