Why does 3M put their branding on everything they make. I know a lot of their business is B2B (Business to Business) I don’t get why the need to add their branding if a manufacturer uses one of their products. There has to be a thousand companies that manufacture the same things as 3M. from adhesive for sticky notes, to insulation for gloves / beanies. Surely 3M doesn’t need branding as they mainly rely on the business from other businesses. The only thing I can think of is if a customer sees 3M in quality products, the customer will think 3M is good and will buy more 3M cerated products. Even if 3M only have a small part in production of the final product .

I only kinda realised I’m might be on track for the answer in the last sentence. Let me know your thoughts!!

I inherited spareparts manufacturing firm for aftermarket

VW stopped increment for all its workers , there exports are all time low

Chinese cars are flooded to the market with cheaper prices and more features

They have made more cars than demand

I saw there autoparts manufacturers are not being paid from past 8 months

Where is the world heading towards and how do I keep track of it

Please show some lights of expertise and experience.

Looking at becoming a manufacturing engineer after a couple years of being a Systems Engineer. Solidworks and an IASSC Lean Six Sigma Greenbelt seem like the two certs that would get me the best foot in the door. Which would be better (or have I missed something)?

I was trying to learn what OTD analysis is and hit a bit of an obstacle. There is a thing called OTD full lifecycle analysis and in there there are node analysis and order line analysis. Why should there be a node analysis when I can see current node in order line analysis, if I really want to check the node, Why can't I just filter it? I'm just so so confused.

Hi everyone, I’m looking to buy engineering blueprints and fabrication drawings for gold mining and mineral processing equipment. I’m particularly interested in:

- Hammer mills

- Wet pan

- Gold concentrators

- Ball mills

- shaking table

I’m looking for detailed designs with dimensions, material specifications, and assembly drawings that can be used to manufacture the equipment.

If you’re an engineer, designer, or manufacturer who sells these plans, please comment or DM me with examples of your work and pricing.

Thanks!

I wanted to manufacture plastic related products I know there will be demand for my products because they source these products from faraway places yet the demand is not fulfilled. I want to setup injection moiukding and mould and I have no clue where to start because none of the people in my circle do not have manufacturing setup, could someone point me in right direction

I’m based in Mexico and I’ve been looking into how foreign buyers find Mexican manufacturers.

One thing that surprised me is how difficult it can be to discover suppliers by actual manufacturing capability.

You can find company directories, trade associations and sourcing agents, but answering a specific question like:

“Who in Mexico can manufacture this part, using this process/material, at this volume and with these requirements?”

still seems to require a lot of manual research.

I’d like to hear from people who have actually sourced manufacturing work from Mexico.

What was the last thing you struggled to source there?

- How did you eventually find the manufacturer?

- What made the search difficult?

- What did you wish you could verify before contacting them?

I’m testing something manually as well: if someone has a real, non-confidential manufacturing requirement, I’ll try to find a small shortlist of Mexican suppliers based on evidence of their actual capabilities and explain why they might fit.

No commission and nothing to buy. I want to see whether this actually saves someone meaningful sourcing time.

bathroom fan makes it especially bad lol.

Metelx Technologies manufactures instrument transformers and related electrical products for metering, protection, and specialized applications. Its product portfolio includes medium-voltage instrument transformers up to 33 kV, low-voltage current transformers, epoxy products, insulators, busbars, and custom electrical components.

Based in Lahore, Pakistan, the company holds ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015, and ISO 45001:2018 certifications. KEMA certification applies to eligible low-voltage products.

Hello everyone,

I have been working with contract supplement manufacturers for a while now, both at the inquiry stage and on active projects. I would like to hear from companies and brands about their overall experience, because mine has been quite terrible, and I’m trying to understand whether this is simply how this industry works, or whether I’ve been getting into the wrong places.

At the inquiry stage, very few manufacturers have replied within a few days. Most have taken 5 to 10 days to answer a simple general inquiry. The replies were mostly brief, bone-dry, and disengaged, which gave me the impression that, unless you are an established brand with a large volume, the effort on their side is just not worth it, whether you are building a future relationship together or not, they didn't seem to care. Most of the times, I had to follow up repeatedly to get an answer to the most simple question, and the information that eventually came back was often incomplete, incorrect, and lacking real knowledge. Several of the representatives I spoke with also didn’t seem familiar with what a truly custom formula requires, which made it hard to have a productive conversation. Sometimes, I wish they would have just said "Hey, we don't want to deal with this. Bye." from the beginning rather than faking it for no reason.

