Case in point: A product I saw at a public facility recently had the U.S. flag showing through the die-cut of the metal container. Proudly built in the U.S., right? Wrong. Curious about whether the product was really made in the U.S., I pulled the whole package out of the metal container. Just below the U.S. flag and the UPC code were the words, “Made in China.”

In an ideal world, our global economy would share high standards and the job would go to the best company, wherever that company builds its products. Unfortunately, the reason it matters where your products are built is that the quality standards customers depend on are frequently much lower when product is built overseas—more specifically, when product is built in China, a fact we have all seen in numerous news reports and that we have continued to study ourselves here at Carrio Cabling.

I can’t tell you how many companies I have studied that do at least some of their business overseas, while proclaiming to be “made in the U.S.A.” If you do even a little bit of investigating, you can easily discover this for yourself.

For instance, not long ago Carrio Cabling bid on a project, and won, against a number of other companies. Everything about Carrio was more competitive—our designs, our pricing, our service—and for that I am grateful.

Our new customer told us that they do not want this particular product to be built overseas, and that is why they selected all of these companies as finalists.

But I think our customer may have been misled into thinking that my competitors were going to build this product in the U.S. On the surface, I can see why they thought so. My competitors have offices in the U.S., and one of them has a picture of an American flag on its home page. But buried in their websites are words and phrases like “global sourcing,” “integrated Asian and U.S. supply chain management,” “flexibility of low-cost outsourcing,” “strategic overseas alliances,” and so on.

I could say much more about the problems I have seen firsthand with China-made products, but for now I’ll end this by saying,  “U.S. made” does not always equal U.S. made. Make sure you know what you are getting, even after you approve the first article.

Carrio Cabling Corporation builds all of its products—every time—in the U.S., at our Colorado manufacturing facility.

True Custom™

What Carrio Cabling means by “custom” is really custom – not something we took off the shelf, made a minor change to, and decided to call “custom.” 

Carrio True Custom™ does not mean higher pricing. In fact, in many cases you’ll pay less than you’d pay for a so-called standard product because you won’t be paying for features you don’t need. The features and performance you’ll get from Carrio will match your needs.

A True Custom™ product from Carrio gives you the features you want and the performance you want. Period. It’s that simple. That’s why we call it True Custom™. 

Check us out: www.carriocabling.com

Further, a True Custom™ product from Carrio gives you the features you want and the performance you want. Carrio custom does not equate to higher prices. In fact, in many cases you will pay less because you won’t be paying for features you don’t need. The features and performance you get from us will match your needs. Make sense? Sound great? We think so, and we hope our customers do, too.

The result is my first book, A Simple Man Living in a Complex World: Life and Business—Campfire Stories from the Asylum.

What’s it about?

• How businesses and consumers are mesmerized by mass production
• Why cellular manufacturing works
• Why it takes so darn long to get your “customized, just-the-way-you-want-it” sub at your local sandwich shop (or any product, for that matter)
• The quest for the holy grail of near-zero pricing
• How what seems like a crummy teenage job can change your life
• The hidden lessons of Star Trek and Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory
• The simple principles for running your business and your life so they are a success

A Simple Man Living in a Complex World is available on Amazon or you can order it directly from us. I hope the book inspires you and makes you think; at a minimum, perhaps it will give you a few laughs. As I was writing, I was inspired to draw some illustrations. They look like something I scratched out in Mr. Doezema’s 6th-grade class at Redlands Christian School in California, but I included them anyway since most days I still feel like that kid.

WARNING: COMEDY & THOUGHT-PROVOKING IDEAS AHEAD
If you can’t handle either, stop here.

It’s a sad state of affairs today. Not only is nearly every type of product imaginable made in China, but more and more Americans are on edge about the safety of buying China made. In fact, shouldn’t we be wondering about the sanity of this practice? Tainted toothpaste, defective tires, lead paint, mysterious ingredients, metal fragments in Valentine’s candy….are we crazy?

To compound the problem for Milfred and Betty Consumer, even if they decide to avoid anything China made, good luck. As Sara Bongiorni’s 2007 book A Year Without “Made in China” showed, this is a nearly impossible task.

Let’s be clear: The deplorable quality of so many Chinese goods is no reflection on the average Chinese worker, the Chinese people themselves, or products made in other countries. In fact, hey…maybe some day the vast majority of Chinese manufacturers will be following the same standards we follow in this country. When and if that happens, we American manufacturers may have something valid to worry about – and it may be time to look to them for tips.

In the meantime, we consumers have a quality problem on our hands. And we American manufacturers – those, at least, who haven’t given up and gone overseas with the rest of the gang – have a great market niche to fill.

