Chinese watch industry: perception and reality

[david]

When there is a culture of looking at negative feedback as a negative instead of a positive,  problems are not addressed. This can be particularly damaging in draconian cultures that can administer terrible punishments when things go wrong.   Failure is far and away the best teacher if it is properly assessed and corrected. It is an important part of the development process.  Before modern reliable airplanes were invented there were numerous unreliable airplanes that flew poorly and often wrecked. Using this data as a learning experience instead of assuming that man was never meant to fly resulted in the aircraft we have today.  

[WatchWood]

4 hours ago, spectre6000 said:

...

The design and engineering impetus question though... Where are the original Chinese products? I don't have an answer for that from B-school or any personal experience. Maybe it's a matter of economic ascension, and will be upon us soon? We're educating a lot of Chinese students here in the US, who go back to China to do the things they've been educated in. Maybe it's just a matter of time?

I don't think there will ever be original products under the current system. Capitalism and Communism don't allow for the sustained output of such things when the rewards can so easily be taken away? I have studied with Chinese students and they are extremely dedicated and keen to learn but I got the impression a lot of the 'Western-think' they understand whilst out of the country gets lost when the 'Party-line' dominates their lives back home? Japan doesn't suffer that conflict and look at how innovative they are.

[Plato]

I think we should stop categorizing the Chinese people. Every human being has pretty much the same goals and dreams regardless of what regime runs their lives.

 

[david]

I think we should stop categorizing the Chinese people. Every human being has pretty much the same goals and dreams regardless of what regime runs their lives.

The issue is about what the form of government in China does to the people not the people. 

[jdm]

1 hour ago, david said:

The issue is about what the form of government in China does to the people not the people. 

We keep talking about the Chinese gov.t and how it influences industrial production but the fact is that most Chinese industries are largely privately or publicly owned. That enabled them to succeed unlike the ones in other Communist countries, and made many individuals exceedingly rich. Can't imagine the Communist part having a say about how a non-strategic factory like e.g. mechanical watches is run. If it does good all is well if it does not they will let it sink period.

In my opinion if Chinese product quality and business practices are poor that is due to greed, pretty like it happens in capitalist and democratic counties.

[VWatchie]

3 hours ago, david said:

I think we should stop categorizing the Chinese people. Every human being has pretty much the same goals and dreams regardless of what regime runs their lives.

I agree, but what vastly differentiates people is culture. Note that I'm not saying some cultures are better or superior than some other cultures. What signifies life more than anything is diversity, and it's crucially important that all people and cultures are respected and left alone to develop in a direction of their own will. Culture and values can be completely incompatible, and often are. Therefore I believe it's a genuinely bad idea to mix various cultures in a confined geographical area.

[david]

Therefore I believe it's a genuinely bad idea to mix various cultures in a confined geographical area.

I would love to be surrounded by a culture of nymphomaniacs  I'm sure any cultural differences could be worked out with intensive practice. 

[TimpanogosSlim]

8 hours ago, KarlvonKoln said:

Yes, this is true.  I have a couple that I save for parts, so that if someone finds out their Tag or Rolex (or whatever) is a fake with one of these inside and still wants me to repair it anyway (which has happened) I have a potential source of parts.  Because so far, every unmarked Chinese auto I've seen has looked exactly the same, with the same measurements as I recall, so I at least have parts to try out and see if  they will work as replacements.  I've had almost zero luck digging up that kind of movement anywhere else, since it has no name.

Yeah, I am very annoyed at the lack of consistent marking on chinese movements. 

I'm no snob. I have many chinese watches, several of them are excellent runners. Some are not. 

I have a really nice sterile-dial nomos tangente homage that allegedly has a sea-gull ST17 in it. While the movement sure looks like an ST17 to me, there are no markings on it. And it stops randomly. 

There are lots of movements for sale on ebay and aliexpress that are claimed to be sea-gull but they vary from no markings to fake ETA markings, and i figure if they will mark it as an ETA why should i believe that it came from the factory they say it came from? 

When i expressed my displeasure that China Sea-Gull has no official outlet for genuine, marked movements, the defense their supporters offered was that it would be like trying to buy a g-shock movement from Casio. But I figure it's more like trying to buy an NH36A from Sii. 

[KarlvonKoln]

16 hours ago, TimpanogosSlim said:

Yeah, I am very annoyed at the lack of consistent marking on chinese movements. 

I'm no snob. I have many chinese watches, several of them are excellent runners. Some are not. 

I could give examples of my other retail experiences and you all could tell me if it seems likely.  I used to work at Walmart a few years ago.  I have a Rival toaster that is stamped with the Walmart name on it and "made in China", and frankly I am surprised it still functions decently.  But an identical Rival toaster from a different retailer feels heavier and sturdier, the parts are stamped of thicker metal and better components are used,*AND* you won't find the Walmart name on the bottom.  But you will pay a bit more for it.  Let's also talk about Shakespeare Ugly Stick fishing rods and reels.  The ones you buy from other retailers have *steel ball bearings* as well as other quality stainless parts.  The identical models sold at Walmart have nylon bushings where the ball bearings would be, and many have other plastic parts in place of stainless.  I have experience with the way Walmart negotiates contracts for how they will sell a maker's goods at certain price points.  Some makers adapted, long ago, a method by which certain models of product will have parts which are interchangeable with a much cheaper variant.  The steel or heavy-duty parts go in this product meant for a more upscale market, and the plastic or thin-sheet-metal parts go in the one meant for the bargain market.  Same make, same model, different market, different parts.  I have worked there, and I have owned identical things purchased in different stores, so I have compared and seen the evidence.
My question, with such a similar kind of situation before me, is would you all suppose that the Chinese market has done the same here with watch movements: identical movement construction, but substitute the cheap parts for the cheaper lines of watches, and save the better and more robust parts for more upscale watches?  I'm looking at the Chinese offerings at Esslinger and they have 22 jewels and cost just under $50 for the movement alone.  I look at the ones I see in fakes, and the H&L we've seen above, and it has 7 jewels (some don't even have that many) and you can get a whole watch with one of those in it for less than $50, or even a fake (if the seller isn't trying to cheat you).  I've long assumed this was the situation, so if someone comes along and confirms it I doubt I will be surprised.

