Where Are The New Minelabs Made These Days?

[xlbsa]

亚洲制造给大家提供了低廉优质的产品！大家应该开心才是！谁都不想用一千多美元买一台800吧😀

[phrunt]

1 hour ago, xlbsa said:

亚洲制造给大家提供了低廉优质的产品！大家应该开心才是！谁都不想用一千多美元买一台800吧😀

Made in Asia provides you with low-cost and high-quality products! Everyone 
should be happy! No one wants to buy an 800 for more than a thousand dollars :)

You're not far off correct although it depends on how your production is done in Asia, there are two ways... cheap and nasty or high quality advanced manufacturing methods.  Some of the move is suspected to be due to corporate greed, or keeping shareholders happy, ML shifted production from Australia to Malaysia to cut production costs as wages and well everything to do with production including the real estate for the factory would cost them much more in Australia.  Australia has some of the highest wages in the world and Malaysia by comparison wages are VERY low as is everything else. 

While I'd rather they kept production in their homeland, I understand their reasons for shifting it and as painful as it is to agree with the move I do.  It's the world we live in whereby many economies are no longer suitable for manufacturing if they want to remain competitive or have a high profit margin or they just don't have the required facilities as more and more production was shifted offshore.  As long as they use the extra income they make by having lower production costs for future development (R&D) and not just to line peoples pockets Its more bearable.

Also, sometimes when it comes to manufacturing moving production to countries that are major manufacturing bases can improve quality as it's what they do, they're setup for it and have all the proper equipment and robotics and other high end electronics manufacturing equipment to make a better product than it in it's source country.  

I suspect this was part of the reason behind Minelabs move as they outsourced their manufacturing to a specialist manufacturing business that just happens to be in Malaysia.   If you look at some of the things they make at their factory you'll see they're no slouch, aerospace, security, defense and space gear like satellites electronics.   They do medical devices, medical diagnostic equipment and surgical robotics, this isn't some sweat shop in a metal shed with palm leaves for a roof as the perception may be.

I think the move if anything would have improved electronics quality, or at least allowed them to produce electronics that were much harder or near impossible to produce in house as their detectors became more advanced in their electronics. 

The Plexus facilities are far more advanced than what Minelab would have had in Australia, this I have no doubt.  No matter how good manufacturing is, it can't fix design faults though, or cost cutting on shafts and other components, or just plain bad luck with unexpected questionable quality electronic components ordered for the production line.  You can't help if a supplier provides product like a tiny little diode that doesn't meet quality expectations or provides a bad batch of something, it's not the manufacturer that makes the PCB's fault.  It's a complex web.

[xlbsa]

6 hours ago, phrunt said:

虽然这取决于您在亚洲的生产方式，但您的正确性并不遥远，有两种方法......廉价和讨厌的或高质量的先进制造方法。部分此举被怀疑是由于企业贪婪，或为了让股东满意，ML 将生产从澳大利亚转移到马来西亚以降低生产成本，因为工资以及与生产有关的一切，包括工厂的房地产，都会使他们花费更多在澳大利亚。澳大利亚的工资是世界上最高的，相比之下，马来西亚的工资和其他所有东西一样都非常低。 

虽然我宁愿他们将生产留在他们的祖国，但我理解他们转移它的原因，并且同意我所做的举动是多么痛苦。在我们生活的世界中，如果许多经济体想要保持竞争力或获得高利润率，或者随着越来越多的生产转移到海外，他们只是没有所需的设施，它们就不再适合制造业。只要他们将通过降低生产成本获得的额外收入用于未来的开发（R＆D），而不仅仅是为了满足人们的口袋。

此外，有时在制造方面，将生产转移到主要制造基地的国家可以提高质量，因为这是他们所做的，他们为此做好了准备，并拥有所有适当的设备和机器人技术以及其他高端电子制造设备来制造比它的来源国更好的产品。  

我怀疑这是 Minelabs 之所以采取行动的部分原因，因为他们将制造业务外包给一家恰好位于马来西亚的专业制造企业。如果你看看他们在工厂生产的一些东西，你会发现它们并不松懈，航空航天、安全、国防和太空设备，如卫星电子设备。他们做医疗设备、医疗诊断设备和手术机器人，这不是像人们想象的那样用棕榈叶做屋顶的金属棚里的血汗工厂。

我认为此举是否会提高电子产品的质量，或者至少允许他们生产在内部更难或几乎不可能生产的电子产品，因为他们的探测器在电子产品中变得更加先进。 

Plexus 的设施比 Minelab 在澳大利亚的设施先进得多，这一点我毫不怀疑。无论制造多么好，它都无法修复设计缺陷，或削减轴和其他组件的成本，或者只是为生产线订购的质量有问题的意外电子组件带来了不幸。如果供应商提供的产品如不符合质量期望的微小二极管或提供的产品批次不佳，您将无能为力，这不是制造商制造 PCB 的问题。这是一个复杂的网络。

我完全赞同您的看法！minelab把生产基地放在亚洲可以给全世界的探测器爱好者提供大量高品质且价格低廉的设备！对爱好者来说谁都想拥有物美价廉且性能完美的探测器！

[midalake]

I have been to different parts of Asia.  Most would be shocked how far they are in front of us. 

[mn90403]

I traveled for 3 weeks in Malaysia in 1999 with a Malaysian.  During that trip I went to KL and also went to Penang where it is mostly people of Chinese descent. There were areas of the country that were quite western and areas up toward Thailand that were very rural.  I'm sure that in the years since they have automated many things that were once hand assembled.  Penang was ahead of the rest of the country and this is where Minelab has listed their offices so I'm not overly concerned about quality but some think that Malaysia abuses their workers but I have no knowledge of this.

[Aureous]

Two points, Minelab have a huuuge markup from actual production costs and the end wholesale price of the product. The 4500 was something like 350% so its likely that hasn't changed. BUT, Minelab have huuuuge overheads with a world class R&D dept which swallows lots of money to provide us all with cutting edge detection tech. There's no doubt that ML are doing 90% of all of the actual R&D advancements in metal detector technology....no one else comes close. So, with that in mind, lower costs in manufacturing become crucial.

2nd point is that China is no friend to Codan and Minelab. Both parent and child companies have been hacked and spied upon extensively. With Codan being a world class comms company and lots of military contracts/connections, the electronics manufacturing (PCB, power supply, screen etc) had to be placed in a friendly country (Commonwealth, ASEAN, English speaking) with excellent quality control and strong, anti Chinese security measures. Malaysia is the only country that 'fits the bill'.