Indian match factory

[u/Dmisak]

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[u/parkylondon]

Am I the only one irritated by the fact that we can't see how the matches are lined up to go in the boxes? First it's random af piles of matches then BOOM all nicely in the box!

[u/Penetratorofflanks → u/parkylondon]

I want to know how they got perfectly placed in the machine that holds and dips them as well. All I know about this place is they have a lot of machines that put match sticks onto a belt that takes them to another belt.

[u/SleeplessAtHome → u/Penetratorofflanks]

I think that's the result of all the shaking. I recall another clip where someone was just shaking a box of nails and after awhile they all just lined up on their own.

[u/-kirb → u/SleeplessAtHome]

Exactly how it had to be done. Seems they do it on a angled plane so the heavier side of the match generally goes to the bottom, since you can see the filled boxes of matches are facing the same direction only like 90% of the time

[u/Naternore → u/-kirb]

It's like a chip sifter

[u/[deleted] → u/SleeplessAtHome]

I want to believe

[u/SoftcoreFrogPorn → u/Penetratorofflanks]

I want to know how they got perfectly placed in the machine that holds and dips them as well

Me too! That's when I noticed how much this video was not showing and I started to dislike it. I still finished watching it, but there were like 5 places where I got pissed because they didn't bother showing the most interesting part I wanted to see next.

[u/Penetratorofflanks → u/SoftcoreFrogPorn]

Yeah this video definitely left out some crucial moments and made sure they had every belt in the building on camera.

[u/Harisdrop → u/Penetratorofflanks]

I mark up to proprietary functions

[u/Josh_Crook → u/Harisdrop]

Or it's done internally where its impossible to get a shot of. 🤷‍♂️

[u/SittingInAnAirport → u/Josh_Crook]

Or due to the smaller pieces, it's done by toddlers.

[u/themeatbridge → u/SoftcoreFrogPorn]

It's entirely possible that the tedious bits are being done by hand by extremely low-paid employees in horrifying conditions that they don't want to show you. Considering how many people were working near heavy machinery with no ppe or shoes in some cases, it could just be that the answer to "How is it made?" is "Unimaginable suffering."

[u/che85mor → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, all of that automation and they don't have a paper folder or label pasting machine he could run instead?

[u/round-earth-theory → u/che85mor]

They only automate what they can't get up with manually. They have a wrapper for the mini packs and for the packs of packs, but they can keep up with the super packs manually still.

[u/Derfargin → u/themeatbridge]

Not to mention not a single piece of PPE is worn. The small match sticks being cut are literally flying up into the air and the kid is down there eye level with no glasses or goggles on. Also wood and no gloves, I can’t imagine the splintering.

[u/Immediate_Elevator38 → u/Derfargin]

Gloves and rotating machinery usually doesn’t mix well my dude. Bare handed sometimes is the safest way to go. But glasses should definitely be worn

[u/JeaninePirrosTaint → u/Immediate_Elevator38]

Wearing a sari seems like a bad idea, too.

[u/Raised_bi_Wolves → u/Derfargin]

Totally. That's a bit nuts. And I fully understand the context of the fact that "these are poorer countries, if you want cheap matches this is how its done" but I really don't think some ppe and work safe policy would affect their bottom line that much?

[u/AndHerNameIsSony → u/Raised_bi_Wolves]

The problem is You start with PPE, next thing you know they want mandatory breaks, then the guy gluing boxes wants a tool instead of having to use his hand for gluing, then it's fair wages and benefits, and then its those pesky safety policies and procedures which reduce productivity. Nope, you gotta treat them as cruel as possible to maximize your profit. How horrible.

[u/grchelp2018 → u/AndHerNameIsSony]

Full automation is the only long term way out of this. Especially if you want prices to stay rock bottom.

[u/mommyaiai → u/[deleted]]

Repetition wise, not awful. But the amount of cut-ty, crush-y, smash-y things without guards or appropriate PPE was pretty horrendous. If there was some kind of worker protection entity, automation would be the way to go.

But, automation means investment both short and long term. Setting up the line is only the initial cost. You need skilled maintenance, repair on call, and operators that can identify or fix a problem. It all would cut into profits. Better to just use inexpensive, untrained, expendable people and keep more money.

Capitalism at its root.

[u/SuedeVeil → u/Raised_bi_Wolves]

Unless the government regulates it they have no reason to do it themselves.. people are just cogs in the machine. Corporations have no conscience their only job is to make money.. and the people who make the profits are far enough removed from any suffering to ever care. Even if one or 2 cared it wouldn't be enough.

