OP
Eric Sedletzky
Contributor
I know a guy who invented a shower mirror system that wouldn't fog up so you could shave in the shower. They sell them at Costco and other places.
Anyway, I did some work for him at his warehouse in Napa where he is based.
We had a discussion about manufacturing and costs, etc. He started off here in the states but soon realized there was no way he could do it here. I even saw some of his first moulds that he made for plastic injection moulding. They were for prototypes and test runs, etc.
He spent months over in China trying to set up the production with a plastic injection company. Every little detail had to be gone over. There were language barriers and understanding barriers about how these worked and what he wanted. It was a very difficult thing to set up and a lot of hand holding he said. Then final products needed to be tweaked and adjusted which basically means you start over. They don't always do what you specify if they think their way is better. It's no piece of cake to have stuff made there, it's a lot of work.
Finally he got what he wanted with a minimum if problems with the units but quality control he said is always an issue. You have to be on these guys constantly because they will cut corners behind your back. So with that much time and effort invested it becomes very difficult to think about bringing this stuff back here. The only benefit I could see would be being right there to manage quality control because the plant is basically down the street.
Even Elon Musk had to babysit the auto plant in Fremont (former Numi Toyota pick up plant) and slept on the floor in his office because of the extreme deadlines and pressure associated with making sure everything goes according to plan.
I used to get my plates laser cut pretty close to Tesla. You should see how many buildings they've taken over in a several mile radius of the main plant. Even my laser cutter does a lot if work for Tesla.
Anyway, I did some work for him at his warehouse in Napa where he is based.
We had a discussion about manufacturing and costs, etc. He started off here in the states but soon realized there was no way he could do it here. I even saw some of his first moulds that he made for plastic injection moulding. They were for prototypes and test runs, etc.
He spent months over in China trying to set up the production with a plastic injection company. Every little detail had to be gone over. There were language barriers and understanding barriers about how these worked and what he wanted. It was a very difficult thing to set up and a lot of hand holding he said. Then final products needed to be tweaked and adjusted which basically means you start over. They don't always do what you specify if they think their way is better. It's no piece of cake to have stuff made there, it's a lot of work.
Finally he got what he wanted with a minimum if problems with the units but quality control he said is always an issue. You have to be on these guys constantly because they will cut corners behind your back. So with that much time and effort invested it becomes very difficult to think about bringing this stuff back here. The only benefit I could see would be being right there to manage quality control because the plant is basically down the street.
Even Elon Musk had to babysit the auto plant in Fremont (former Numi Toyota pick up plant) and slept on the floor in his office because of the extreme deadlines and pressure associated with making sure everything goes according to plan.
I used to get my plates laser cut pretty close to Tesla. You should see how many buildings they've taken over in a several mile radius of the main plant. Even my laser cutter does a lot if work for Tesla.
