Counterfeit titanium in jets

[KNS]

My own experience on how most everything has cheapened and quality fallen:

Cleaning out my Dad's shop a couple of years ago my Dad had a bunch of tools handed down from his father who was a tool and die maker. I found a bunch of old tools, some, precision instruments dating from the 1920s and 30s. Many were Craftsman from Sears & Roebuck. Holding them in your hands you felt a certain weight and heft. I was astounded at the high standard of their construction and quality of materials. Some came in protective cases constructed out of wood or steel that were almost fit to serve as presentation cases for jewelry. Everything made in USA. Clearly these tools were from a different era.
It made me a bit sad to think what we've lost and that subsequent generations will only be familiar with what can be purchased at places such as Harbor Freight (certainly useful in it's own right).

Apologies for getting off topic...

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by KNS

My own experience on how most everything has cheapened and quality fallen:

Cleaning out my Dad's shop a couple of years ago my Dad had a bunch of tools handed down from his father who was a tool and die maker. I found a bunch of old tools, some, precision instruments dating from the 1920s and 30s. Many were Craftsman from Sears & Roebuck. Holding them in your hands you felt a certain weight and heft. I was astounded at the high standard of their construction and quality of materials. Some came in protective cases constructed out of wood or steel that were almost fit to serve as presentation cases for jewelry. Everything made in USA. Clearly these tools were from a different era.
It made me a bit sad to think what we've lost and that subsequent generations will only be familiar with what can be purchased at places such as Harbor Freight (certainly useful in it's own right).

Apologies for getting off topic...

Not "off topic" in the least, Kurt. What you describe is precisely what I have been trying to explain to David. Even simple items like tools used to be manufactured to a standard, not a price. I own many tools that were once my father's, many that were once my grandfather's. Everyday, workaday tools, nothing "high grade" or "fancy" by any stretch. Stuff the common working man purchased at his local hardware store. All of which puts today's "expensive" tools to shame. All of which were manufactured by companies who put quality ahead of absolute profitability.

Yes, indeed, we have lost a good deal. So thoroughly lost, it appears, that some will argue that it never existed.

[jcommin]

So when did this all change? I have been in the manufacturing world for over 50 yrs and I started seeing this in the early 70s. We used to make stuff, really good stuff. By we got greedy and sloppy. There were 6 steel mills in Chicago, that probably produced more steel than in the entire country during WWII. In the 70s, the USA auto market was 95% USA made - that changed too.

I'm going to focus on steel just a bit. The equipment in those mills was built in the turn of the century. I saw rolling mill stands from the early 1900s. When you have the lock on the steel market, prices are easily raised because there is no other game in town. However along comes technology from abroad especially from Japan, the mini mill concept and continuous casting and eliminating open hearth process. This story is too long to write but those 6 mills were gone by the 80s. Those profits bought other non-steel related companies and money was never reinvested.

The same goes for automotive. Toyota comes out with the Toyota System soon to be copied by others. Back in the 80s, changing dies on a transfer press took a week, the Japanese did it in a day. We took a day to change one die in a single stroke small press but by continuous improvement, we cut that down to an hour. We blamed unions for high labor cost and moved things to the southern states to reduce labor. That trend continues to this day, Taiwan, Mexico China, India, etc. There isn't a machine tool made in the USA anymore, no stamping presses either (most of the American ones are foreign owned). The list is endless.

I worked for a Tier 1 automotive company that was initially family owned until it was sold in 1999. They made allot of money without the worry of charts, graphs, daily numbers and stock price. There were 2 metrics: past due dollars and fill rate. You don't want to shut a n OE line down. How fast can I fill the order at a 98% fill rate. That all changed - Daily metrics, end of month, end of quarter, end of years numbers was checked. Miss a target, how are you going to recover?

A company can control (3) things: labor, material and plant property and utilities. The hardest is land and utilities unless you downsize or relocate. Material is next and this is where you begin to play with chemical compositions, substitutes (plastic for steel, etc) and the easiest is labor.

