China manufacturing is an interesting subject and I import quite a bit from China. They can engineer as good as the rest of them but it always comes down to cost. As an example one of the items I have made over there is a toothbrush and get 50k manufactured a time to my own design, packed in a blister pack. These currently cost me 0.13 USD / unit. They are high quality and have never (touch wood) had a single problem or return. I have never knocked the factory down on price. I know if I wanted I could cut the manufacturing price at least half but with consequences. Lower grade materials would be used in manufacture, processes would be missed and/or sped up and no quality control at the end. The manufacturer knows I want a top quality product with all the certification and that I am willing to pay the premium for that. That said it is still a fraction of what I could get it made for in the UK (if I could get one made here!). At the other end, a mate of mine used to have digital cameras made for him out there. They were very, very low end budget cameras, manufactured at the cheapest price possible and came in a blister pack. If I remember rightly I think they retailed for about 20quid. He worked on 40% returns as faulty. It was more profitable for him to throw away 40% including all the man hours and postage dealing with that than get them made to a higher quality. It's a fascinating market. Now back onto plant, I'm sure the Chinese could manufacture an excavator that could match up to all the known brands and even be better if they wanted to and retail at a fraction of the cost of current machines, and they might! The danger is finding that manufacturer and who's going to put their hand in their pocket first to test the water and risk getting stung. Then of course there's the problem of does the product you bought even resemble the pre production sample that was sent to you or tried out (that's a whole nuther story)!
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