Screws and the Chinese

what is it with the Chinese and fasteners? I am working on a project where I specified pan head screws, they send round heads, flat heads, oval heads, wood screws. It occured to me that we call them pan heads, maybe they call them wok heads. anyways this has been going on and on. Now I have sent them samples, and specifications, etc, and this is not some dollar store item and all the other parts have been very nicely done. I have seen this often, like on the construction lights, the die cast housings are really nice but they use an entirely inappropiate screw that really compromises the function, if they put 2 more cents into the product it would improve it 30%.

Why?

What do you expect when you deal with Chinese? With all the other garbage coming out of China you expect quality? Get real and make work for your own countrymen. It may be financially expedient to ship work offshore but I think it's bordering on treacherous. Just my expert opinion. Peter

You simply have to specify any minute detail way beyond doubt to eliminate every last possibility of misunderstanding or ambiguity. Usually the chinese will go to great lengths themselves to make sure this is the case. Which can be frustrating as you have to document and explain to a much more detailed level than usual. If not, the good chinese ones will not touch your order. The less experienced ones will send what they think is proper/ good enough/ or had handy at the warehouse.

They probably call them "wok heads".

Why should their screws meet spec? Nothing else they make meet spec?

- Leigh

Me too

Bought a fly cutter (from Enco, I think).
Made in China.
Set screws were about half the diameter they should have been.
And they were very loose in the holes.
Stripped them and tossed them.
Holes turned out to be neither English or Metric...HUH ?
Tossed the tool after an hour of wasted time and aggravation.
Bought American replacement.
SM

surplusjohn said:

what is it with the Chinese and fasteners? I am working on a project where I specified pan head screws,...
if they put 2 more cents into the product it would improve it 30%.

Click to expand...

WOW.

Talk about a pot.

You're cheaping out buying chinese crap for your project, then criticizing THEM for not putting 2 more cents into the product.

Man have you got a weird view of the world. Look in the mirror.

- Leigh

oh, this thread is about fasteners and specs...bummer

I thought it just said "screw the chinese" and I got all excited.

I thought to myself "now here are some guys after my own heart"

D.L.Mix

its interesting that the Chinese seem to be in difficulty in this area, whilst they have caught up with the west in terms of manufacturing they still have this difficulty to understand interchangability the way we all do, take screws as a point, the west has a long history of screw standards, we still argue as to the merits and weaknesses of metric and imperial to this day, when Whitworth set out to determine the best angle for a screwthread i was told that he collected samples from all the individual screwmakers throughout the land to come up with the measured 55 degree included angle, i still think it should have been 60 degrees, so to did Napolien's lot, there have been and still are more thread standards and documents relating to them than you can shake a tap at.
The Chinese seem to not get the idea that the screws should be all the same which is odd as when it comes to standardisation they beat everybody to it by using the bell standard to measure grain volume, bell dimensions were circulated througout the land as a volumetric grain measure, they all had to produce the same note so it was easy for a trained musical ear of an official to check the grain mesures volume, i thought that was clever as it came before we started making anything.
They also dont get limits and fits and components vary wildly, you have little chance swaping bits from one machine with another they either wont go or flop around.
the japanese dont seem to suffer the same problems, neither do the koreans.
i suppose we in the west will be well screwed [lol]when they do get the idea.
regards
mark

boslab said:

They also dont get limits and fits and components vary wildly, you have little chance swaping bits from one machine with another they either wont go or flop around.
the japanese dont seem to suffer the same problems, neither do the koreans.
i suppose we in the west will be well screwed [lol]when they do get the idea.
regards
mark

Click to expand...

The chinese DO "get" limits VERY well. A set of folks generally more oriented towards meeting the specifications you will very seldom find.

There are a few problems.............

First, they do NOT have a very long manufacturing history, as far as modern times and products. Cast iron may go back 3000 years, but proper composition etc may be only 40 years at most. So what you expect "anyone" would know, do, etc, they have no clue about.