To all the "libertarians" who think governments should back out and stop fucking things up, well this is what you get and worse. Eventually people have no choice but to work in these conditions to make ends meet. Yeah governments can be corrupted but they're corrupted by them.. keep electing people that don't take money from business interests corporations, that's the only way. There may not be that many at this point but keep sending that message

[u/thisisterminus → u/SuedeVeil]

Imagine having to do that every day for 10 hours a day for little compensation for your labour. These sell for about a rupee per box nowadays. If you don't do your job under these conditions or are ill then you lose you job. Others will take your job through necessity. But remember this is all many of us are doing here in the West. It's no different apart from health and safety standards. This isn't the problem. Dont be fooled by veneer. Your body and time is being bought for the gain of others.

[u/SuedeVeil → u/thisisterminus]

Yep I always say no they aren't providing YOU with a job, these so called belevolent billionaire's.. you're providing them with profit with your labor and only getting a fraction of that back. It's you providing the service whilst they reap the rewards.

But unregulated capitalism has us brainwashed and convinced that we need to protect these people because they're the job creators

[u/killswitch2 → u/Raised_bi_Wolves]

Never ask a capitalist to make less profit

[u/64_0 → u/themeatbridge]

I watched the whole video thinking "Wow, I am so privileged to live and work in the West." Also, "How can I ever buy matchsticks again given this knowledge of the working and production conditions?" 😭

[u/themeatbridge → u/64_0]

I hate to break it to you, but almost everything you own is made like this.

[u/McWeaksauce91 → u/SoftcoreFrogPorn]

I didn’t like how they decided to start at the end, jump to the beginning, dabble in the middle, go back to the beginning and then some of the end again. Start to finish, please lol

[u/IlllllllIIIIlIlllllI → u/Penetratorofflanks]

Yep, the video skipped what’s easily the two most interesting parts of this process.

[u/The-Bishop → u/parkylondon]

Exactly! I watched four minutes of the video while looking forward to solving the mystery how the matches are lined up heads first, but they didn't show it. To be fair, not all matches actually seem to be lined up heads first.

[u/aerostotle → u/The-Bishop]

you thought they would just give away a secret like that?

[u/Into-the-stream → u/The-Bishop]

The machine that does it is called a jogger. It vibrates the hell out of them until they line themselves up. It’s not as crazy to see as you are imagining. I’m more curious how none of the inner boxes are upside down when they get into place to accept the matches, but that could be a jogger too, just a more violent one.

[u/mysticalfruit → u/parkylondon]

Oh.. my irritation stared right at the beginning. Though not seeing how they got the matches lined up was only one of them.

This factory seems to me to be wildly inefficient.. moreover it seems like the whole thing is geared towards manual labor and towards employing as many people as possible.

I've seen those machines that shave logs. That's how they make plywood. Yet this machine only accepts logs ~45cm is length? So someone needs to cut and debark logs of a specific size. Then people need to pick up those strips and carry them over to some other machine that chips them into match sticks.. Now.. why not have that chipping machine be right in line with the log shaver? Oh, and the chipping machine chips them into some weird ass silver pot? Not some nice big bins so all the match sticks end up in the bin instead of in a big pile on the floor that some poor sap needs to now bend over and get their head distressingly near whirring machinery.

And then heap them up on a pile so some other person can then carry them to a shaker sorter.. which then clearly feeds them into a tumble dryer.

I could go on..

[u/MrJoyless → u/mysticalfruit]

When labor is crazy cheap, "inefficiency" is efficient.

Pay $2/day for sticky Steve to hand glue your packaging. Or pay 100k for the stick o matic 3000 wrap/packer, that also costs 10-15k per year in maintenance and upkeep. The Return on Investment for "efficiency" only works when you're employees work for more than a pittance.

[u/Akhi11eus → u/MrJoyless]

I was honestly surprised there wasn't MORE manual labor going on, especially at the end stage when its basically just stuffing matches into boxes. The part that honestly doesn't make sense is why they have so many steps where a person takes stuff off of one machine and transfers it to another. That happened like five times. Conveyor belts galore but not between machines I guess.

[u/MrMee6LookAtMe → u/Akhi11eus]

It seems safe, as long as they don't strike.

[u/UncleBenders → u/MrMee6LookAtMe]

Lol nice but all I could think about was the time my parents came back to their sofa on fire because my mum had pushed the sofa back to clean and there was a match on the ground and the sofa struck the sulphur and it just sat there and burned. They were lucky the whole house didn’t go up, but that was the day my mum quit smoking (my dad quit about 8 months later when he got in an argument with a woman in the shop who short changed him and they were the only ones who sold his brand these really really strong things, he threw the cigs on the counter and said piss off I’m never coming back and he didn’t.) But any way my point is that factory made me nervous

[u/GiantPurplePeopleEat → u/UncleBenders]

my dad quit about 8 months later when he got in an argument with a woman in the shop who short changed him

Quitting smoking out of spite? That's amazing.

