A small economic victory for a little guy.

[Ikonoklast]

A friend of mine, along with his partners, owns a small metal fabricating/finish machining shop that, until as recently as last year, was doing well, although not being used to capacity.

He and his partners felt lucky to be bumping along, keeping the lights on and paying the bills.

Until just about this time, last year.

Then, the bottom dropped out of his business.

One major contract that the shop had for years was underbid by a Chinese company, and he was told that in order to get the business, he had to match the price.

There was no way they could do so, and break even, let alone be profitable.

They lost the contract.

All this year, my friend has been scrambling to secure a line of credit to keep things afloat, and got turned down by everyone, even those banks he had done business with for years.

He and his partners have been using their personal funds to keep people employed, and are bidding on any contract they could.

They still were sub-contracted for some of the work on the bid they had lost, for some precision machined parts that were part of the larger sub-assembly contract that the Chinese took over. That was keeping them going, barely.

This last week, they got a call from the end customer. It seems that the larger finished castings that housed the sub-assemblies done by the Chinese were all out of spec, and not by a little.

They were junk, and unusable. Thousands of them.

When the customer's engineers demanded a meeting with the Chinese quality control guys, they were told they had all been 'fired'.

The finished machined parts manufactured in my friend's shop that were to be installed in these castings could not be made to fit, no matter how they tried to re-machine the tolerances in the supposed 'finished' casting supplied by the Chinese.

The end customer asked how soon they would be able to ramp up production to supply these assemblies; the completed assembly, cast housing, finish machining, internals, the whole shebang.

They needed this done NOW.

They told the customer their problems with attaining sufficient financing, the canceling of their credit line, the lack of funds for purchasing just about anything.

The customer called the bank for them, and explained just how much business the shop stood to get, under contract.

The shop ordered tooling and raw materials the next day, and are in the process of calling all their employees back to work. By the first of the year, they should be ramping up production


Merry Christmas to everyone.

[MercutioATC]

1. Congrats to your friend.

...and kudos to him for showing that a low Chinese bid can result in disaster. If only more companies would realize this and keep the work in the skilled hands of workers here in the U.S.

[Ikonoklast]

3. This came just in time.

Things were getting desperate, with no turnaround on the horizon.

They were looking at forty years of being in business down the drain.

'Cheaper' is not always 'better'. Many times, it's just 'cheap'.

[notesdev]

2. That's the economy in a nutshell

Very heartwarming story. Merry Christmas!

[rucky]

12. Especially the Ohio economy

there are dozens of shops like this in my area, facing the exact same obstacles.

[izquierdista]

4. This needs to go viral

You should write this up as a magazine article. If America would wake up to the fact that Chinese products are out of spec, contaminated with lead, sulfur and who knows what, and quickly fall apart, American manufacturing could stage a recovery. Oh I have no doubt that given time, the Chinese can remedy these problems. Japan did the same thing. Their products were crap in the 1950s, but today Japanese cars and electronics and optics are of high quality. Or will Americans meekly accept whatever crap is unloaded at the dock?

[endless october]

5. good. thanks for a story with a happy ending.

sometimes i need to read stuff like this. makes for a happier season.

[lildreamer316]

6. That's absolutely wonderful!!

I'm so happy for your friends! Give them a virtual or physical hug for me..

[driver8]

7. That is a great story -- thank you for sharing that!!

I am very happy for your friend and his employees!

I guess it still holds true that "you get what you pay for."

[bigwillq]

8. Good news.

Good story. Thanks for sharing. :hi:

[monmouth]

9. What a wonderful story and Christmas gift for those of us who love

a happy ending. Merry Christmas to you and yours and thanks for posting..

[Ikonoklast]

13. A group of us old-timers that get together are 'doing lunch' today.

My friend Joe will be there, the part-owner in the machine shop.

He, like the most of the rest of my gang, is a working man, and far from being wealthy.

I will pass along the best wishes from everyone here to him.

This is by far the best news he has had in a very stressful year.


Merry Christmas, right back atcha.

[Neecy]

10. I did some contract work recently

That involved rewriting web text for Chinese manufacturers.

I can't tell you how many Chinese websites have a link on their contact page for complaints. You'd think something like that might scare off American companies who are used to precision work, but I suppose that saving pennies is all that counts - until they get crap like you outline in the OP.

Nice story, thanks for sharing.

[Javaman]

11. I wish more people understood the cheap crap that china keeps pushing on us.

cheers for your friend! :)

[sendero]

14. Wonderful news..

... and as for the quality part, probably not that uncommon.

[Spazito]

15. That is wonderful!

I hope this 'happy ending' or 'great beginning' will be a harbinger of more good news stories for small businesses/manufacturing to come!

[Th1onein]

16. Wonderful!

This is great news! And, it just goes to show you: nothing can replace a job well done, and people are willing to pay for it, still.