The rust belt in the Midwest saddens me, because I'm old saw what we did here. There are vacant plants all over this country just decaying or been converted into residences.

[jyl]

The rest of the world caught up. US manufacturing was no longer dominant, business became harder and tougher, competing against countries with people just as smart and hard-working but poorer and hungrier. Profits got harder to make, businesses had to manage the margins and costs and assets as hard as the engineering and production. Newer, more advanced industries where the US was still dominant, generally high technology and high complexity and heavy science, were better places to be so US companies, people, and investment shifted to there. The companies, people, and investment that didn’t shift became poorer and some died out, and along the way they cut corners trying to hang on. This cycle keeps repeating, with other countries catching up in more and more advanced industries and the US shifting to even newer and even more advanced ones, and those who don’t or can’t shift gradually shrinking away.

Not just the US - similar in Germany, UK, France, Italy, all of the West. After decades of being the catching-up country, Japan became the getting-caught-up-to country. Eventually it will be China’s turn to see others eating away at their less advanced industries and seeing millions of Chinese companies and people failing to shift and getting poor. In fact, it is already starting to happen there.

What’s the saving grace, if there is one? First, this pressures countries and people to develop more advanced industries - so progress happens. Second, along the way countries get rich. The US is a very rich country, so is Western Europe, so is Japan. “Rich” means per capita (or average) wealth and income. There can be lots of poor people in a rich country if wealth is not distributed or used well, but that’s up to the country and its people and politicians.

Demographics come into this too. As countries get more advanced, birth rates slow and the population gets older, which slows growth. Eventually the country is very old - meaning the population’s average age - but hopefully has gotten rich. Japan got there, so did Western Europe. China is in trouble, it is getting old very fast and is still far from rich. The US is totally unique along major countries - it is a very rich country that is not old and not aging that fast.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by jcommin

The same goes for automotive. Toyota comes out with the Toyota System soon to be copied by others. Back in the 80s, changing dies on a transfer press took a week, the Japanese did it in a day. We took a day to change one die in a single stroke small press but by continuous improvement, we cut that down to an hour.

I agree with 99% of what's been said here, but I don't see how this increase in efficiency is a bad thing. American cars were dinosaurs right out of the factory until the mid-70s, then they were pure junk for a decade or so. It took competition from Japan to light a fire under US automakers. Now we assemble great cars. I think a lot, if not most, of the parts come from overseas, but the part we do contribute is now first rate.

When I was in high school in the late '60s I worked at a hardware store that sold appliances. We unpacked refrigerators and cleaned them up before delivering them. I would find trash, candy bar wrappers, and one time a half eaten sandwich behind the vegetable drawers. That did not instill confidence that the 'fridge was assembled properly. I haven't seen anything like that in any of the Japanese/Chinese/Korean products I buy in decades.

We blamed unions for high labor cost and moved things to the southern states to reduce labor. That trend continues to this day, Taiwan, Mexico China, India, etc. There isn't a machine tool made in the USA anymore, no stamping presses either (most of the American ones are foreign owned). The list is endless.

That's an example of skirting around a problem instead of fixing it. US manufacturers should have focused on the needs of employees as well as of the demands of stockholders. The extreme emphasis on "stockholder value" has been a disaster. The adversarial relationship between labor and management has been a problem in the West since the industrial age began. Maybe in the East they saw the disastrous results of the continuous fight between labor and management and took a different attitude toward their workers, I don't know, but I do know their workers are making money and buying products while our work force is being laid off and turning to drugs.