[TimpanogosSlim]

15 hours ago, KarlvonKoln said:

I could give examples of my other retail experiences and you all could tell me if it seems likely.  I used to work at Walmart a few years ago.  I have a Rival toaster that is stamped with the Walmart name on it and "made in China", and frankly I am surprised it still functions decently.  But an identical Rival toaster from a different retailer feels heavier and sturdier, the parts are stamped of thicker metal and better components are used,*AND* you won't find the Walmart name on the bottom.  But you will pay a bit more for it.  

My observation is that the Chinese industrial complex can produce any level of quality that you are willing to pay for. This is in contrast to many other industrialized nations where there is a level below which you would have a lot of difficulty finding anyone willing to entertain the contract. And if you did find someone to entertain it, they might just sub-contract it to someone in China. 

There is, undeniably, a problem where you can't necessarily trust a Chinese operation to do exactly what you asked them to do. This isn't unique to China, but since China is such a dominant supplier, it is impossible separate the problem from the location. 

I have a sibling who does purchasing for a mid-level e-tailer which assembles a lot of products from parts sourced from different vendors and many of them are overseas. The specifics aren't important, but from time to time they have to refuse to pay for a shipment because it falls far outside of the spec that was agreed to. And then the sales rep they used to work with "left the company", and the new one doesn't understand why there isn't an order for more parts. 

And it's not that these unpleasant situations only happen with chinese manufacturers, it's that there are so many chinese manufacturers in that market sector that the majority of vendors happen to be in china. 

There is an undeniable truth that China has leveraged their planned economy in a way that has enabled an ease of manufacturing that is unparalleled in the world. Couple that with the size of their population, and we have a manufacturing powerhouse that would be impossible to match in most other economic systems. 

And in the news today, it is reported that they have jailed over 50 steel mill executives for falsifying emissions reports. Just sayin. 

I have a friend - former coworker - who grew up very working class in Beijing and is now a pretty well paid software developer in the US. He's lived here for almost 30 years, and despite his national pride he has no interest in moving back to China. To give you an idea, he says he had 1 white shirt when he was a kid - he put it on right before going to school, took it off immediately after getting home, and if he got it dirty he had hell to pay. 

When we discussed the Tyco toys lead paint scandal years ago, the point he made was that, yes, maybe someone at the factory sold the lead-free paint Tyco supplied them with out the back door and substituted cheaper paint. Maybe they had process issues with the lead-free paint and were just more comfortable with the leaded paint because it's not like we used to put lead in paint because paint magnates were waxed-mustachioed villains, it turns out that leaded paint is a little easier to get a good result with. There are any number of not-that-good reasons that factory may have ended up using leaded paint on those toys. 

But a white, American quality control manager in China signed off on every shipment.  

I work in quality control. Have done for more than 20 years. Sometimes people in this line of work get burnt out, get lazy, and maybe notice that it doesn't appear to make a difference whether or not they do their job, certainly in terms of whether or not the people they interact with are happy with their work or not. Frankly, since the core of QC is to deliver bad news, and nobody likes bad news, the idea of not delivering it can be seductive. 

But we're not that expensive. I earn a decent living causing headaches for people who are arguably smarter than i am (software developers), but they earn a better living. And Tyco could have absolutely found a third party with no inclination to cut their manufacturer any slack. 

I'm kind of a cheap **BLEEP**, so I've never bought any watches that were entirely manufactured by china sea-gull. 

But i do have some chinese watches, from beijing, hangzhou, shanghai, dixmont, and possibly sea-gull that are very reliable timekeepers that look Pretty Decent if not exactly up to COSC standards on the timegrapher. 

I also spent some time today fiddling around with the keyless works and calendar quick-set works on an unbranded Tongji-with-extra-features-bolted-on movement and the parts fit together so poorly that i am stunned that they worked when the watch was all buttoned up. "GOER" brand fwiw. The initial issue was that the manual wind function wasn't working and the cause turned out to be that the slot for the winding pinion is a little too wide, and the clutch lever spring was so weak that it didn't necessarily hold it in position with the crown not pulled out. I dug into the baggie of random small watch springs and modified one to do a better job, and was then astounded that the date quick-set parts work at all because i can barely assemble them properly owing to the way that the parts fit together being tens of microns from ideal. 

basically, there's a quick-set bridge with a V-shaped slot that fits over the same pin on the set lever that the setting lever spring snaps against, right? And in the crown-fully-in position it doesn't seem to fit over that pin at all, but i guess it does slightly? And in the 1st and 2nd positions it barely rides it correctly. 

Edited January 30, 2022 by TimpanogosSlim