April 22, 2008 Today’s Example:
Toilet seat covers, AKA “ass gaskets”

Some of the products we consumers use on a regular basis are fraught with manufacturing flaws, flaws I believe are amplified when American companies decide to send jobs and dollars to China. Case in point: the thin piece of paper available to us in toilet stalls across America to protect us from germs transmitted via the toilet seat. This ridiculously sheer piece of paper, AKA an ass gasket¸ is a great example of the potentially disastrous marriage of poor manufacturing and anything China made these days. There are problems with the design of the whole thing, whether made in the good ‘ole U.S. of A. or made in China, but I have to wonder what problems may befall us in the future just by trying to respond when nature calls.

Let’s look, first, at the design of the whole thing.

The gasket is essentially a rectangle, with a die-cut, open-ended oval shape…like the inside edge of a toilet seat. The sanitary center section is supposed to detach so you can use it. We’ll get to the problem of actually trying to use it in a minute, but the first problem the public restroom user faces is getting the so-called ask gasket out of the dispenser.

The average box holds 250-count, but the box is a third to 50 percent too small, which makes it bulge. The original gasket dispenser was a metal box with a lever on the right-hand side. I think the bulging box was intended to help dispense the product. But there’s a new design now – basically an open metal container, minus any dispensing lever, inside of which is a flat box bulging with gaskets. I suppose it would cost too much to make an elliptically shaped box that purposely bulges in the center.

The gaskets are so compressed in the flat box that it’s nearly impossible to just take one. When you reach in and try to remove one, you end up with a small scrap of paper between your fingers. You’ll probably go through at least two before you get a relatively intact one out. It takes a couple of tries to semi-master the act of pulling the gasket out of the box because it is destroyed in the removal process.

Let’s say you make it past getting the gasket out of the container – 1 or 2 destroyed versions lay at your feet – and you finally have one that’s not torn… too much. Your next task is to tear away the sanitary center section, which is largely cut away, but held together at three or four points.

For reasons unknown, ass gasket manufacturers have decided to make these reinforced points very long and place them along the widest part of the oval center and thus the least amount of paper between the center and the outer edge of the gasket. So if you try to tear the sanitary center out, it tears right through the side of the gasket. The result? A third or fourth tattered gasket now lays on the floor with the other two.

Why not make each attached point very, very small — say .003 – so it can be very easily torn? But, instead, each point is about an inch long. You practically need a pair of scissors to cut it. So there you are, while trying to get your business done, trying to tear along the line that will supposedly swing the center flap down and away. But instead, the center flap only partially tears or tears half of the gasket, and you are left with pieces of torn paper in your hand. I believe this is a way to sell more gaskets.

Let’s say you have succeeded in tearing away some part of the center section. Now you attempt to set the whole thing in its appropriate location. But the sanitary, floppy center – we’ll call it the tongue, if you will – touches the water in the tank. The tongue capillary attracts and the gasket miraculously moves forward and goes right into the toilet before you’ve actually used it. And now you have to repeat the process.

Not long ago, I visited the restroom of a local coffee shop to check out the latest version of the ass gasket. I found the problems highlighted here, but I also discovered, not surprisingly, that they are now made in China. What got my blood especially boiling was the picture of an American flag above the UPC scannable bar code and, underneath that, the words “Made in China.” Of course, the American flag is the only thing visible when the dispensing box is inside the metal container. I could only see the words “Made in China” when I pulled the box out.

My blood pressure was rising at this point, but I was also worried. What are these things made of now that they are made in China? Are they made of grade A, sanitized, 100% wood pulp? Or are they perhaps made of rice pulp?

After all, that’s how Chinese manufacturers make their packing boxes, an approach that in and of itself isn’t all bad. But I won’t be surprised to learn some day that there’s some sort of terrible flesh-eating virus inside the pulp because the Chinese manufacturer decided to skip the sanitizing step to kill any possible nasties. Maybe it will be like the Chinese company that simply decided one day to stop adding gum strips to automobile tires…you know, the little pieces of rubber that actually hold the tire treads together.

Perhaps we’ll find out one day that every time we sit down on one of these presumably sanitary pieces of paper, a “C” is etched in our posterior from some unknown something. If I ever use one of these again, I’ll think I’m being protected, but I’ll be wondering whether every time I sit down I’m taking a shot of formaldehyde, which American inspectors have been finding in excessive levels in imported Chinese plywood.

So many business owners are criticized, wholesale, for their lack of regard for the environment. Carrio Cabling takes pride in doing everything we can to reduce consumption, reuse materials, and recycle. But in this case, I’d prefer to cut down a gigantic 250- to 500-year-old redwood in the Pacific Northwest and have a great American company make it – design flaws and all. At least I’d trust that it is free of cooties, like it’s supposed to be. Besides, when I flush, I want to flush with pride.

You know, toilet seat cover manufacturers have a great market. They can move 20-30-40 percent more product because a good 20-30 percent cannot be removed from the dispensing unit…and another 20-30 percent are destroyed in the process of trying to tear out the sanitary center section. The end user, the butt of all jokes, is the one who’s frustrated. Even the purchaser of these products may be in the dark. After all, how many ass gasket users report back to the company about the number torn, destroyed, or inadvertently sucked into the toilet before use?