[Paul T]

Originally Posted by jyl

The rest of the world caught up. US manufacturing was no longer dominant, business became harder and tougher, competing against countries with people just as smart and hard-working but poorer and hungrier. Profits got harder to make, businesses had to manage the margins and costs and assets as hard as the engineering and production. Newer, more advanced industries where the US was still dominant, generally high technology and high complexity and heavy science, were better places to be so US companies, people, and investment shifted to there. The companies, people, and investment that didn’t shift became poorer and some died out, and along the way they cut corners trying to hang on. This cycle keeps repeating, with other countries catching up in more and more advanced industries and the US shifting to even newer and even more advanced ones, and those who don’t or can’t shift gradually shrinking away.

Not just the US - similar in Germany, UK, France, Italy, all of the West. After decades of being the catching-up country, Japan became the getting-caught-up-to country. Eventually it will be China’s turn to see others eating away at their less advanced industries and seeing millions of Chinese companies and people failing to shift and getting poor. In fact, it is already starting to happen there.

What’s the saving grace, if there is one? First, this pressures countries and people to develop more advanced industries - so progress happens. Second, along the way countries get rich. The US is a very rich country, so is Western Europe, so is Japan. “Rich” means per capita (or average) wealth and income. There can be lots of poor people in a rich country if wealth is not distributed or used well, but that’s up to the country and its people and politicians.

Demographics come into this too. As countries get more advanced, birth rates slow and the population gets older, which slows growth. Eventually the country is very old - meaning the population’s average age - but hopefully has gotten rich. Japan got there, so did Western Europe. China is in trouble, it is getting old very fast and is still far from rich. The US is totally unique along major countries - it is a very rich country that is not old and not aging that fast.

Very good summation of what has transpired, thank you…

[Paul T]

I will also say, part of the problem is that the consumer has gotten used to cheap, disposable crap and doesn’t care about or appreciate true quality. At least a large portion of the population….so it works both ways. Many would not buy the more expensive, but much higher quality item, even if available.

[unclebilly]

Originally Posted by David

Does Boeing test material or just trust the heat certs?

I don't think I could work in a shop that didn't have a material analyzer gun and hardness tester onsite. We usually rely on heat certs but if anything is suspect or super critical we check it.

We had both at the pressure control place and Q1 made us be in control of our supply chain. At the end of the day, trust played a big role in the material being what the MTR said it was.

The XRF gun isn’t 100% accurate and only identifies the materials it is programmed to recognize - we didn’t have 1075 tool steel programmed into ours. It also doesn’t give carbon content.

With massive billets of steel, the hardness varies by 5 or more points of the Rockwell C scale from the outside surface to the core (thermodynamics are to blame during heat treatment).

I wanted them manufacturing to scan and hardness test every incoming billet and report anomalies which would have flagged this material for further testing but they didn’t want to…

[unclebilly]

Another example that supports Jeff’s comments and David will be well aware of is Toyota.

Toyota’s newest vehicles are NOT the same quality level as their pre Covid products that drew us to the brand.

The new Tundra is a glorified F150. The seat trim breaks in EVERY single new tundra. The Radio knobs break if you so much as breathe on them. The recall of every non hybrid 22 and 23 tundra for a new engine because of manufacturing debris left in the engine during manufacturing… I’m sure the hybrids and the 24s will be added to the recall soon enough…

It has NOT always been like this at Toyota.

[David Inc.]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

Uh, no, this is not some sort of misty eyed, rose colored glasses nostalgia. This absolutely was the reality in much of (if not most) the manufacturing world at one time. While no one goes into business to lose money, profit expectations were wildly different in the not too distant past. Many were happy to make enough money to make a comfortable living while at the same time "pursuing excellence" in whatever endeavor they chose. I've tried to explain this to you. This concept appears totally lost on you, so you deny it ever existed. I lived and worked it, as mentioned earlier. I wish you could have experienced this at some point during your career. It was wonderful.

Today, yes. In the not too distant past, this was absolutely not the case. Even the most mundane daily items were once built to a standard, not to a price. Just because you never experienced this does not mean it was never that way.

I have to say it does feel like rose colored glasses, or maybe it's company specific to your experience at Boeing. For example, while my company does target higher margins, it doesn't feel like any corners are being cut, and engineering takes pride in the product. Things are much faster because everything is faster now, but standards are held even when we may lose a job or two as a result.

