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The world’s largest tool company couldn’t figure out how to make a wrench. Stanley Black & Decker built a $90 million factory on the edge of Fort Worth, Texas,

The world’s largest tool company couldn’t figure out how to make a wrench. Stanley Black & Decker built a $90 million factory on the edge of Fort Worth, Texas, intending to burnish the Made-in-the-U.S.A. luster of the Craftsman brand by forging mechanics’ tools with unprecedented efficiency. But the automated system was a bust, and the tools that were supposed to be pumped out by the million are so hard to find that some consider them collector’s items. I'm not sure why I didn't like your comment but I think its because you're just hand waving the article away without responding to it at all? You take that list and turn into machines, and time it takes to do each operation. The article states they had trouble getting the expensive machines running, how do you respond to that? I mean, if the USA does posses all this expert manufacturing knowledge, then sure this wouldn't have been an insurmountable problem? To be fair, maybe the articles title would be better off "The USA couldn't workout how to build wrenches at an affordable price?", it sounds like the bean counters at Stanley had enough? Anyway, what's sad IMO is that when I was younger, I remember everyones disappointment that all the Stanley tools, and similar brands started making tools in China and it just seemed horrible and it kind of was, the tools sucked. Now, many Chinese tools seem quite good. Kind of idiotic that needs to be thrown away again and the USA has to figure out how to make good tools again...

edrxty 3y ago
I think the difference in what danielvf is saying and what the article is trying to say lies in some higher level phenomenon. Reading between the lines, every issue outlined in the article can be traced back to an abject failure of management to understand what they were making, and why they were making it. If I had to guess what the root cause was, the talent is there, but due to the current class structure of the US, nobody wanted to listen to the line machinists, grey-beards, and engineers (because they're dirty poors who didn't make it big via psychopathy so they must be dumb) so instead they listened to McKinsey or whoever they hired to actually run the project. I remember stories from my father about being an engineer at a big manufacturing facility. The culture was engineers were the people who did math all day, but if you actually wanted something done, ultimately you took your drawings down to the floor and found the longest, grayest beard you could and bent the knee until they agreed to make everything actually work. Fast forward to my first manufacturing job, I was tasked to improve a process, so I went out on the shop floor, started talking to the line guys, and then was promptly scolded by another engineer who told me, and I quote, "they're just manufacturing guys, don't give them enough rope to hang themselves with".
- ChatGTP 3y ago
  I don't believe there is a strong difference between engineering and management when it comes to an operation like this. I'd say there is a dependency on the two? If America doesn't have the management capabilities, experience and maturity to get a plant going, it doesn't matter about the tech or the engineers, it's not going to workout. This includes having managers of a certain caliber which a large firm would trust with hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on getting factories running. I completely understand what you mean by the way and sympathize with your view. I've spent considerable amount of time in Japan and other parts of Asia for business, they have plenty of people with plant management experience who would be able to organize an operation like this. Japan, for example, has off shored a lot, but not everything. Not by a long shot.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    There are many companies in America that are doing this though, and they are successful. Thus it isn't America that can't, but corporate culture at Stanley. This fits my experience at a number of companies, some are much better managed than others.
  - thumbuddy 3y ago
    The funniest part about Japanese industry is... It was revitalized by an American post WWII by a dude named Deming, who was pretty much hated/ignored by American industry. So he went overthere and made them a powerhouse. Years later American companies were scratching their heads doing anything to hire the guy but not foster the skillset he asked for in his education programs or actually listen beyond being able to market that they took the advice for a few months. America has triple downed on ignoring experts to maintain order, pay people less, and saving money short term. When an American company hires 10,000 people it's to bolster numbers or slow competition. When an Japanese company does it's because they need workers long term. When an American company lays off 10,000 people it's because their profitability has changed or the dream wasn't realized. Meanwhile a German company doesn't lay off it's people because it plans to succeed long term and it knows it can't replace it's people, and long term it's more expensive to retrain them. US employment laws are partially to blame, but most of American industry is a pump and dump...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
detourdog 3y ago
I was just talking to friend regarding Vacuum robots. It was the first we discussed the issue but we both were surprised how inferior roombas were compared to Roborock. When I started my research I thought for sure iRobot would be the best. They weren’t they were bested by RoboRock a chineese company. I’m sure if given the choice B&D would have chosen spending $90 million on a working factory vs. a non producing factory.
thumbuddy 3y ago
Old craftsman tools and various other tools from 30-40 yrs ago have no competition with the current market as far as I'm aware. We sold excellence and reliability to the lowest bidder in almost every single industry. I'm under no illusions, america used to make some terrible products in the past too, but now days half this stuff,even the high end stuff, is designed to go into the trash in 1-6 months... Current lifetime warranties aren't offered because the tools are that good, it's because market research shows you won't even want another one... Some Chinese tools are fine, but many of them are awful. I talk regularly with manufacturer types, even the raw materials(like steel or aluminum) that come from china can be super suspect. It's basic economic warfare. China said "screw you, we will make okay enough things at a cheap price so your country loses all of its actual expertise and trades people work at call centers while manufacturing becomes entirely controlled by another country. We will do this at the cost of millions of our citizens for the greater good. Every design sent to us will be replicated and sold for less. Meanwhile we will send our young to your schools to get educated on how to do this better than you, half of PhD students are foreign nationals, and even if they stayed in the US there's no jobs". Paying the piper in this regard is inevitable. As a country we encouraged everyone to take quick cost saving measures for decades. Germany and many other countries have not Basically our hope is we can cheaply wiggle free by "AI", and not hiring trained experts to do jobs with care and lower the costs by cutting regulations. We sold every part of everything that mattered to get ahead short term not paying attention to the debt accrued.
- didntknowya 3y ago
  i dont get all these chinese finger pointing- they did not force US businesses into non-competes or exclusivity contracts. businesses shifted to china in the name of pure profit. they closed their local factories and laid off their expert staffs due to short sightedness.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    I do to the extent that the Chinese will often substitute inferior materials and processes if they think they can get away with it. Documented cases of bait-and-switch between prototypes and early runs on the component, sub assembly and sometimes entire products abound. That's not the way the West normally does business so a whole pile of QC needs to be added to make sure that contractual obligations are fulfilled rather than that non-functional similar shaped and colored stuff gets substituted for the real thing. This is a massive problem, especially in industries where there isn't a whole lot of margin for error (say, aviation).

