Nexus Q Stretches "Made in USA" Label 241
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.
Like cars.. (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps they have never disassembled an "american car" with all the parts stamped "made in Canda" or "made in mexico".
WSJ Link (Score:3, Informative)
Re:WSJ Link (Score:4, Informative)
But you can get eight weeks free! All WSJ asks for is some personal information ...
Fortunately the good professors school posts the article for free: http://www.umflint.edu/som/images/Perry_WSJ_022511.pdf [umflint.edu]
You're paying for jobs, and you're getting them... (Score:4, Informative)
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.
If you have a problem, file a complaint. (Score:5, Informative)
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 [ftc.gov]
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:
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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.
Re:No, it isn't misleading (Score:5, Informative)
Speaking as someone who's worked with Customs for years, once you have a product broken down and the parts identified, it can be quite easy to tell if it's made in the USA... from a legal standpoint:
http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/nafta-alena/texte/anx401a.aspx?lang=en&view=d
Annex 401 specific rules of origin. To summarize, there's various methods by which you can determine the country of origin of something if the parts are all made elsewhere. If all of the parts qualify for Annex 401, or the value of all non-US origin parts is less than say... 40% of the total value (can't remember the exact percentage, can't be bothered to look it up, but you get the general idea), then that there is a made in USA product.
Technically, you can have an item with absolutely zero individual pieces of it made in the USA, but if the final product is assembled here, and it qualifies in having the right tariff code changes, then that just became made in the USA.
Actually... (Score:4, Informative)
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).
And that is what is required (Score:5, Informative)
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."
Re:No, it isn't misleading (Score:4, Informative)
Re:No, it isn't misleading (Score:5, Informative)
The FTC standard [ftc.gov] is that "all or virtually all" the components are made in the USA. And if you look at iFixit, you find that virtually all the major components were or could have been made in the USA; they didn't check the lot numbers to see if the parts which are made in multiple countries were, in fact, made in the US. While in general if you order a bunch of parts from a supplier you get them from wherever the supplier chooses to send them from, I'm sure that's negotiable.
(Disclosure: I work for Google, but not on the Nexus Q)
"Google made an effort to proudly point out..." (Score:3, Informative)
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...
Re:No, it isn't misleading (Score:3, Informative)
the statistics are available. Here are a couple articles about those statistics.
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/auto/is-your-car-american-made.aspx
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/american-cars/story?id=13801165
Re:No, it isn't misleading (Score:5, Informative)
The FTC requires that country-of-origin claims be assessed by portioning the manufacturing costs of the final product. A couple of dollars worth of foreign components/costs in an otherwise domestically sourced product that costs $300 is not considered to be an issue. If, on the other hand, the final product cost $5, then it's not acceptable to make a "Made in the USA" claim.
Here is a link to the FTC page which describes the situation a bit more clearly, if not nearly so briefly.
http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus03-complying-made-usa-standard [ftc.gov]
Re:No, it isn't misleading (Score:5, Informative)
Google taking 90% Chinese work and slapping it inside a US case and calling it American made
90%? Really, do you have a citation for that or just talking out of your ass? Did you read any of the articles linked? Honestly their tone was more or less impressed with the percentages, the only negative spin was the really biased /. summary. Besides the die cast case, the molded base, PCBs *and* power supply were also made in the USA, which IMO was pretty damn surprising. Additionally, so were several of the sensors and chips. And the two most time consuming (and labor intensive) manufacturing steps, PCB stuffing and final assembly, were also done in the USA.
So, basically, a few chips (some of which were US companies with fabs all over the world) and maybe a few stock nuts and bolts (but who knows as those aren't labeled) were made somewhere else. Honestly it appears they tried to source US parts and labor wherever they had a choice. Just because the US doesn't even make RAM any more doesn't mean the device can't be called "Made in the USA", jeez.
Re:No, it isn't misleading (Score:4, Informative)
"Made in the USA" and "Assembled in the USA from foreign and domestic parts" have substantially different meanings, and Google is using the wrong one of these phrases in order to fool fools.
Actually they are not. The FTC has very specific regulations as to what constitutes Made in the USA and the Nexus Q meets those regulations.
Re:No, it isn't misleading (Score:5, Informative)
It might have been obvious, but it was also wrong. The majority of it is made in the USA. Even the power supply and the PCB.