who carries the can on this?

[matt1978]

But that argument applies to anything and everything that has to be CE marked.

For example Reputable Welding machine manufacturers who produce in Europe are at a disadvantage because they adhere to all of the strict rules and regs in place in order to gain the CE mark but yet lots of stuff gets imported from the Far East that doesn't but people still buy it because of the price. The system does stink but it requires proper policing from Brussels and at national level in each country.

BUT

As with welding machines, IF the item is of a Simerla comparable quality and meets the performance and has the same warranty then there is not much difference in price. The same would apply to a pre built building, if the Chinese factory had to have all of the same infrastructure in place with welding procedures and FPC etc etc then they wouldn't be a huge price difference.

9/10 the price difference comes because the items are NOT of a comparable quality and performance

 

[AndyStobbs]

But that argument applies to anything and everything that has to be CE marked.

For example Reputable Welding machine manufacturers who produce in Europe are at a disadvantage because they adhere to all of the strict rules and regs in place in order to gain the CE mark but yet lots of stuff gets imported from the Far East that doesn't but people still buy it because of the price. The system does stink but it requires proper policing from Brussels and at national level in each country.

BUT

As with welding machines, IF the item is of a Simerla comparable quality and meets the performance and has the same warranty then there is not much difference in price. The same would apply to a pre built building, if the Chinese factory had to have all of the same infrastructure in place with welding procedures and FPC etc etc then they wouldn't be a huge price difference.

9/10 the price difference comes because the items are NOT of a comparable quality and performance

Doubt the chinese workforce gets any kind of minimum wage compared to say an English fabricator.

I'm not trying to bicker with you but find it hard to imagine how the chinese could fail to do it cheaper. For starters they are able to make the raw steel in the first place, as for comparable quality we're talking about sticking rsj's together here.
I am not trying to take anything away from fabrication, and certainly not belittle the effort and talent of people in the industry, but if we can do it so can jonny chinaman. Noah was welding stuff together on the arc and the chinese are just as capable as anyone else at fabrication.

 

[matt1978]

I agree with you they are more than capable. The same that they are more than capable of making quality to rival Europe on certain welding machine products, but that's the whole point. If you go to China and ask for a product to be made with the same quality components and to have the same duty cycles and performances with the same warranty, the cost price is not monumentally different, The labour would be the only saving and TBF the labour cots in China are escalating. OK so not on the same level as Europe, but cost of living in China is rising and the days of a bowl of rice and two dollars a day are long gone.

You only have to look at any Apple product to see that they can get the quality right, but it doesn't matter which country your in, quality costs money.

 

[TechnicAl]

In China people do the work. In the west we have Robots.............except when the Accountant is too short sighted to see the long term benefits of buying one.........Oh and skinflint Farmers

 

[AndyStobbs]

I doubt Welderpaul (for example) has robots in his shop, or anyone else who is EXC 3 in the UK at present. The trouble with buildings is they are all different isn't it.

 

[the snooper]

if your work did fail and it came to a court case your insurer would simply state you were not insured for that type of work and wouldn't pay out, which would then leave the path for who ever to sue you for everything you own and possibly a prison sentence just like gas safe regs, if you have to be registered and able to sign off the safety of a structure then that's what you need to do if you don't want anything to come back and haunt you

 

[matt1978]

In China people do the work. In the west we have Robots.............

I thought the same.............until we had to go for our mid year sales meeting in Germany. Guy who looks after China for us did a presentation.

More than 10,000 welding robots estimated to be purchased in China this year alone!

So far in one Bike factory alone this year he has supplied 50 x of our Pulse machines to be used solely on Robots with potential for at least another 150 before Xmas, and that's just one production facility. The company owns two more sites of equal size. Figure that astounded me was that just one of these Bicycle factories produced 10,000,000 bikes every year!

 

[500e]

5750 ISO900 & its derivatives were a good idea BUT the buyers tended buy to the cheapest wither accredited or not.
One of our Co was an early 5750 adopter, ran the system for a years under BS & ISO the majority of company's we dealt with told us you have to be registered to get a look in let alone orders, about 70% were still buying from non accredited suppliers 5\6 years later.
We gave up, the paper trail was there were advantages in house which we adopted then dumped the rest

 

[TechnicAl]

I doubt Welderpaul (for example) has robots in his shop, or anyone else who is EXC 3 in the UK at present. The trouble with buildings is they are all different isn't it.

I dont know about Paul but I know most of the big structural firms use automated systems because I helped install them. Most of the buildings we are talking about are essentially the same modular construction but can vary in size (one block or two).

 

[Kent]

The only issue with accountants is there are some bad one like there are bad engineers, oh and the ignorant who don't get the money side. If you have a bad accountant get another

 

[Welderpaul]

We don't have robots as our work is so varied it wouldn't be worth the expenditure. We do everything and anything from structural steel, staircases, balconys, balustrades, bespoke architectural metalwork, specialist fabrications etc etc.
I know of a few 'mid ground' structural outfits that had seen they were getting busier so have splashed out on automated lines. They become very much one trick ponies as the gear costs so much and repayments need paying every month that they sometimes end up 'buying' structural work to keep the robots/machines busy. They way we are (like a lot of fabbys our size) we can quickly jump from job type to job type.

We can put 25-30T of structural through our shop a week between just 4 men so are efficient at what we do.

 

[TechnicAl]

More than 10,000 welding robots estimated to be purchased in China this year alone!
!

apparently China is the fastest growing market for Robots but in Europe there were 4 times that amount sold.

Also the population of Europe is 740 million whereas China is 1350 million

Its changing but there are still plenty of people to employ

 

[dunk]

Robots, you either love em or hate em...... just think one day people will turn up for work only to be told your not needed any more, metal mickey walked in looking for work earlier this morning, i gave him a try and its already done your days work, he`s also started tomorrows work load, so i gave it your job.......
i bet if you had said to the car workers of yester years gone by Mr Robot will do you job soon, they would have laft at you

 

[the snooper]

Robots, you either love em or hate em...... just think one day people will turn up for work only to be told your not needed any more, metal mickey walked in looking for work earlier this morning, i gave him a try and its already done your days work, he`s also started tomorrows work load, so i gave it your job.......
i bet if you had said to the car workers of yester years gone by Mr Robot will do you job soon, they would have laft at you

listen to the zager and evans song

I prefare the visage version

 

[Robotstar5]

When they invent a robot to fix the other robots, that's me out of a job

 

[the snooper]

When they invent a robot to fix the other robots, that's me out of a job

you can guarantee it will happen

 

[brightspark]

you can guarantee it will happen

well half the gear now has self diagnostics for faults and codes

 

[the snooper]

well half the gear now has self diagnostics for faults

very true and there is an article in the news at the min regarding robots and alike stating the driverless car / lorry will do away with taxi drivers and in America will cause big employment problems due to the amount of truck drivers and they reckon this will happen by 2025 but not sure to what degree

 

[Robotstar5]

you can guarantee it will happen

As long as they don't do it in the next 10 years

 

[the snooper]

As long as they don't do it in the next 10 years

you never know, the speed at which computers progressed was ridiculous, you could buy a top of the range pc and six months later it was obsolete