Record Power join the Made in Britain organisation

[CornishWoodworker]

They will have to change a lot as the majority of Record Equipment is made in China.
Hopefully they will not just need to manufacture a poultry 10% in the UK in order to masquerade as a UK manufacturer.
Very sceptical into these so called trade bodies and how they operate.

 

[Barlow]

Don’t know about all the pros and cons but it certainly gives me a good feeling and I wish them every success.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

They will have to change a lot as the majority of Record Equipment is made in China.
Hopefully they will not just need to manufacture a poultry 10% in the UK in order to masquerade as a UK manufacturer.
Very sceptical into these so called trade bodies and how they operate.

It's already been said it applies only to turning tools and dust extractors. (paltry?)

 

[Droogs]

It's already been said it applies only to turning tools and dust extractors. (paltry?)

maybe he was thinking about using clucking at that point Phil. He may feel rally strongly about it

 

[SkyBlue63]

There's plenty of small engineering companies here in the uk who would love this kind of contract. The really large companies have gone for good, but the skill base is still there for now at least.

 

[CornishWoodworker]

Just looked
Not a logo I will recognise.
In order to qualify you must use 100% UK labour.
You can source your parts from anywhere in the world as long as they a substantially changed from what they were.
In essence
If you connect and assemble Chinese sourced parts together with British labour then the resultant item qualifies to have the Made in Britain Logo.
Not very British !!
I think whats needed is an Assembled in UK Logo.

I tried and failed to buy a wholly manufactured in the UK Toaster.
I failed
All manufacturers whom I had thought were UK manufactured were contacted they all said we only assemble in the UK we don't wholly manufacture. We source parts from amongst others China, France and Germany.

 

[akirk]

Just looked
Not a logo I will recognise.
In order to qualify you must use 100% UK labour.
You can source your parts from anywhere in the world as long as they a substantially changed from what they were.
In essence
If you connect and assemble Chinese sourced parts together with British labour then the resultant item qualifies to have the Made in Britain Logo.
Not very British !!
I think whats needed is an Assembled in UK Logo.

I tried and failed to buy a wholly manufactured in the UK Toaster.
I failed
All manufacturers whom I had thought were UK manufactured were contacted they all said we only assemble in the UK we don't wholly manufacture. We source parts from amongst others China, France and Germany.

With a global supply chain - is anything else likely?
Anything made with complexity is likely to have parts sourced elsewhere - it has been a long time since kit was simple enough to make primarily in one place... the minute you have circuit boards etc. it makes sense to have standardised components made in one place - we don't live in a world any more where one company makes everything in their products - just look at the global parts bins for cars...

For me, the critical aspects would be assembly / repair / R&D / etc. i.e. bringing the process back into the focus and control of the company selling the item - rather than just box-shipping from abroad...

 

[Droogs]

maybe have 2 tiers
British Made - basically assembled in the UK from bits from all over
Made in Britain - all the bits inside and the final assembly created in the UK

 

[Richard_C]

I bought a carving knife a while ago, said Sheffield in big letters on the packaging, and in much smaller print "designed in Sheffield". It probabaly fools some people. I still bought it though, needed a carving knife. I guess it gave a day or two of work (in total not per knife) to someone in Sheffield with CAD software.

 

[Sachakins]

Why so many neigh sayers and dissenters?

No company can switch over night. The bright light in this is that they and others have started the process. Yes it's only a small collection of items at now, but that could and hopefully grow to more and more.

Maybe it's up to us as buyers to put the pressure on other companies to join in, demand more Made in Britain products.

If they can give us the product at improved quality, improved service, improved support and better spares availability, rather than in built redundancy due to lack of parts

Yes it may increase price a bit, but if they manage the rise, and sell as a "product service and support package" high lighting the reduction in overall cost over time for ownership would be the way to convince people to make the initial purchase.

The days of tools for life is over with most of today's kit, maybe a move back towards longevity will spawn loyal customers buying into the brand.

 

[Droogs]

I think an underlying push is that it is increasingly likely that manufacturers will need to provide repairable devices and easily accessable facilities for repair in order to sell in any particular country. Hopefully built in obsolesance and just good enough will be a thing of the past and we will get longevity as well as good engineering in our products, just like the old days. Yes i know was made then too

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I bought a carving knife a while ago, said Sheffield in big letters on the packaging, and in much smaller print "designed in Sheffield". It probabaly fools some people. I still bought it though, needed a carving knife. I guess it gave a day or two of work (in total not per knife) to someone in Sheffield with CAD software.