edrxty 3y ago

I think the difference in what danielvf is saying and what the article is trying to say lies in some higher level phenomenon. Reading between the lines, every issue outlined in the article can be traced back to an abject failure of management to understand what they were making, and why they were making it. If I had to guess what the root cause was, the talent is there, but due to the current class structure of the US, nobody wanted to listen to the line machinists, grey-beards, and engineers (because they're dirty poors who didn't make it big via psychopathy so they must be dumb) so instead they listened to McKinsey or whoever they hired to actually run the project. I remember stories from my father about being an engineer at a big manufacturing facility. The culture was engineers were the people who did math all day, but if you actually wanted something done, ultimately you took your drawings down to the floor and found the longest, grayest beard you could and bent the knee until they agreed to make everything actually work. Fast forward to my first manufacturing job, I was tasked to improve a process, so I went out on the shop floor, started talking to the line guys, and then was promptly scolded by another engineer who told me, and I quote, "they're just manufacturing guys, don't give them enough rope to hang themselves with".

ChatGTP 3y ago
I don't believe there is a strong difference between engineering and management when it comes to an operation like this. I'd say there is a dependency on the two? If America doesn't have the management capabilities, experience and maturity to get a plant going, it doesn't matter about the tech or the engineers, it's not going to workout. This includes having managers of a certain caliber which a large firm would trust with hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on getting factories running. I completely understand what you mean by the way and sympathize with your view. I've spent considerable amount of time in Japan and other parts of Asia for business, they have plenty of people with plant management experience who would be able to organize an operation like this. Japan, for example, has off shored a lot, but not everything. Not by a long shot.
- bluGill 3y ago
  There are many companies in America that are doing this though, and they are successful. Thus it isn't America that can't, but corporate culture at Stanley. This fits my experience at a number of companies, some are much better managed than others.
- thumbuddy 3y ago
  The funniest part about Japanese industry is... It was revitalized by an American post WWII by a dude named Deming, who was pretty much hated/ignored by American industry. So he went overthere and made them a powerhouse. Years later American companies were scratching their heads doing anything to hire the guy but not foster the skillset he asked for in his education programs or actually listen beyond being able to market that they took the advice for a few months. America has triple downed on ignoring experts to maintain order, pay people less, and saving money short term. When an American company hires 10,000 people it's to bolster numbers or slow competition. When an Japanese company does it's because they need workers long term. When an American company lays off 10,000 people it's because their profitability has changed or the dream wasn't realized. Meanwhile a German company doesn't lay off it's people because it plans to succeed long term and it knows it can't replace it's people, and long term it's more expensive to retrain them. US employment laws are partially to blame, but most of American industry is a pump and dump...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

detourdog 3y ago

I was just talking to friend regarding Vacuum robots. It was the first we discussed the issue but we both were surprised how inferior roombas were compared to Roborock. When I started my research I thought for sure iRobot would be the best. They weren’t they were bested by RoboRock a chineese company. I’m sure if given the choice B&D would have chosen spending $90 million on a working factory vs. a non producing factory.

thumbuddy 3y ago

Old craftsman tools and various other tools from 30-40 yrs ago have no competition with the current market as far as I'm aware. We sold excellence and reliability to the lowest bidder in almost every single industry. I'm under no illusions, america used to make some terrible products in the past too, but now days half this stuff,even the high end stuff, is designed to go into the trash in 1-6 months... Current lifetime warranties aren't offered because the tools are that good, it's because market research shows you won't even want another one... Some Chinese tools are fine, but many of them are awful. I talk regularly with manufacturer types, even the raw materials(like steel or aluminum) that come from china can be super suspect. It's basic economic warfare. China said "screw you, we will make okay enough things at a cheap price so your country loses all of its actual expertise and trades people work at call centers while manufacturing becomes entirely controlled by another country. We will do this at the cost of millions of our citizens for the greater good. Every design sent to us will be replicated and sold for less. Meanwhile we will send our young to your schools to get educated on how to do this better than you, half of PhD students are foreign nationals, and even if they stayed in the US there's no jobs". Paying the piper in this regard is inevitable. As a country we encouraged everyone to take quick cost saving measures for decades. Germany and many other countries have not Basically our hope is we can cheaply wiggle free by "AI", and not hiring trained experts to do jobs with care and lower the costs by cutting regulations. We sold every part of everything that mattered to get ahead short term not paying attention to the debt accrued.

didntknowya 3y ago
i dont get all these chinese finger pointing- they did not force US businesses into non-competes or exclusivity contracts. businesses shifted to china in the name of pure profit. they closed their local factories and laid off their expert staffs due to short sightedness.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  I do to the extent that the Chinese will often substitute inferior materials and processes if they think they can get away with it. Documented cases of bait-and-switch between prototypes and early runs on the component, sub assembly and sometimes entire products abound. That's not the way the West normally does business so a whole pile of QC needs to be added to make sure that contractual obligations are fulfilled rather than that non-functional similar shaped and colored stuff gets substituted for the real thing. This is a massive problem, especially in industries where there isn't a whole lot of margin for error (say, aviation).