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Its not just the item cost which will be way, way less than 50% of close to home production when labour and and all production costs are taken into account.
Most importantly, lead times are less, design, tooling and capital equipment for production in Asia are state of the art. The effect of this is immense and seen in the quality of current offerings...
"Skilled" staff for all the pre-production and prototyping work are also way cheaper PLUS new and tooling and design costs are also considerably lower than in EU, USA, UK AU or any "western" country. As these increase it'll shift again...India, Vietnam..wherever, but probably not to Europe or the west...
Its not that the Western companies can't do it locally - Of course they can - but most of them can't afford to do it, and if they did the rate of new offerings would drop to a trickle and the cost would soar - and we'd get less for more $$$.
Look at Electronics and other industries... its a pattern thats happened time and time again over the years.
Richard
Most importantly, lead times are less, design, tooling and capital equipment for production in Asia are state of the art. The effect of this is immense and seen in the quality of current offerings...
"Skilled" staff for all the pre-production and prototyping work are also way cheaper PLUS new and tooling and design costs are also considerably lower than in EU, USA, UK AU or any "western" country. As these increase it'll shift again...India, Vietnam..wherever, but probably not to Europe or the west...
Its not that the Western companies can't do it locally - Of course they can - but most of them can't afford to do it, and if they did the rate of new offerings would drop to a trickle and the cost would soar - and we'd get less for more $$$.
Look at Electronics and other industries... its a pattern thats happened time and time again over the years.
Richard