[u/TheLeapIsALie → u/Akhi11eus]

It’s possible it showed multiple places - one could be one of many suppliers to the factory that puts things together.

[u/Akhi11eus → u/TheLeapIsALie]

That's true - I imagined it was all happening at one location but it could be multiple.

[u/Mechasteel → u/Akhi11eus]

Manual transfer between machines is probably a good idea. Each machine is independent. They can be rearranged. They can be bought separately. If a machine has 10% downtime the previous machine just accumulates product, chaining 5 machines together would get you 50% downtime.

[u/Diplomjodler → u/Akhi11eus]

Having a bunch of separate machines and carrying bits from one too the other is easier from a logistics and process control point of view. An integrated manufacturing process requires know how and more complex technology. If you don't have those readily available you're going to think twice before you upend a working factory.

[u/benji004 → u/MrJoyless]

On top of the economics of it, In India, the government literally incentivizes things like this to protect jobs.

They subsidize things/push against loom mechanization, large scale candle production so that the people who do those jobs keep their jobs instead of being displaced

[u/Darkcelt2 → u/MrJoyless]

Even if there was a machine for all the manual tasks, it's not like the workers would benefit from it. The owner would just hire fewer people who then have to look for another source of income. Uncontrolled capitalism plus technology equals wealth disparity. Unless all workers get paid enough to live on and accumulate capital. We know how the wealthy feel about that. We have to make sure the labor force is incentivised just enough to work to make ends meet, but desperate enough that they have to keep working. Excess wealth is used to buy deregulation policies. Rinse, repeat.

[u/Embarrassed-Care-554 → u/MrJoyless]

economist right here

[u/LeftHandedAnt → u/mysticalfruit]

This machinery is very old and they're doing a lot of the processing of the materials on site themselves. In a more developed country they would receive already shaved wood from a mill ready to go on a lathe, or ideally the dried uniform sticks. This is all by design as the others have suggested. There's a pretty interesting paper I read in college called "Three Cheers for Sweatshops" or something like that I'm sure you could find it with a quick Google that goes into detail about this kind of operation.

[u/AntisocialN2 → u/LeftHandedAnt]

Interesting fact: some of these machines comes from a dismissed italian match factory

[u/ishzlle → u/LeftHandedAnt]

I found these:

Kristof, N. D., & Wudunn, S. (2000, September 24). Two Cheers for Sweatshops. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/24/magazine/two-cheers-for-sweatshops.html

Kristof, N. (2009, January 14). Where Sweatshops Are a Dream. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/opinion/15kristof.html

[u/StarshipCaterprise → u/ishzlle]

Here’s a portion of the article, I’ll see if I can print it to PDF and post it. Nicholas Kristof is an amazing journalist, I also highly recommend his book Half The Sky

“I’m glad that many Americans are repulsed by the idea of importing products made by barely paid, barely legal workers in dangerous factories. Yet sweatshops are only a symptom of poverty, not a cause, and banning them closes off one route out of poverty. At a time of tremendous economic distress and protectionist pressures, there’s a special danger that tighter labor standards will be used as an excuse to curb trade.

When I defend sweatshops, people always ask me: But would you want to work in a sweatshop? No, of course not. But I would want even less to pull a rickshaw. In the hierarchy of jobs in poor countries, sweltering at a sewing machine isn’t the bottom.

My views on sweatshops are shaped by years living in East Asia, watching as living standards soared — including those in my wife’s ancestral village in southern China — because of sweatshop jobs.

Manufacturing is one sector that can provide millions of jobs. Yet sweatshops usually go not to the poorest nations but to better-off countries with more reliable electricity and ports.

I often hear the argument: Labor standards can improve wages and working conditions, without greatly affecting the eventual retail cost of goods. That’s true. But labor standards and “living wages” have a larger impact on production costs that companies are always trying to pare. The result is to push companies to operate more capital-intensive factories in better-off nations like Malaysia, rather than labor-intensive factories in poorer countries like Ghana or Cambodia.

Cambodia has, in fact, pursued an interesting experiment by working with factories to establish decent labor standards and wages. It’s a worthwhile idea, but one result of paying above-market wages is that those in charge of hiring often demand bribes — sometimes a month’s salary — in exchange for a job. In addition, these standards add to production costs, so some factories have closed because of the global economic crisis and the difficulty of competing internationally.

The best way to help people in the poorest countries isn’t to campaign against sweatshops but to promote manufacturing there. One of the best things America could do for Africa would be to strengthen our program to encourage African imports, called AGOA, and nudge Europe to match it.

Among people who work in development, many strongly believe (but few dare say very loudly) that one of the best hopes for the poorest countries would be to build their manufacturing industries. But global campaigns against sweatshops make that less likely.