Second...ANYTHING meeting spec will be shipped. Usually this will be by "inspecting-in" the quality, checking 100%, starting from a rather wide "universe" of parts, a very substantial part of which do NOT meet spec.

That means there will often be "leakers". You may get a shipment where there is a half bell curve, ending at the lower or upper limit, and a proportion of "leakers" outside the limits.

The lesson is NEVER to expect a bell curve. Your limits had better be set so that any combination of limit values will still work OK.

Third.....Anything NOT specified clearly is usually interpreted as being open for any changes. This can cause "surprises".

Fourth..... The sample is the law. Each sample is a new item, and you must check every single part of it. if part "b" was the only thing not perfect on sample #1, then on sample number 2 you may THINK you can check just part "b" only.....

That is NOT SO. Sample #2 is a complete new item, and may have a number of changes in items which you didn't specify so tightly that there cannot be a change. Even maybe if there was a spec, SOME contract manufacturers will substitute "something close" if the actual item is not available, or if they think the right one is too expensive. They may not have the same idea of "close" as you do.

The latter type of manufacturer may make that sort of substitution in the middle of production, well AFTER a good sample is approved. Normally you find out only after your letter of credit has been released, so your leverage is reduced to refusing to buy from them again.

It is 100% "buyer beware". As costs continue to squeeze the chinese, expect that to INCREASE, not get better as you'd expect.

For what its worth i normally dont get involved in such threads, but....
if you paid a british worker the equivelent of what we pay for chinese products then the british produced stuff would be crap, thing is if you put the time into controling it properly and put in a bit more money then the chinese produce some really really high quality items. If you by something cheap from china to save a few bucks then your opening yourself up for cheap crap, but pay for quality and you will get quality simple as that....

JST said:

It is 100% "buyer beware".

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So they ship whatever they want, and it's up to the poor fool on this end to figure out whether it meets spec or not?

In most cultures that's called fraud.

What about things that can't be inspected, like when they use these fasteners in products which are shipped as finished goods? How is the recipient supposed to know that he's received crap, other than by looking for the "Made in china" label?

- Leigh

You can buy cheap crap in China, and you can buy quality for more normal money. You generally get what you pay for, like everywhere else.

"So they ship whatever they want, and it's up to the poor fool on this end to figure out whether it meets spec or not"

There is no doubt more reason for a buyers beware attitude from China then from the west. That said, the chinese want good customer relations so that the customers will reorder. Thus, they work quite seriously on meeting customers specifications, and generally try to make sure you are on the same page and level about the different specifications and issues.

Overall the chinese are quite easy and reliable to do business with. They wouldn't have been able to get where they are today if they weren't. A major part of the problem is that many greedy importers insist on paying dirt, not do the work on their own side, and still expect to get quality products. That only happens in fairy land.

the reality is, I have no control where this stuff is made. that is the client's decision and really the market's, all their competition mfgs in China. When I have some time later I will write in detail what I know about this subject but to keep it short for now. All the work so far has been first class, very nice die castings and injected molded parts, nice finishes, etc. If there molds are made out of tuna cans, then they must be using the good tuna because the results are much better than simular work I have seen here. We are not buying crap, this is good grade commercial stuff, and that is the point, they do such a good job on everything else but stumble on this very basic detail.

I guess you have been in contact with them about this? If you tell them exactly what you want (send a sample, a lot can get lost in technical translation terms), I think they should fix details like that easily enough. Just tell them what you want, and that it is important that it gets corrected.

