Made in Britain?

Efour said:
Are there any electronic goods companies in the GB/EU that don't source their components from the far east? Is it even possible?
Since moving here i've noticed a load more things marked as "designed in Sweden" manufactured in blahblahland.

Other than Food and Clothing(which is still technically imported cotton/materials) what else can you do?
Forestry is huge here but furniture at an affordable price point is still not Swedish. Denmark and Estonia seems to dominate that market.....

THe West really is doomed..
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There are still European semiconductor manufacturers, but they’ve had to specialise to stay in business. Most supply components and assemblies to the European defence industry that doesn’t want to rely on parts made to a lower quality by a potential enemy state.

For components for consumer electronics, it’s China or South Korea if you want semi-custom ICs.
 
Conscript said:
Lamenting the state of the manufacturing industry (either for it's lack of quality output or just it's absence in general) in your country is not "hating your own country".
Quite the opposite. It's because I love my country that I want us to do better in that regard, not just pretend the opposite.

This isn't the first time you've misconstrued criticism of the UK as hatred of it. Is anything but unwavering patriotism now considered "virtue signalling"?
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Working previously in manufacturing for the oil and gas and the nuclear industry I can assure you this is utter crap. Simply put the materials sourced from the UK (steel, alloys) were the best in the world. We proved this repeatedly to our clients through testing. We also did this with the fabricated parts, machined parts and forgings. Infact, most major companies will not allow the use of anything not sourced from a limited number of countries, all of which were European.
Coatings, again those produced in the UK were superior to anything else.

Electrical cables and fibre optics - France. Outstanding quality. Plastics also France.

Chemicals, again the UK. We never had a failure to meet specification from a UK manufactured product. Neither the US, Asian or European companies had the same level of success.

What a lot of UK companies do very well is taking the best components in the world and assembling them in to the best final product. We do this so well as our standards are frequently the most strenuous in the world, exceeding American, European and anything from Asia.

What I will say though is we often have some of the most entitled workers I've ever come across. Give me a Norwegian or Japanese team any day. The best team I ever worked with were all Iranian.
 
Roar87 said:
Why would we manufacture things? It makes no sense. We're a geographically small country without many natural resources. Instead we focus on research and technology and finance, that's obvious. There isn't counter balance from the posters slating British manufacturing saying what we are good at. If you want to look at good British manufacturing go look at BAE, we have an exceptionally good high tech manufacturing industry.
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I don't disagree entirely, I just don't agree with the stance that anyone who does criticise something to do with the UK also needs to immediately counter it with praise or be considered as nothing but a UK-hating virtue signaller. It seemed like an over-sensitive response.

Dis86 said:
Working previously in manufacturing for the oil and gas and the nuclear industry I can assure you this is utter crap. Simply put the materials sourced from the UK (steel, alloys) were the best in the world. We proved this repeatedly to our clients through testing. We also did this with the fabricated parts, machined parts and forgings. Infact, most major companies will not allow the use of anything not sourced from a limited number of countries, all of which were European.
Coatings, again those produced in the UK were superior to anything else.

Electrical cables and fibre optics - France. Outstanding quality. Plastics also France.

Chemicals, again the UK. We never had a failure to meet specification from a UK manufactured product. Neither the US, Asian or European companies had the same level of success.

What a lot of UK companies do very well is taking the best components in the world and assembling them in to the best final product. We do this so well as our standards are frequently the most strenuous in the world, exceeding American, European and anything from Asia.

What I will say though is we often have some of the most entitled workers I've ever come across. Give me a Norwegian or Japanese team any day. The best team I ever worked with were all Iranian.
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What's "utter crap?"

My post wasn't criticising UK manufacturing, it was suggesting that doing so wasn't indicative of hating ones' country. But I think most people in here have been talking about consumer goods, or criticising the "Made in Britain" label for products which are anything but, rather than attacking our industrial capability as a whole.

By "wanting to do better" what I mean is that it would be nice to have more prevalent secondary industries. I would think that increasing the amount of manufactured goods we can export can only be a good thing; that doesn't mean I think UK manufacturing is sub-par. Quite the opposite. But I feel like "Made in Britiain" is not a label I see enough of on consumer goods.
 
Efour said:
Are there any electronic goods companies in the GB/EU that don't source their components from the far east? Is it even possible?
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Yes it is perfectly possible. I design PCBs for a non consumer engineering firm and we aren’t allowed to use anything Chinese
 
Industrial level manufacturing stuff - sure, there are some great high quality industries out there - however this is a more 'mature' market approach where the end purchaser being other industry will be making carefully considered purchasing choices that mean an expensive but high quality product can win out over a cheap but low quality one.