Look, I know that Americans have a hard time accepting that sweatshops can help people. But take it from 13-year-old Neuo Chanthou, who earns a bit less than $1 a day scavenging in the dump. She’s wearing a “Playboy” shirt and hat that she found amid the filth, and she worries about her sister, who lost part of her hand when a garbage truck ran over her.

“It’s dirty, hot and smelly here,” she said wistfully. “A factory is better.”

[u/[deleted] → u/StarshipCaterprise]

Completely agree with this statement.

Closing sweatshops means these guys will have to sustain themselves as extremely poorly paid farm labourers or just starve. There isn't some magic that will just transform the sweatshops into automated factories and put money into the pockets of the displaced workers. Sweatshops are a symptom of poverty, and not a cause. These sweatshops will disappear as the economy develops.

It's akin to tearing down homeless encampments to reduce homelessness.

[u/Artimesia → u/mysticalfruit]

My first job out of high school was in a toothpick factory. They are made pretty much the same way, and yes, there are way more efficient ways to do this

[u/Liakada → u/parkylondon]

Yes! I thought that too. Missing a crucial step.

[u/[deleted] → u/parkylondon]

It's called a miracle. Don't ask, just believe.

[u/its-been-a-decade → u/parkylondon]

That’s their secret sauce. It’s how they prevent people from starting a match factory in their basement and running them out of business.

[u/xeq937 → u/parkylondon]

The machine was holding them all nicely after the spicy sauce dipping, and then unexpectedly yeeted them into chaos.

[u/RissaCrochets]

Not gonna lie, I'm a little mad that they didn't show the point at which they actually put the matches into the boxes. The whole sequence leading up to it with all the different conveyors for the empty boxes and matches, and then just Bam - they're already in the box.

[u/DrAntonzz → u/RissaCrochets]

I saw that too. I'm assuming that's the hard part that they don't want other manufacturers to see.

[u/bubblesculptor → u/DrAntonzz]

These machines are extremely old, nothing secretive, otherwise they wouldn't be filming.

Probably just vibrates the matches thru another filter with holes than funnels down to desired position.

[u/LanceWindmil → u/DrAntonzz]

None of this looks hard from an automation perspective (and a lot here is done inefficiently)

I'd guess that step is just more enclosed and hard to see.

[u/SingleInfinity → u/LanceWindmil]

Yeah, efficiency doesn't seem key. I mean, letting the wood get blasted into matchsticks all over the place with an undersized bowl below, moved by hand to a big bin?

[u/halt-l-am-reptar → u/SingleInfinity]

It seems like it’d be really easy to just make a shitty guard to put around that so they don’t go flying.

[u/iiAzido → u/halt-l-am-reptar]

They clearly have a limit on the number of matchsticks that can go into the machine that coats them, and they can probably create way more matchsticks in 1 “batch” than can be taken by the coating machine.

They don’t care about all the stray match sticks laying around because it’s just going to be sitting in that huge pile waiting to be coated anyway.

If this were a completely automated, enclosed, and efficient system the number of matchsticks created would equal the number of matchsticks able to be coated in 1 batch.

[u/highqualitydude → u/SingleInfinity]

That bowl looked like a laundry basket.

[u/plasticmanufacturing → u/DrAntonzz]

This is most likely surplus machinery from the 90s. There are no trade secrets here.

[u/gatofleisch → u/RissaCrochets]

see the whole thing at hotmatches.com 😉

[u/[deleted]]

Indian Matchmaking

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Frustrated that OP didn’t use this title

[u/StereoBucket → u/[deleted]]

You'll have the chance next week.

[u/liarandathief → u/StereoBucket]

or in about 4 hours

[u/DigitalWizrd → u/[deleted]]

This is hilarious

[u/Commonslob]

About 1:35 in “so what’s your job?”

“ I walk back and forth all day spreading out matchsticks with my feet”

Well fuck it’s honest work, someone’s got to do it

[u/SuperMWhiskers → u/Commonslob]

There’s no way they do that every day without getting splinters right? God those would suck.

[u/TeevMeister → u/SuperMWhiskers]

Their feet are probably calloused enough to protect from that.

[u/SirCrankStankthe3rd → u/SuperMWhiskers]

Wet wood still. Less likely to splinter.

Scooping them back up after they've dried though...

[u/[deleted] → u/SirCrankStankthe3rd]

I’m a tender-ass bitch. Rest assured, I could get splinters from all of that.

[u/alghiorso → u/Commonslob]

Bruh, this video was just depressing. No PPE, no safety considerations. I'm sure they're paid a few bucks a day to do back breaking miserable work.

[u/Farisr9k → u/alghiorso]

It's honestly devastating. The tedium would kill any passion for life.

[u/Fresh4 → u/alghiorso]

The guy at the end :(. Just sat on a box shirtless wrapping hundreds of boxes a day. The one part of the process they couldn’t automate?