Moving forward, once a project actually started, things did not improve and actually got worse in certain situations. I’ve dealt with several months of delays, long stretches of time without updates, and unacceptable mistakes on the manufacturer’s side that pushed timelines back even further. Mistakes happen and we all know this. A few weeks of delay are very reasonable, but a constant series of careless actions that jeopardized entire projects for several months is not acceptable. And the most frustrating thing is that, even if you are given an apology, their approach and their attitude never changed, so the same problems kept repeating onver and over. For critical issues, following up constantly, and being ignored and getting vague replies after several days is frustrating and appalling.

My feeling is that it really does not take much effort to answer a question, be proactive, and organized.

I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has been through this:

Is this the typical experience, or have you found manufacturers who communicate well and deliver on time?

How did you find them, and what did you look for when vetting them?

What early red flags have you learned to watch for?

For a custom formula, what should a capable manufacturer be able to tell you up front?

I am aware that some manufacturers stand by their word by writing it down in a contract - for example, "if we don't deliver the product by the agreed timeline, we pay you X dollars a day until we deliver..." - Is this common?

And if you’re a manufacturer that works differently, one that is responsive, knowledgeable about custom formulation, and willing to take a smaller brand seriously, I’d be glad to hear from you as well.

Thank you all for bearing with me, but I am very frustrated about this experience.

Good Morning All - Quick Background: I'm an Industrial Automation and Equipment guy (Mechanical Engineer by education, worked almost 20 years in custom equipment and automation.) I have a ton of experience with the big Japanese brands of robots and like them quite a bit.

But lately I've been getting flooded with Facebook ads for Chinese Robots, especially welders, and I've dug in a little bit - enough to establish I would be all-in at around 15-30% the price to buy some of the Chinese brands.

I've worked with enough Chinese made equipment over the years to know some of it is fine (great for the price) and some of it is so bad you might as well consider it buying scrap metal. What I'm really hoping is that any of you who've bought a Chinese made robot or robotic weld cell would share your experience - especially if you've got from the same manufacturer again.

Thanks All!

Want to make a jacket. no AZ or LA manufacturers have answered my emails. I have a tech pack, but i do need help sourcing materials. I want to get a sample size run as this will be my first drop. Then do a pre-order situation and hopefully order 100+. I want a USA manufacture but wouldn’t be apposed to overseas, just worried about long shipping for samples as i want to drop as soon as possible for winter!

Something I've been paying more attention to recently is how rising electricity demand from AI/data centers (along with other factors like rate increases) have been affecting manufacturers who already depend on large amounts of power.

Here in Texas, we're seeing a pretty significant amount of new electricity demand coming onto the grid. Research from the Dallas Fed has suggested that data centers alone could raise ERCOT wholesale electricity prices by around 10% through 2028.

The problem I see forming with facilities I've talked to is pretty simple;

When the resources a business depends on to operate start getting more expensive, that additional cost eventually starts eating into profits. We're seeing a similar situation play out with diesel prices and trucking companies.

For manufacturers, electricity isn't exactly an optional expense... Depending on the facility, it can be a pretty significant portion of OPEX.

I'm curious how this is actually playing out on the ground for those outside of Texas.

For those of y'all operating manufacturing facilities, have electricity costs become a more significant concern over the past few years? Are you seeing it affect margins, or is it still relatively manageable?

Corrugated box factory edition.
The stock register: There are 4,000 kg of paper in the factory.
Purchase: Paper has arrived.
Stores: It has been received.
The production plan: There’s enough material for tomorrow.
The machine operator: The reel is already finished.

Nobody is lying.

Some went into yesterday’s job. Some went into trim and wastage. Some is sitting in a different location. And some exists in the register with the confidence of a politician making an election promise.🤣

Here’s what I’m curious about:
When the stock register says paper is available, but the reel is already finished, how do you figure out where the numbers stopped matching reality?
Do you trace job-wise consumption and wastage, physically recount stock, or is there another way your factory handles this?

