Using a hotknife to cut away excess tape on shoes

If you build this factory somewhere- can you rely on electricity and infrastructure? Is war or looting a pressing concern? Can you get skilled techs or maintenance to keep it humming? Parts? Will the government potentially seize your factory or after you invest hundreds of millions will they start busting your balls with taxes and fees and such- knowing that you can’t just pack up and leave a brand new multi million dollar facility- and if you do... they get it for free? Is this an area known for industrial espionage or where pirates might steal designs or even molds or copy your cutting edge manufacturing technology and feed knock offs and competitors globally?

In areas with cheap labor, automation is often more expensive than using humans. In areas with expensive labor and smaller production runs- Adidas for example has US and European factories- good press in those regions- but over 97% of Adidas products are made in Asia. Not only would adidas lose the good will of employing X thousand local people in those regions (good will being one of the only business reasons to keep factories in such expensive labor markets) but it might shake out even worse. If it costs me $10 or even $20 an hour hire a single human in the US to cut shoe tape- that one persons monthly salary is more than an entire shop floor of people in some Asian countries for the same month. But let’s say I pay the American $1500 a month and they make a small volume of shoes. Placing a machine there that can finish 100 shoes a day costs the same as a machine that can finish 10,000 a day for all intents- but the costs to set that machine up and power it and the real estate...

.. cost for the flooring to house if, is way more in America than perhaps Cambodia. So why not just build a machine there? But then if we don’t need the US plant at all... why keep it open? Well- as said, it’s more for the good will and domestic clout than anything else. But at the volume the factor makes it might take many decades of production without major service or breakage, for the cost of the machine to pay itself off, and then the skilled labor to service the machine and the environmental and other restrictions and so on... they add tot he cost and sometimes it actually is cheaper to have a human do the work.

Of course they could automate the task through the use of a Jig or equipment that held the shoe and so on- but you’d need to engineer and it would need to be able to work with current and future shoe designs and as we saw.... the job goes so fast that by the time a jig was set up, you could have a shoe cut. I suppose it could also be that the process IS Automated and the clip we saw was more promotional- showing a “human touch” and “artisanal” side to the shoe manufacturing that can help justify a higher price. I mean- many manufacturers make product in domestic and foreign markets and both versions often sell side by side for the same price.

Many companies do this. Very common with cars. Mazda for example was making the same car in Mexico, The US, and Japan. In the US and Canada you could buy a Mazda and it could be from any of those countries. Asides (depending on location) the delivery cost on the sticker and maybe tariffs- the MSRP of the cars were exactly the same despite the differences in cost for labor and other factors in those 3 countries.

So if a manufacturer is “proudly made in <your country>” that may not mean anything. Adidas has a factory In Europe and the USA. They can hype up that and imply the higher costs of domestic labor and production to help the consumer justify it: “well, this brand is more expensive but it’s made here at home and I’m supporting my fellows...” but the actual product you buy- if you check the label, it could be made anywhere. Just because SOME products get a human touch or SOME products are made in a certain place- that doesn’t mean all are. Also- MADE in doesn’t mean the materials were made there or the machines used etc etc. it doesn’t even necessarily mean local labor was used- as has been the case in several historic scandals in the garment industry where sweat shops using illegal labor practices and foreign (often illegally entered) labor was being used but production was domestic.

So maybe the process is automated and they wanted to make a nice fluff video to create an illusion of craftsmanship. Funny enough- plastic was once fancy. Plastic dishes and such? The new technological miracle material was not something everyone could afford and exhibits many properties more traditional materials do not. Plastic drink ware and such is often more resistant to shattering or damage than older traditional materials. Plastics can have lots of novel properties previously unseen in materials suitable for many applications. Plastic was kinda fancy.