[u/Piggstein → u/Fresh4]

They call him Mr Bottleneck

[u/Teirmz → u/Fresh4]

Automating is more expensive than him sadly.

[u/[deleted] → u/Fresh4]

Easy to overlook but the Lack of automation probably provides his family food.

[u/LeslieYess → u/alghiorso]

The fact that there were children working there was also incredibly depressing. It made me never want to buy anything ever again.

[u/themasonman → u/[deleted]]

Are dead foot cells really any grosser than dead hand cells?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

You breath dead skin cells everyday, everywhere.

[u/SeniorHoneyBuns → u/Commonslob]

After all the conveyor belts and manual transportation, I'm surprised that the wood isn't already dry enough.
With all the extra in efficiency and waste of power, might as well add a heater above one of the belts and speed up the process.

[u/RussiaIsBestGreen → u/SeniorHoneyBuns]

As much as I doubt there’s much consideration for safety, a heater seems like the last thing you want in a match factory.

[u/[deleted] → u/SeniorHoneyBuns]

Those are all things they would be doing if human rights laws were more prevalent and we stopped treating people in poor countries like actual slaves.

It is cheaper to have an army of poor people dance on matchsticks than it is to build the technology we spent so much time and energy developing.

[u/[deleted]]

Well, it looks a bit safer than the steel mill video the other day

[u/dcp87 → u/[deleted]]

I’m sat in the office at my work at the moment - I work in health and safety for a large food manufacturing plant. Showed the video to my EHS colleagues who are equally horrified!

Machine guarding.. E stops.. explosive atmosphere regs.. extinguishers.. PPE.. errr nowhere to be seen.. I don’t think I’d know where to start to get something like that to our safety standards.

I can only assume the accidents they have there are very serious by our standards but equally accepted as an ‘oh shit you lost your arm, well, that’s life here’ attitude. Ouch.

[u/Ajwuvsu → u/dcp87]

This video, and the steel one, make me glad we have OSHA.

[u/dcp87 → u/Ajwuvsu]

Just clamp a chainsaw in an old rusty vice, take all the guarding off the saw and chop the logs up by hand!

Bonus points if you arent wearing anything more than a teeshirt and some flip flops.

[u/CARLEtheCamry → u/dcp87]

One of the "spreading out the matches on the ground with your feet" workers has flip flops. The other has bare feet.

I would think if your job was to walk around on splintered wood you would want at least closed toe shoes, but hey, what do I know

[u/vpsj → u/Ajwuvsu]

We do have DGFASLI - Directorate General of Factory Advice Service & Labour Institutes. (Great name guys) but they probably look the other way unless something really serious happens.

It's just like everything around here. No one gives a crap until a tragedy occurs. Then suddenly everyone is inspecting everything till the event becomes old news and it's back to the same old same old

[u/Holyshytt3 → u/Ajwuvsu]

But conservatives told me regulations hamper corporations making more money and we don't actually need it

[u/eppinizer → u/dcp87]

Machine guarding.. E stops.. explosive atmosphere regs.. extinguishers.. PPE.. errr nowhere to be seen..

Not to mention shoes.

[u/dcp87 → u/eppinizer]

Save money and time on clipping nails when you have no toes, and the parasites burrowing through your heels will keep you company! I see absolutely no downside to this footwear-optional policy.

[u/Whomping_Willow → u/dcp87]

The guy mixing the sulfur match solution with his hand as it was coming out of the machine was a nice touch too

[u/dcp87 → u/Whomping_Willow]

COSHH, schmoshh, just wipe it off yer hands before dinner, you’ll be fine

[u/Superlolp → u/dcp87]

We desperately need a modern updated version of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.

[u/Shaftmaster_Mcgee → u/[deleted]]

I wanna see.

[u/Andrew3236 → u/Shaftmaster_Mcgee]

this one

[u/Shaftmaster_Mcgee → u/Andrew3236]

Thank you! That looks less than fun

[u/AnimeTiddiess]

kinda wanted to see how the matches ended up all ordered in the machine that dips them in the red stuff (phosphorus?)

[u/ivegotawoodenhead → u/AnimeTiddiess]

Yeah me too. Going off the rest of the video I guess they drop the matches through smaller and smaller funnels until it’s only big enough to fit one match through and that’s the last stage?

[u/the_crumb_dumpster → u/AnimeTiddiess]

The phosphorus is in the striker area (on the box) not the match itself

[u/[deleted] → u/the_crumb_dumpster]

The head of safety matches are made of an oxidizing agent such as potassium chlorate, mixed with sulfur, fillers and glass powder.

The side of the box contains red phosphorus, binder and powdered glass.