If you are using metric fasteners you can specify the DIN or ISO designation to help avoid confusion.

http://mdmetric.com/tech/dinpix.htm#screws

Bad, I am in constant contact, and the had samples, specs catalog pages, etc. There is just this odd disconnection. there are 3 other fasteners and those are all ok.
Any how. I have made lots of work for my fellow country men and when I worked for my Father for 15 years, fought the import battle, only to loose big time and have fought that battle several times since, mostly to loose.
Back in 86 or so, a large contact lense maker, whose name I won't mention but whose initials are B+L was spending $2.50 each for a zippered vinyl bag for their contact lense kit that was retailed for $180.00. About half our business was "cut and sew" bags, etc. I worked over a year on a design get the cost down, and came up with a bag that was bigger, better looking and cost 1.35 each, and got the ongoing order, saving the customer at least 1,000,000 the first year. The development, tooling cost etc were on our dime. Right after that the customer moved their distribution from NY to SC. My first meeting with the new buyer was like this: " I hate Yankees, and my goal it to put you out of business and to get rid of every vendor north of the Mason Dixon Line by the end of the year". he then sent my design to taiwan where they could make it for $.85 FOB Taiwan. Duty and freight brought it up to $1.10. Customer said we had to cut out price which I did to $1.25, and hoped that ongoing production improvements would help compensate but the margin was already razor thin. Then the customer went to their congressman and got the duty catagory changed from cosmetics bag to packaging which brought their cost down to like $.87. So we lost the order except for a few emergency orders for when the ship did not show up.
I could had kept that business by farming it out to wherever, as anyone still in that business has done but I fought it. The customer took their 2 million dollars I saved them over those 2 years and told me to go f myself.
You can tell I am kind of stupid because I have repeated this several times over the past 20 years. Now instead of owning my own manufacturiing company and at 55 reaping the benifits of of 30 years of long hard hours, I beg for an hourly rate to help other manufacturers do what ever.
Me a traitor? I have helped make more jobs and keep more companies in business than you can imagine all at my own risk and little appreciated. get real yourselves.

surplusjohn said:

Me a traitor? I have helped make more jobs and keep more companies in business than you can imagine all at my own risk and little appreciated. get real yourselves.

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I'm not sure where all that came from? As far as I can see noone in the thread have talked about traitors, or getting real?

I did mention that many importing from China choose to import from the low end, but that wasn't aimed at you. It was a more reply to all the people on this board wiping everything from China off as lousy quality.

Getting the correct screws seems fair enough, and should absolutely be doable. As for the make-it-here (whereever that might be), as opposed to outsourcing from other places, that is another discussion.

Sorry BAD that was in response to Real and Old

The real Leigh said:

So they ship whatever they want, and it's up to the poor fool on this end to figure out whether it meets spec or not?

In most cultures that's called fraud.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but in China, that's called smart, as in, Ha ha, I really put one over on the Yankee dog this time.

The real Leigh said:

What about things that can't be inspected, like when they use these fasteners in products which are shipped as finished goods? How is the recipient supposed to know that he's received crap, other than by looking for the "Made in china" label?

- Leigh

Click to expand...

He doesn't. He pays his money and takes his chances. The “wok head” (I like that, good term) knows that he can change anything, at anytime, for his convenience, and he’ll get paid. As to next time? Well, that’s what “so sorry” is supposed to take care of.

It’s not just your problem, and it’s not just the Chinaman you’re dealing with doing it to you. Much of what is done in China is subcontracted, and the subcontractor feels as free to do it to your rep just as your rep does to do it to you. It’s just the way business is done there.

We were all aghast to find melamine in wheat germ. It turns out that the only thing unusual was that it got exported; they do it all the time, to each other. Same with lead pigmented paint. If it’s easy, they use it. If they get caught, they shug.

And we’re stupid enough to go along with it.

Lost in the translation

Further…

I’ve come to realize that one of the biggest problems is communication and understanding cultural differences. The Chinese, in common with many Oriental cultures, have a terrible time saying no. They want to please their customer, even if they can’t. To them, it is less painful to let you be surprised later than to tell you up front that it ain’t gonna happen.

To that end, I offer this brief English – Chinese dictionary:

“Maybe” means no.

“If we can” as in, “we’ll make the correction if we can” means no.

Silence, as in not getting a response to a request, means no.

“Yes” means “Only if we can get the contractor to do it.”

[FONT=&quot]“We are sorry this occurred” means, “better luck next time, jerk.” [/FONT][FONT=&quot]


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