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Nexus Q Stretches "Made in USA" Label
sl4shd0rk writes "Among the much ballyhooed tech at Google I/O last week was the Google Nexus Q. Google made an effort to proudly point out the device was "Made in the USA" and even had it stamped on the back of it. A tear-down at ifixit.com however, reveals the guts of the thing are mostly manufactured overseas at the expected locations (China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, et al). Wired also posted a tear-down in which they reveal a die-casting shop in Wisconsin is the source of the zinc housing, but certainly not the entire device as some news sources reported. It's great that Google decided to utilize the struggling U.S. manufacturing sector for this, but claiming the device is USA made, and being blatantly vague about its origins is quite misleading." How struggling the U.S. manufacturing sector is depends on who you ask and how you measure, remember.
Slashdot should really consider hiring an editor.
The housing and assembly is done in the US.
The article is from someone who will go to pedantic lengths to justify their hate.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Perhaps they have never disassembled an "american car" with all the parts stamped "made in Canda" or "made in mexico".
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Well, what do you expect? The USA has outsourced just about all of its high-tech manufacturing overseas. There are a lot of parts that Google probably can't even get domestically. I think the point is that they're making more of the thing in the USA than most electronic gizmos. If they're successful and there's a lot of demand for the Nexus Q, and more importantly, if other companies follow suit and the demand for electronics supply to be close-at-hand increases, then you'll see a ripple effect for more things like chips being manufactured in the USA.
Love it when /. editors add links to paywalled articles...
Serious question. On some stories (there are certain patterns but I won't bore you), I notice a lot of the kinds of comments I am replying to right now. These comments have blatant racist/vulgar/nsfw word-spewings and are almost always from AC's. Is this some kind of coordinated effort to keep people at work or anywhere else there may be filters for this kind of stuff from reading this content? I notice it a lot on anything that praises open source or even tangentially like this Android running device. Just curious about people's thoughts.
Making stickers in the USA, that have "Made in the USA" printed on them....
Many of the parts listed in the article had multiple possible source countries, and several of them listed US plants as potential sources. Conceivably Google could have requested those plants be used as much as possible.
Even if that's not the case, we're talking chips here. The housing was made in the USA, several of the chips were as well. It's reasonable to assume that the boards were made in a US plant, that the work of mounting chips to boards, of attaching connectors, of assembling the units, of doing QA, etc. etc. was done in a factory in the USA.
Most of the human labor (in other words the actual jobs) was performed in the USA. The foreign-sourced components are small enough that there was likely a lot more robot labor than human labor involved.
I'd say what you're really paying for in buying that Made in the USA label is employment for Americans, and you're getting it.
Even if it is a bit fuzzy, the FTC regulates the use of express claims like "Made in the USA" See this webpage for details:
http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus03-complying-made-usa-standard
In short, not every part of the device needs to be from the US for the device to be "Made in the USA". Here is a relevent exerpt for people who are interested, but not THAT interested:
-------------------
What factors does the Commission consider to determine whether a product is "all or virtually all" made in the U.S.?
The product’s final assembly or processing must take place in the U.S. The Commission then considers other factors, including how much of the product’s total manufacturing costs can be assigned to U.S. parts and processing, and how far removed any foreign content is from the finished product. In some instances, only a small portion of the total manufacturing costs are attributable to foreign processing, but that processing represents a significant amount of the product’s overall processing. The same could be true for some foreign parts. In these cases, the foreign content (processing or parts) is more than negligible, and, as a result, unqualified claims are inappropriate.
Example: A company produces propane barbecue grills at a plant in Nevada. The product’s major components include the gas valve, burner and aluminum housing, each of which is made in the U.S. The grill’s knobs and tubing are imported from Mexico. An unqualified Made in USA claim is not likely to be deceptive because the knobs and tubing make up a negligible portion of the product’s total manufacturing costs and are insignificant parts of the final product.
Example: A table lamp is assembled in the U.S. from American-made brass, an American-made Tiffany-style lampshade, and an imported base. The base accounts for a small percent of the total cost of making the lamp. An unqualified Made in USA claim is deceptive for two reasons: The base is not far enough removed in the manufacturing process from the finished product to be of little consequence and it is a significant part of the final product.
Lets start refering to The War Against Terror by it's initials. . .
The teardown lists the chips and *potential* points of origin, a few which could not have been produced domestically. The proportion of chips that actually might have been sourced from US is actually pretty significant (more than I thought would have been possible). Of the components that might have been sourced from overseas or domestically, they have no idea how those parts were fulfilled (though at least for DIMMs, the SPD reveals the manufacturing plant if you understand the manufacturer specific location codes).