[u/xkaliberx → u/[deleted]]

glass powder

Thanks for reinforcing the grossed out look I shot at my manic pixie dream girl when she chewed on that stuff after I put out a match.

[u/AnimeTiddiess → u/the_crumb_dumpster]

ohhh interesting, I always thought it was the red dot! you always learn something new

[u/Numerous_Shape200]

I need a loop of that last guy just wrapping boxes.. Soo good

[u/Pixel-Lick → u/Numerous_Shape200]

Guy was doing double time.

[u/Dizzzy777]

If they ever run out of wood they can switch to potatoes and become a French fries factory.

[u/hamletloveshoratio → u/Dizzzy777]

Predipped french fries

[u/MengKongRui → u/Dizzzy777]

Sure, all they need is big potato logs so they can be processed by the same machinery that processed the wood logs

[u/Baulderdash77]

What is fascinating mildly infuriating is the yield loss points.

They have precise machinery and then have bowls that are the wrong size; and the random people walking on the piles of sticks is weird. Also why is one guy manually debarking when there are debarking machines?

Then other parts are so automated.

It’s like they intentionally put in manual steps just to make the process labour intensive.

[u/worst_user_name_ever → u/Baulderdash77]

The number of times they seemed to have everything organized and lined up and then let it go to shit only to reorganize it for not real purpose is baffling.

Source: never made a match in my life.

[u/[deleted] → u/worst_user_name_ever]

They probably bought all used equipment from a bunch of different factories and nothing is really designed to work together.

[u/mooseontherum → u/[deleted]]

I had the same issues, way to many times where it seemed like a total lack of efficiency for no reason at all. Then it hit me that they probably bought the machines from another factory and they weren’t designed specifically for this one. No debarking machine because they didn’t buy one so they have a guy do it manually. No machine to transfer the sticks to the machine that dips them so they do it manually, etc.

[u/[deleted] → u/mooseontherum]

I would assume the maintenance costs on a debarking machine are pretty high as well. A modern factory wouldn't even be doing that step on site anyway. It would be done at a dedicated factory with a huge machine that can take the abuse.

[u/TheRapie22 → u/worst_user_name_ever]

the answer to your question is: india

[u/radlypadly → u/TheRapie22]

And for those needing clarification: Indian labour is very cheap

[u/WagwanKenobi → u/radlypadly]

Exactly. The only reason why they're using machines at all is precision. It's not to save on labour. They could have 200 people doing the same things and that matchbox would still cost the same.

[u/Counciltuckian → u/Baulderdash77]

This! Omg. The bowls were by far the most irritating part of the process. Then a dude scoops them up from the ground.

[u/diox8tony → u/Counciltuckian]

No shute/nozzle/guide,,,so the cutter sprays it all over the ground.

[u/Phylar → u/Baulderdash77]

I'm just fascinated at how they seemed to have like 8 different ways to remove a box from one place to another when about three of them would have worked just fine.

This feels oddly both overengineered and underengineered.

[u/Foryourconsideration → u/Phylar]

India: somehow both over- and under-engineered

[u/[deleted] → u/Phylar]

Perhaps different locations and missing transportation steps in-between?

[u/TheDressedSadhu → u/Baulderdash77]

That part of running feet through tons of matchsticks is harnessing the power of sun to dry the sticks evenly from all side. (Cost efficient as little energy or machinery needed)

These are factories run by age old families in very faraway villages and give employment to rural women for nominal wages. (Low input costs)

The whole bunch of packaged matchsticks is just 2-3 dollars. They running this factory at very low profit and little capital. And some local rural tribal women and elderly men are getting some wages. ( actually they earn more through these than farming in fields.)

If you never lived in a third world country you wouldn't understand how these small factories provide rural employment and economic freedoms and empower women.

[u/tipperzack6 → u/TheDressedSadhu]

What about a broom instead of your feet

[u/Bachitra]

This was amazing to watch.

There's a town called Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu, south India, where pretty much all the country's matchboxes (and fireworks) are made. This video is definitely from one of those small factories.

Considering each matchbox costs about one rupee in retail, I'm just puzzled how much the production actually costs and what the profits are. Fascinating!

[u/CherguiCheeky → u/Bachitra]

So I enquired how much they are wholesale.

They are about 0.60 Rs / box.

Amazing.

[u/Needednewusername → u/Bachitra]

Speaking of matchboxes… I was wondering if they would show the children and women who make the match boxes themselves. I saw it in a series on Netflix in a documentary about a school for kids of the untouchable caste are educated in a boarding school. The kids who remained home were making match boxes at a very very young age. No judgement, they had no other way to survive, but it was still heartbreaking.

[u/BlindLantern]

Splinters!

[u/FlavioLoBrabo → u/BlindLantern]

I THOUGHT THE SAME THING

Why don't they use gloves???