On a consumer level it's a different story, unless it's something clearly aiming at a 'prosumer' level audience, it's generally having to compete heavily on price and when that happens, corners are getting cut somewhere in the product to manage that vs stuff made elsewhere (where the corner cutting is labour costs)
 
Burnsy2023 said:
Seeing that logo makes me wonder why we exclude NI.
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Not part of Britain. Don't know why it's the focus on Britain and not the UK though. Perhaps because NI has largely lost its manufacturing base now that the shipyards over there are so quiet.
 
Dis86 said:
Working previously in manufacturing for the oil and gas and the nuclear industry I can assure you this is utter crap. Simply put the materials sourced from the UK (steel, alloys) were the best in the world. We proved this repeatedly to our clients through testing. We also did this with the fabricated parts, machined parts and forgings. Infact, most major companies will not allow the use of anything not sourced from a limited number of countries, all of which were European.
Coatings, again those produced in the UK were superior to anything else.

Electrical cables and fibre optics - France. Outstanding quality. Plastics also France.

Chemicals, again the UK. We never had a failure to meet specification from a UK manufactured product. Neither the US, Asian or European companies had the same level of success.

What a lot of UK companies do very well is taking the best components in the world and assembling them in to the best final product. We do this so well as our standards are frequently the most strenuous in the world, exceeding American, European and anything from Asia.

What I will say though is we often have some of the most entitled workers I've ever come across. Give me a Norwegian or Japanese team any day. The best team I ever worked with were all Iranian.
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In more modern times, I hear UK made carbon fibre parts are very good quality.
 
B@Th*nG said:
lol your ego is more fragile than an antique a British made lightbulb
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FTFY :D

Nasher said:
Clothing definately. Asian made shoes falls to bits within months. British made ones last a long time, even the "cheaper" ones.
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Which is ironic consider the majority of them are probably made in sweatshops in the Midlands by.... Asians ;)

I prefer British (and European) food products, because I know our animal welfare standards are generally better than the majority of other countries.

Electronics etc. however = run a mile!
 
Haggisman said:
I prefer British (and European) food products, because I know our animal welfare standards are generally better than the majority of other countries.

Electronics etc. however = run a mile!
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This, sometimes clothing too but only if it's actually of a higher quality.

Dis86 said:
Working previously in manufacturing for the oil and gas and the nuclear industry I can assure you this is utter crap. Simply put the materials sourced from the UK (steel, alloys) were the best in the world. We proved this repeatedly to our clients through testing. We also did this with the fabricated parts, machined parts and forgings. Infact, most major companies will not allow the use of anything not sourced from a limited number of countries, all of which were European.
Coatings, again those produced in the UK were superior to anything else.

Electrical cables and fibre optics - France. Outstanding quality. Plastics also France.

Chemicals, again the UK. We never had a failure to meet specification from a UK manufactured product. Neither the US, Asian or European companies had the same level of success.
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Britain being good at things like aerospace etc. is very nice but doesn't really affect the original question.

I don't generally go and buy 55 gallon drums of chemicals or a 737 nosecone.
 
Conscript said:
Lamenting the state of the manufacturing industry (either for it's lack of quality output or just it's absence in general) in your country is not "hating your own country".
Quite the opposite. It's because I love my country that I want us to do better in that regard, not just pretend the opposite.

This isn't the first time you've misconstrued criticism of the UK as hatred of it. Is anything but unwavering patriotism now considered "virtue signalling"?
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Its like brexiters want people to live like the Four Yorkshire men script and be bloody proud of it to boot.
 
When I was at a global construction equipment manufacturer, you could easily tell what was British and what was from India. The Indian imported part quality was absolutely rubbish.

A close friend of mine used to work in pottery manufacture. British china chips a lot less too. My parents had a dinner set (British) when they got married in 1985. You'd drop a plate and it would bounce.

Sometimes it does matter where it was made.
 
OpenToSuggestions said:
When I was at a global construction equipment manufacturer, you could easily tell what was British and what was from India.

A close friend of mine used to work in pottery manufacture. British china chips a lot less. My parents had a dinner set when they got married in 1985. You'd drop a plate and it would bounce.

Sometimes it does matter where it was made.
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See, the problem with making long-lasting products is that you can't sell more of it sooner.
 
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