To the bolded, I really have to wonder what you mean by that. First off, mundane items used to be much more expensive relative to the average income, and secondly, even if they were built to a standard it's not like nobody considered the cost to produce vs. potential sales price and position in the market (and if they didn't, is it any wonder they're not around any more?).

Originally Posted by KNS

My own experience on how most everything has cheapened and quality fallen:

Cleaning out my Dad's shop a couple of years ago my Dad had a bunch of tools handed down from his father who was a tool and die maker. I found a bunch of old tools, some, precision instruments dating from the 1920s and 30s. Many were Craftsman from Sears & Roebuck. Holding them in your hands you felt a certain weight and heft. I was astounded at the high standard of their construction and quality of materials. Some came in protective cases constructed out of wood or steel that were almost fit to serve as presentation cases for jewelry. Everything made in USA. Clearly these tools were from a different era.
It made me a bit sad to think what we've lost and that subsequent generations will only be familiar with what can be purchased at places such as Harbor Freight (certainly useful in it's own right).

Apologies for getting off topic...

Originally Posted by Paul T

I will also say, part of the problem is that the consumer has gotten used to cheap, disposable crap and doesn’t care about or appreciate true quality. At least a large portion of the population….so it works both ways. Many would not buy the more expensive, but much higher quality item, even if available.

These two go very well together. High quality tools are absolutely still available, made with pride either abroad or in the USA, but that's not what most people want to buy. 95% of people buying a ratchet are doing it for household chores or last-minute father's day gifts and they're not thinking about longevity and reliability over ten-thousand pulls at 200% rated load. It's the same with everything, the majority of people want cheap and disposable, not expensive and maintainable, and companies that operate in those markets know it.

Honestly, most of the small work in my garage has been done with a $20 Husky 1/4" ratchet set I bought twenty years ago. If that $20 set lasts and serves the purpose why would I have bought an industrial grade set ten times (or more) as expensive?

Originally Posted by jyl

The rest of the world caught up. US manufacturing was no longer dominant, business became harder and tougher, competing against countries with people just as smart and hard-working but poorer and hungrier. Profits got harder to make, businesses had to manage the margins and costs and assets as hard as the engineering and production. Newer, more advanced industries where the US was still dominant, generally high technology and high complexity and heavy science, were better places to be so US companies, people, and investment shifted to there. The companies, people, and investment that didn’t shift became poorer and some died out, and along the way they cut corners trying to hang on. This cycle keeps repeating, with other countries catching up in more and more advanced industries and the US shifting to even newer and even more advanced ones, and those who don’t or can’t shift gradually shrinking away.

...

Another good summary. It's easy to be less mindful of costs when there's no competition.

[1990C4S]

Just look at appliances. What sells in volume? Cheap refrigerators from Korea or Mexico. Do they last? No. Can they be easily repaired? No. Do they sell millions of them? Yes. Do people complain every day about them failing prematurely? Just look online for reviews.

How many people pony up for a Sub-Zero that will last 25 years? A very small minority.

Why is Toyota cutting costs (and quality)? Because cheap Chinese and Korean cars are taking their business.

We do this to ourselves.

[cockerpunk]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

That's an example of skirting around a problem instead of fixing it. US manufacturers should have focused on the needs of employees as well as of the demands of stockholders. The extreme emphasis on "stockholder value" has been a disaster. The adversarial relationship between labor and management has been a problem in the West since the industrial age began. Maybe in the East they saw the disastrous results of the continuous fight between labor and management and took a different attitude toward their workers, I don't know, but I do know their workers are making money and buying products while our work force is being laid off and turning to drugs.

this.

venture capital destroyed quality in america.

the purpose of a business shouldn't be profitability, it should be sustained value creation. the focus on profitability means you just gut everything, make a bunch of money, and destroy what someone else took a lifetime to build. you destroy it in 5-10 years, profit handsomely, and then move on to the next company that someone took a lifetime to build. and they built that business over a lifetime with sustained value creation.

labor builds, capital destroys.