It’s the distributors who are making money by moving 20-30 percent more ass gaskets because they’re of inferior quality. These are the same companies who, amazingly, print a black American flag above the words “Made in China.”

The gasket dilemma is an arena that environmentalists ought to be focused on. Imagine if 30 percent less ass gaskets were used in the United States, how much paper would not be wasted. Imagine if the user could actually use the very first one, the first time, as God intended. Think about that.

Attention Purchasing Agents:

Your dad just called. He’s about to have heart surgery. Did you sell his hospital the good cables? Or the “half price” ones?

When you hear a supplier, typically one whose business is located across the oceans, offer you “half price,” you jump, don’t you? Of course! You’d be a fool if you didn’t, right?

What could be better than getting whatever it is for half price? Well, maybe only one thing, you tell yourself: the look of utter satisfaction on stockholders’ faces – and deep admiration for you – at the vast profits they all will be reaping because of your amazing work. “Wow, Frank!,” you imagine them saying. “You are doing a fantastic job for this company. We couldn’t do it without you.”

Fast forward six months. One of your engineers has discovered that the cable this overseas magician manufactured for you isn’t made of the same materials. At first you aren’t too worried. After all, you rationalize, it’s probably an equally high-quality, reliable material …just different. Isn’t it? It won’t matter, will it, if the material is just slightly different?

But then he tells you that the copper that was supposed to be used at the contact points was substituted with stainless steel and that the strain relief broke after just 5-6 simple flexs, instead of the 100,000+ standard your previous supplier used.

Suddenly you feel sick. Your company sold these cables to thousands of hospitals across the U.S. for their pulse oximeter monitors.

The potential liability is gigantic. Pulse oximeters measure the oxygen saturation of arterial blood. Their performance is critical to ensuring that medical professionals have the accurate and reliable information they need to intervene in potentially life-threatening situations.

Fact is, very few purchasing agents consider the long-term, potentially extremely high cost of selling out high quality standards for the allure of low prices.

What’s the old adage? If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Several months ago, a customer said something to me that was another example of the utter fascination people have with the manufacturing god of mass production. He was defending one of our competitors, who had quoted a lead time that was significantly longer than Carrio’s. “As a company grows, lead times grow,” he said. “That’s just the way it is. Everybody knows that.”

The implication was that my competitor’s services were in demand and therefore, more desirable and that accepting long lead times was part of the price of working with what must be a successful company…like a badge of honor. Of course, the converse was also implied: Because Carrio Cabling’s cycle times are so short, our business must be unstable and unsuccessful. Clearly, in this goofball’s world, we didn’t have enough business; if we did, we wouldn’t be able to deliver quickly.

This upside-down view of lengthy lead times is a symptom of the extent to which the mass production view of the world is embedded in our brains. In the mass production mentality, companies “batch” steps of the manufacturing process; obviously then, as orders stack up, it’s going to take longer to get product through the phases of the system. You don’t have to look far to see the effects of this nutty approach. Insurance claims, refund checks, requests for public documents. How long could it possibly take to process a refund check, for example? An hour? Two hours? But how long does it take to get your check? More like 6-8 weeks, if you’re lucky, right?

In fact, if the lead times of one of my suppliers grow as its business grows, I turn up the CSM™ – the patented Carrio Scrutineering Meter. First of all, company growth has zero bearing on the ability to move in the marketplace. There’s nothing glamorous, or better, or smarter about working with a growing company. In addition, creeping lead times are nearly always a signal that the company’s processes have been poor from the get-go. Growing cycle times have simply amplified weaknesses that have been there all along…weaknesses that are likely the result of some version of batching the steps of production.

Carrio’s lead times have always been short: Raw material lead time plus a one-day build. Short lead times have many advantages, the most obvious of which is that your customers will be infinitely happier. But “what’s in it for me,” you might ask, in addition to simply meeting customers’ never-ending desire for product now, now, now? Why should you shorten your lead times? Fact is, there’s a lot in it for you, if you have the courage to do it.

Numero uno, quick turn-around times expose weaknesses – supply chain problems, poor or ineffective customer service, waste and inefficiency in handling, and manufacturing process weaknesses that equate to higher defects.

Numero deuce, speedy cycle times make your company and your customers more responsive to a changing marketplace. The latest product improvement or new product can be implemented to meet the very latest demands and needs now, when the marketplace is hot, not sometime out in the future when the window has closed.

Numero tre, the ability to deliver product nearly as quickly as the raw materials are in hand makes customers very happy. Happy customers stick around; unhappy customers go away.

Carrio Cabling’s one-day build cycle goes hand in hand with the lot-size-of-one process we have used for more than 15 years. It isn’t mystical or difficult. But it does require upending the long-standing fascination people seem to have with mass production and continually educating about the unbelievable value to everyone of one at a time.