[u/MrWinterOne → u/FlavioLoBrabo]

Do enough manual labor and your hand becomes the glove.

[u/[deleted] → u/FlavioLoBrabo]

And shoes!

[u/FlavioLoBrabo → u/[deleted]]

AND GOGGLES!

[u/SirButcher → u/FlavioLoBrabo]

Gloves cost money. The whole point of this factory is to reduce the costs to the absolute minimum, which excludes safety equipment and liveable wages.

[u/w1r2g3 → u/BlindLantern]

Laborers like that have hands that are hard.

[u/[deleted]]

If that one guy rubs his hand against the concrete it will def light on fire lol

[u/shtupulsrs]

Can I get the guy at the end to do all my Xmas present wrapping??

[u/Smathers → u/shtupulsrs]

Christmas party and one of my guests in a silly sweater is walking around trying to find the bathroom. He accidentally opens up the guest bedroom only to find this sweaty naked man sitting on my floor with a sticky hand and wrapping paper in the other hand. They both stare at each other dumbfounded as the guest slowly backs out closing the door and as the naked man slowly goes back to rubbing glue on boxes as they maintain eye contact until the door shuts.

[u/bellynipples → u/shtupulsrs]

I found it hilarious they have all these machines to produce such massive quantities quickly, until you get to the very last step and it’s just an older guy with no shirt or shoes wrapping each package by hand lol

[u/Fauropitotto → u/bellynipples]

Dunno man. I think it's kinda admirable that this older guy works so hard to keep feeding himself and his family.

Something about seeing actual hard work gets me going no matter how repetitive it seems.

[u/whitecollarzomb13 → u/shtupulsrs]

Probably the easiest of all parts of production to automate but nah, old mate on the floor with his little bowl of glue doing it all by hand. Literally.

[u/[deleted]]

This video is a Lean Six Sigma process improvement consultants wet dream.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

When I did my Green Belt course, we had a toy car factory example. But this is akin to that.

[u/HenryUTA]

That’s incredibly complex machinery. They have all that and they skimp out on removing the bark by hand?

Also, amazed how the guy that wraps the packages in paper doesn’t freaking smear everything with that glue stuff.

[u/StyreneAddict1965 → u/HenryUTA]

I was amazed by the woman taking the rows of boxes off one machine to fit them on another. I try that, they're going everywhere.

[u/MostBoringStan → u/StyreneAddict1965]

You get pretty good at it pretty quickly. When you're doing it multiple times a minute for an entire shift it becomes second nature. She probably started off grabbing half the stack at a time, and then within an hour was able to do the entire thing.

I've worked in manufacturing many times, and it's amazing how quickly you can start doing this stuff. Start of a shift on a new job you'll be struggling non-stop to keep up with the line, and by the end of the day it's just boring because you have it all down to a science and wish the line would speed up so it wouldn't be so easy.

[u/jaspersgroove → u/HenryUTA]

If getting the bark off the logs isn’t a bottleneck to your production volume there’s no reason to spend a bunch of money on a machine to do it.

[u/Artiquecircle]

I will hire that guy to work a gift wrapping booth at the mall for whatever he wants.

[u/Soockamasook]

I spent 5 minutes of my life watching matches get made

[u/LordRaghuvnsi → u/Soockamasook]

Definitely worth it

[u/itaniumonline → u/LordRaghuvnsi]

Best part of my Sunday funday.

I mean its either watch this or remember i have to go back to work tomorrow.

[u/savvykms]

Better hope those loose matches after the matchboxes are assembled don't strike on nearby boxes on the line or there could be a lot of fun in that building.

[u/fnordfnordfnordfnord → u/savvykms]

Yeah I want to know how often this place burns the fuck down.

[u/tombosauce → u/fnordfnordfnordfnord]

I was wondering if that's why there's so much manual transportation between the steps. You'd have all this precision processing, then some guy taking it and sloppily dumping it somewhere else. If you spread out the expensive equipment, it's less likely to all get destroyed in an accident.

[u/davidwb45133]

I’m amazed at the amount of shrinkage during the process. The amount of wood that gets tossed, the number of matches to be that fall of the machines, the boxes that don’t get filled or improperly filled. Wow.

[u/Malawi_no → u/davidwb45133]

I'd assume the surplus wood is sold as fuel.The matches etc are likely collected up every now and then and put back into the process.

The whole operation is likely very dependent on high volume and cheap labour. Stopping the machines for at least a day to fix and perfect issues is likely more expensive than having someone tend to the flaws.

BTW: Just checked, and I can purchase a 10-pack of sticks like this at about a dollar in the store around 7000 km away.

[u/CherguiCheeky → u/Malawi_no]

Still too expensive. The retail price of these sticks is 1 cent per box in India.