[1990C4S]

Originally Posted by cockerpunk

the purpose of a business shouldn't be profitability, it should be sustained value creation.

That model no longer works for publicly traded companies. The CEO will be gone. Quickly.

[Tervuren]

Isn't this made in USA?
Does this apply to the rest of Toyotas?

Originally Posted by unclebilly

The new Tundra

[cockerpunk]

Originally Posted by 1990C4S

That model no longer works for publicly traded companies. The CEO will be gone. Quickly.

right?

its because within the economy we value capital above human beings. the economy should work for people, not capital.

[David Inc.]

Originally Posted by 1990C4S

Just look at appliances. What sells in volume? Cheap refrigerators from Korea or Mexico. Do they last? No. Can they be easily repaired? No. Do they sell millions of them? Yes. Do people complain every day about them failing prematurely? Just look online for reviews.

How many people pony up for a Sub-Zero that will last 25 years? A very small minority.

Why is Toyota cutting costs (and quality)? Because cheap Chinese and Korean cars are taking their business.

We do this to ourselves.

Refrigerator chat. The cost of repair labor far outweighs the cost of manufactured units. Earlier this year my Samsung french door refrigerator failed. I checked the boards ($150+ if a technician did it right there) and found that the compressor was at fault. I spoke with a local repair technician who said "unless that thing has sentimental value just get a new one", as the price to replace the compressor and recharge the system was going to be around $1,000. My wife and I bought a brand new stainless Kitchen-Aid for under $1,400 delivered.

The finances of long term maintenance just don't make sense when new units can be made so cheaply.

[Jeff Higgins]

If we are going to start including the competitive advantages enjoyed by offloading manufacturing to countries such as China, India, Korea, Taiwan, and (to some degree formerly) Japan, we cannot ignore their abject lack of environmental regulation, abject lack of child labor law, the tremendously long hours worked by unskilled adults for exceedingly meager compensation, and other such factors.

Essentially roll back all of the advances made on these fronts in Europe, the UK, the US, and other "first world" economies to 19th century standards.

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by cockerpunk

this.

venture capital destroyed quality in america.

the purpose of a business shouldn't be profitability, it should be sustained value creation. the focus on profitability means you just gut everything, make a bunch of money, and destroy what someone else took a lifetime to build. you destroy it in 5-10 years, profit handsomely, and then move on to the next company that someone took a lifetime to build. and they built that business over a lifetime with sustained value creation.

labor builds, capital destroys.

Originally Posted by cockerpunk

right?

its because within the economy we value capital above human beings. the economy should work for people, not capital.

Spot on.

[berettafan]

Venture capital destroys everything it touches except the bank accounts of the middle men. No doubt.

And by tying exec compensation to stock performance we are effective making the entirety of management at these companies venture capitalists. THAT my friends is a problem we don't have the appetite to fix. Such fix would involve capping salaries for execs, forbidding stock options and severely limiting the total $$ that can be managed by any fund.

[Paul T]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

If we are going to start including the competitive advantages enjoyed by offloading manufacturing to countries such as China, India, Korea, Taiwan, and (to some degree formerly) Japan, we cannot ignore their abject lack of environmental regulation, abject lack of child labor law, the tremendously long hours worked by unskilled adults for exceedingly meager compensation, and other such factors.

Essentially roll back all of the advances made on these fronts in Europe, the UK, the US, and other "first world" economies to 19th century standards.

Absolutely right….we never stood a chance to compete on labor costs. Crazy thing is, everyone could see this coming 40 yrs ago, but here we are. Now the consumer is addicted to cheap, replaceable goods and we will never go back. Everything is a commodity. It’s all a numbers game these days, the product hardly matters. There is no pride in “building” something, just make some quick $$ and get out.