As a matter of fact- many of the “high end” and “fancy” things we seek are antiquated. They became uncommon because modern and now more common replacements did a suitable job, often for less money and with far less need for care. Many “legacy” or “heritage” textiles and such require exacting upkeep or can be ruined. “Hand made” goods will usually lack the consistency in quality of machine made goods, and where long ago, machines could mass produce goods but were too primitive to produce the quality human hands could- in modern times humans often can’t produce the levels of precision and detail that a machine is capable of. Modern aerospace and precision textiles would be essentially impossible to craft by human hands.

So the use of human hands has largely become symbolic of luxury, an anachronism from a time when human labor was almost universally superior to machines in all respects save brute force and sheer volume- but also the effect of items being made by humans having become rarer due to the proliferation of machines capable of low cost, high volume, and good quality workmanship. Of course- it’s also important to note another very human fallacy- the way that we often equate cost to quality or worthiness. The cost of an item effects our perception of its worth. This is one of the primary strategies of many “luxury” brands- the “badge tax” applied to products with their name which sets their item at a higher price than a similar quality item suited to the same purpose.

Certainly the fact that a handbag or a cost cost $2000 doesn’t mean that it is made of only the finest or most durable materials. We also must be careful however to not assume that because two bags are both bags- that the less expensive one is just as good and the difference in price is all hype or brand etc.

It isn’t uncommon in many industries, be it clothing or heavy manufacturing or technology- that the products from top brand names may roll off the exact same assembly lines or front he exact same factories as no name products or knock offs. Sometimes you are getting the EXACT same product at a lower price- but even if it LOOKS in every way shape and form like you are.... you might not be. What is very common is for metallurgy, the type of alloy, chemistry or type of polymers etc. to be substituted for cheaper ones. In some cases and engineer will be consulted on what can be substituted and a decision made on acceptable compromise vs the original- often though it is just adhoc. So a part which is a specific alloy for the specific qualities and longevity and such, must be identical save for being an inferior alloy for the purpose- this may or may not cause issues.

Another common one is tolerances. Engineers and designers give specifications for dimensions and how much deviation is allowed on everything from fastener holes to bosses to mating surfaces and overall dimensions and more. They might specify how true- or level a surface is to be, how “flat”/“smooth” or how round or balanced a part must be- an almost identical part may have imperceptible but meaningful differences in those areas. Molds and dies used for making products wear with use. The 10,000th unit produced will generally be further from the original intended spec than the 100th or 10th. Part of a manufacturing spec includes how to rotate these tools for wear, how to service them, and how many units can be produced before replacing them as well as the intervals for checking the tools and what criteria they should be replaced under before the specified life cycle for failing inspection.

Often, other products or knock offs will use worn out molds or inferior copies of fresh ones, or use molds far past the original makers specs; or fail to replace molds which fail inspection- if inspections are conducted to schedule or at all. Processes for materials such as how injection molding or forging or even casting are handled may be changed- higher pressures or flows, less time or more as suits costs and the contract; to increase production or lower costs. This can cost in quality or insistence between pieces. Finishing steps, things like deburring or planing or various coatings or treatments like UV exposure or cryotanking etc might be skipped or modified or substituted, as can chemicals used for finishing or post processing or protection.

External cases and components may be shared but certain key components internally may differ in specifications etc. it can be very hard to tell without extensive testing and lab equipment if two items are comparable quality- although in fairness the loss of quality may not always be noticed by the consumer, or may not be a feature they were interested in sometimes a secondary manufacturer might actually correct a known flaw with the original. Rare but it does happen. There are notable examples, for instance in the collectible toy industry, where a “bootleg” corrected a common defect in a sculpt for a figure, a non screen accurate color choice, I’ve even seen cases where a “bootleg” used a superior material than an original which was known for breaking or being brittle, I’ve even seen entire joints be re designed to function better! So there are many fallacies and assumptions at play there.

I went way off in the weeds, I’ve got 6 weeks of verbosity to catch up on- but the overall message was in the first few posts. Lol.

There he is