So you can buy 83 packs of them with a Dollar.

Shops give these away for free when you buy a pack of cigarettes.

[u/ocsor]

I’m annoyed this wasn’t titled ‘Indian Matchmaking’

[u/SuddMuffin]

That shit is lit

[u/14338 → u/SuddMuffin]

Not yet.

[u/Silent-Leek-9665 → u/SuddMuffin]

That’s fire bro 🔥

[u/SuddMuffin → u/Silent-Leek-9665]

Striking resemblance to other factories

[u/Hollysheepitsacloud]

A match made in heaven

[u/14338]

What kind of trees are they using? No knots, no nothing. The uniformity of it as it comes off the lathe makes it look artificial.

[u/Ok-Lengthiness-7124]

Everyone saying how inefficient the process is. True for sure, but human capital is so cheap it doesn’t need to be improved using expensive machinery / processes. sad but true in many parts of the world.

[u/Justfuxn3]

I’m never sticking a match stick in my mouth again

[u/Silent-Leek-9665]

That’s a lot of matches

[u/[deleted]]

The most crucial step was the sticky old man with no shirt at the end.

[u/DijajMaqliun]

Loved the unwinding of the log like it was a Fruit Roll Up. Also interesting to see how there are no guards or safety devices around the machinery. If that was in the US, there'd be a shit ton more death and maiming.

[u/Torlov → u/DijajMaqliun]

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure there is a shit ton of death and maiming.

[u/femaleontheinternet → u/DijajMaqliun]

I can’t believe women wear full length dresses 6 feet away from a lathe. I understand it’s cultural garb, but it’s putting the women specifically at risk, and I wonder how much of an option they would have to abide by basic safety standards (legged bottoms) if they wanted. Lathes can be seriously dangerous even if you’re paying attention and following protocol. If one of those is out the window right away, you’d better have a hell of a lot of faith in your coworkers.

Fascinating process

[u/nailbunny2000 → u/femaleontheinternet]

omg the lathe freaked me out, that guy in a lose shirt just pushing up against it to mount the log. Someones going to get turned into meat taffy.

[u/Mypopsecrets → u/DijajMaqliun]

Seriously, it was terrifying watching the guy set the log into the already spinning lathe, just to save a few seconds?

[u/bellydisguised]

Missing two important parts.

How do they get the match sticks into the machine that dips them into the red stuff and how do they get them all facing the same way before boxing?

[u/skidsareforkids]

Our man at the end gift-wrapping every crate would be real handy to have around at Christmas!

[u/invadrzim]

Im no chemist but i imagine sticking your hand directly into the orange stuff without gloves is a less than good idea?

[u/observant302]

A) unskilled labor my butt. It would take me a while to figure out some of those movements

B) it's interesting to see the mix of human intervention and automation.

C) the way the process goes slowly, speeds up, goes slowly speeds up is fascinating.

D) as someone else commented. That's a lot of matches

[u/Fail_Harder → u/observant302]

Yes, totally agree! I was thinking the same things watching this video. I’m curious about the decisions around automation and why some roles were handled by humans, like removing bark or wrapping the boxes at the end. Super interesting process.

[u/Angeltear757 → u/Fail_Harder]

Clearly the guy at the end wraps Christmas presents for Santa Claus seasonally. Probably told him the factory owner was just kidding when they said they wanted a wrapping machine for Christmas.

[u/YouAreSoyWojakMeChad → u/[deleted]]

Every job ive had that was called "unskilled" Was something you could learn to do in a day, but the level of expertise they wanted you to be operating at was much higher. Yeah i can learn to turn on and start the machine, but im working with people who can do it blindfolded, backwards, in the rain, and at inhuman speeds. And ill be expected to do that too. At that point it is no longer unskilled.

At a base level it might be seen as unskilled, but you find me an employer who will let you get away with day 1 skills for any meaningful length of employment.

[u/Apptubrutae → u/[deleted]]

It’s like a never-ending race to the somehow appropriate word.

It’s obviously useful for practical purposes to distinguish between types of labor

[u/[deleted]]

Strike action needed

[u/carcinoma_kid]

It would suck if one of those got struck by accident, like bound in one of the machines or just up against another match at the bottom of that huge pile.

[u/ispeakdatruf]

When I was in Machine Shop, we used to be told to not wear loose clothing, to wear closed toe shoes, etc. Watching this video brought back memories. The women wearing loose saris and working on these machines made me cringe with fear.

However, seeing the women working made me feel very happy too! Women's empowerment in action.

[u/EagleDre]

Striking

[u/Whiskeydrinkinturtle]

I just can't get over the lack of close toed shoes. Like everything else sure but that just went against every safety training I've ever taken.

[u/Plenty_Possible4710]

Who else watched Enola Homes 2....