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Those labels are required by law, and what they require is that the country of final assembly is where things are labeled. Now you can argue if that is stupid or not, but that is how it is done, and has been for a long time (back when it was implemented it made more sense).
Almost all tech devices are a hodge podge of components from different places. Even a single component can have many places. Like say you get a 22nm Ivy Bridge Intel processor. Well it was fabricated in the USA, in Chandler Arizona. That's where Intel's 22nm fab is (though I understand they are bringing up 22nm at their fab in Israel soon here). However once it is fabbed, it is shipped off to another site for testing and packing. There is one in the US, but also one in Costa Rica, Singapore, and other places. So your processor may well be stamped "Costa Rica" even though the fabrication was done in the US.
Of course that then goes on a motherboard almost certainly made in China, they are pretty much the only place that makes them. However on that motherboard is components from all over. The capacitors are often from Japan, they are really big in that market. The southbridge chipset is probably from the US, other incidental chips often from Taiwan. The memory that goes on there then depends on the brand. A lot of it is made in Taiwan, some in Germany, some in the US, just depends on who you get it from it is a lot more world wide. The harddrive is probably from Malaysia, that is where most are made, though there are other places and of course the harddrive itself has a bunch of components from different places.
This just continues. We live in a global economy and most things are built of components from all over. In some cases, you discover that only one country really does a given thing. They've gotten good at it, so nobody else really competes.
The "made in" labels always specify the place of final assembly. If you want that changed, well you can work on that, but it is pretty entrenched and I doubt it is going anywhere. No way we are going to list every place. Otherwise you are going to have a device that says "Made of components from the US, Canada, Mexico, China, Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, Germany, France, and oh fuck it about 20 other nations."
Place holders for threadjacking when it gets crowded..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
If you are living in the US then buying stuff MADE IN THE USA is buying stuff made by "your fellow citizens".
In fact i would bet that many folks here would pay a bit extra for something if they knew that it was "Made By Fred Rogers #586-23-6431D" and they could in fact Meet Mr Rogers"
so if you are living in %other country% you might prefer an item made in %other country% unless you knew that %other country% was absolute rubbish in making %item%
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
I heard that the 'Made in the USA' sticker was made in Mexico.
Actually, the suit making the statement went to great lengths to play-down the "Made in the USA" point, going so far as to say that it would not be a significant part of their marketing strategy. Don't let things like facts get in the way of a good hate, though...
1. People working in foreign countries often make far less and in worse conditions. I'm not saying it's always the stereotypical Nike sweatshop, but a lot of places treat their workers unfairly due to poor regulation. A device made in the US must be made by workers with certain allowances (forty hour work weeks, minimum wage, usually paid sick leave and other benefits for something like electronics manufacture) that are not guaranteed elsewhere. If you have to employ someone, better to employ a person whose employer will care for them sustainably. 2. The more countries involved, and the further they are apart, the larger the carbon footprint of each device. 3. Maintaining a favorable balance of imports over exports is a basic requirement for a healthy economy. Given the amount of goods we import, and the amount of goods electronics-manufacturing countries export, they will not be harmed by losing a small bit of our business, while each chain of imports weakens us materially. It's like cooking at home versus eating take out: yes, the tip you give the delivery man will allow HIM to go home and feed HIMSELF, but honestly you should save the money so you can make rent
If I can't thread-jack, I don't comment. Period.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
OMFG! Some of the ICs are only made in foreign countries! Some might be made in foreign countries, but are also made in the US! They only make most of the parts and assemble it in the US!
I read the tear down at Fix-it link, but it doesn't match the headline here. Neither does the CNN article linked claim that the entire device is made in the US.
"A tear-down at ifixit.com however, reveals the guts of the thing are mostly manufactured overseas at the expected locations (China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, et al)." Except, it doesn't. Nothing in the tear-down supports that claim.
This is just trolling for those that don't RTFAs, by a submitter who does not understand manufacturing and apparently didn't RTFAs either
I read a story on the people who make Mag flashlights. They are very proud of "made in the USA" and wanted a 100% USA-manufactured product. Even for something as simple as a flashlight, turned out that one part could not be sourced from the USA, and gearing op manufacturing themselves would have been prohibitively expensive.
I'm not saying Google's in this exact boat, but it is hard to expect 100% made in the USA from any product of reasonable complexity if something as simple as a flashlight can't do it.