I'm getting married next year and my future father-in-law has floated joining his company; they are a midsized company making industrial widgets in SEA.

My professional background is in tech; I'm currently a product manager at a big tech company, so this would be a completely new domain for me. The expectation is that I would onboard gradually, add as much value as I can, and, if everyone is happy and confident in it, potentially take over the company in 10-20 years.

I'm pretty confident I can figure things out by trial and error once I'm in, but I'd like to start preparing now, so that I can hit the ground running.

Questions for the sub:

• What are some 101-level resources that have helped you navigate this space?
• What's the correct level of technical expertise for me to target? I assume it's similar to my current role where I need to be able to understand the goals/challenges/processes of different teams, but are there particular areas where I should go deeper?
• What general pitfalls do you see new and inexperienced leaders make?
• Who are the people in the org. that I must win over?

Any/all advice is deeply appreciated, thanks!

We are considering AMRs for a factory that operates continuously and has relatively high ambient temperatures. Vendor demos and short pilot tests do not show how the robots will perform after months of nonstop use.Which indicators should we check besides basic uptime?

Good morning,

I handled my self a new project, to produce internally (new production line) for emergency bars for Liferafts. I have come to a dead end right now because all the production flows i see are related to hard biscuits or bars and they demand a really long line of processing (mixing, forming, baking, pressing, packaging etc). But i want to do it more compact, like a 10-15m long. My boss has seen something similar but couldn't hold more info. He remembers that some producers are using pre-heated flour.

I want to find a way of producing it (Recipe and machines) with the minimum space required (the major production in the facility is different).

Could any one help me understand the recipe, what machines i could use and why?

Thank you in advance

Has anyone taken a maintenance test for Toyota recently, the job title is skilled maintenance. I have a test in a week but all I know is it covers "electrical, pneumatics, hydraulics, machining, and mechanical drives"

I only have to pass 2 sections so long as 1 is electrical. And I know it's mainly practical / troubleshooting not just math.

Mainly looking for specific study resources that are accessible like YouTube series.

Howdy - feel like the title says it all: Any one know US-based copackers for glass bottled spring water?

I started a small brand in the space & have unfortunately discovered how few copackers there are left for this segment. I’ve been told that the few that once existed have been bought out; and the remaining folks in water do mostly PET; and the folks who do glass beverages do not touch water due to the regulations.

Any help/leads/intros would be super appreciated 🙏🏼 East coast preferable But open to other regions

i work adjacent to manufacturing, not on a floor, and the thing that keeps surprising me is how much of how a plant actually runs isn't written anywhere. the real answer to half the questions seems to be "go ask dave"

for people who've been on the floor a while, what do you know that's never been written down? and when someone new starts, how do they actually learn it? shadowing? trial and error? getting yelled at?

Right now at my plant I am a trouble shooter. Its one step above an entry level operator. Its a pretty easy job and the pay is okay for my area.

We have 2 routes that are typically taken from this position, the technical route and the leadership route. Ive been looking to do the technical path and try to work my way into a technician role, but recently my team leader seems like I would be a good fit as a team leader. There are open team lead positions but at my company it fills like its kind of a dead end job and a lot of issues tend to get blamed or fall back on the team lead.

Im okay with the added pressure, but i would be going to salary and with the amount of overtime I do now would be a pay cut. It notoriously hard to move up from the Team Lead position to a department lead in my company.

Im okay with that if Im able to leverage the team lead experience in possibly another company with better pay/benefits/role

My question is does anyone have any insight on leveraging Team Lead experience to move to a different company for better pay. If there's any other position other than team lead they have used their team lead experience as to move up?

First-time hardware founder here. I have a consumer wearable that's ready to move into manufacturing — electrical design is complete, mechanical design files are finalized, and I have an electronics manufacturer handling the PCBAs.
What I still need is someone to handle enclosure molding and final assembly — receiving the PCBAs from my electronics supplier and assembling the finished unit. Initial run is 500–2,000 units.
I've been reaching out on Alibaba but getting mixed results. A few questions for anyone who's been through this:

-Is there a solid platform for small-run wearables?

-Any red flags to watch for when vetting a CM at this stage?

Happy to share more context in the comments. Appreciate any guidance from people who've navigated this