I bought a fairly expensive Buck knife in a sale in Auckland airport. When I got home I took it out and read the leaflet, which told me how good a choice I'd made buying into American quality, design, history etc. .............. then I had a better look at the knife - sure enough, "Made in China". The spring catch broke after very little wear.

 

[TheTiddles]

Out of curiosity, why does anyone care if we make very simple, almost commodity items in the UK?

I’d rather we focus our expertise in the doing of the difficult and valuable, letting someone else do the rest. They employ more people and drive our societal advance far more than making things which have been substantially unchanged for heading onto a century.

 

[akirk]

I bought a fairly expensive Buck knife in a sale in Auckland airport. When I got home I took it out and read the leaflet, which told me how good a choice I'd made buying into American quality, design, history etc. .............. then I had a better look at the knife - sure enough, "Made in China". The spring catch broke after very little wear.

I was given a royal navy baseball cap once after spending a few days as a guest on a frigate...
delighted to be a part of the august British Royal Navy, I looked at the label - made in China

 

[TheTiddles]

The SR-71 was made with Russian titanium, German trench dugouts were built with blue-circle cement, it’s a common occurrence called “global trade”, it’s been going for a good few thousand years, it’s generally considered a good thing. A couple of countries have tried not doing it, Cambodia and North Korea being the ones that spring to mind most easily, I don’t think it’s worked too well for them.

 

[clogs]

out of interest bought some SKF bearings and oil seals today......
all said made in Bulgaria.......nothin to do with Wimbledon Common then.....hahaha....

soon find out if they are any good.....heard stories of even several Euro bearing manufacturers getting copied....
aparently a place in Germany had ?00,000euros worth of copied stock.....

On ocasion Ive had good luck with Chinese bearings but were they made on WEDS I wonder.....
have a great weekend....
OH
I firm I trouble shooted for used deep groove bearings over 2m in diameter.....the bearing seperators were plastic made in Italy...the balls were German and the races (inner n outer were made in Switzerland where the whole kit and caboodle was assembled.....
those bearings had a timed life of 25 years...........

 

[Richard_C]

I don't have any problem with where stuff is made, it's the brand/vendor that sets the specifications and as long as thats done right with some QC and a bit of after sales service if needed it matters not who manufactures it. Some of the best, and some of the worst, power tools I own are made in China.

I like the idea of countries advancing by making stuff and trading, far better than grinding poverty or going round shooting adversaries with knock-off AK47s.

The point of the "sheffield knife" tale is my general dislike of anything/anyone pretending to be something its not. Buy British, gesture poltics etc.

 

[Droogs]

Out of curiosity, why does anyone care if we make very simple, almost commodity items in the UK?

I’d rather we focus our expertise in the doing of the difficult and valuable, letting someone else do the rest. They employ more people and drive our societal advance far more than making things which have been substantially unchanged for heading onto a century.

The problem is that over half the population are not able to do those jobs and need something else to do until such time as we need canon fodder. That's what it all boils down to. Besides only hobbiest kinow how to manually machine stuff anymore; grow food without straving while doing it etc As the generations of kids here have not been taught any of this in any detail. Even those who have still don't get to mill, saw, drive a screw, they just sit at a screen for the most part.

 

[TheTiddles]

The problem is that over half the population are not able to do those jobs and need something else to do until such time as we need canon fodder. That's what it all boils down to. Besides only hobbiest kinow how to manually machine stuff anymore; grow food without straving while doing it etc As the generations of kids here have not been taught any of this in any detail. Even those who have still don't get to mill, saw, drive a screw, they just sit at a screen for the most part.

I guess you mean your kids?
And complaining about it by sitting at a screen may be a touch ironic.
I’m going to guess you are not particularly young and don’t work with young people or kids much

 

[Droogs]

I guess you mean your kids?
And complaining about it by sitting at a screen may be a touch ironic.
I’m going to guess you are not particularly young and don’t work with young people or kids much

I don't have any that the CSA are aware of no. My other half is a teacher and says a lot. I know 4 D&T teachers they all complain they don't get to have the kids actually do stuff. I have had modern engineers come to ask which end of a ring spanner they are supposed to use for this job as they never got to use tools while on their course. My comment about not being able to do the high falluting jobs is that half the population are below average intelligence and a 1/3 of the rest aren't smart enough to be design engineers, I know I'm not and I have a reasonable IQ.

Your suggestion of only concentrating on the high bucks, high tech jobs would leave most of the population on the bread line or cleaning someone else's toilet.

It wasn't a complaint but an observation as I see it.