Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I got the Mighty Empires "expansion" this weekend, and was quite surprised to see "made in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region>" on the back of the box.  To my knowledge, this is the first time that GW has made any product in <st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region>, or really anywhere besides the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> or the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">UK</st1:place></st1:country-region>.  Previously, posters here have used the price excuse of "well, their prices are high, but at least the product is made in the West".  Now, that is apparently not true.  I wonder if all of the new "excess" plastic is made in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">China</st1:place></st1:country-region>?  By "excess" I mean the new terrain and other not directly miniature items.

As far as the content of the box goes, just as previously reported, 6 sprues of 8 tiles, tiles useful for campaigns, miniature world building, replacement hexes for settlers, or those who just want hard styrene hexes for some sort of model.  Made of hard styrene, and are the first sprues from GW that seem to have mold release on them.  Should paint up nicely, once washed.  "rules" are a scant 5 pages as previously reported, and lack all "auto resolve" options.  With use of the rules in the General's Compendium, the tiles might be useful enough to cause me to get another box to do some desert or sea tiles.

If they are "Made in China", and GW is going that route, it may be a good thing. I can only hope they go that route with the figures at some point too. As far as the scale model world goes the best stuff in plastic, with extremely rare exceptions, all comes from either Japan or China. The quality of the plastic is better. The quality of the mold/design work is better. The price is better.

I wonder who is doing their molding and injection there.

-Hans

The new single-shot slotta bases are coming from china, I believe. As has been a lot of the hobby stuff for quite some time.

And all of the 4th edition Codexes and the newer WHFB Army Books have been printed in China.

The actual miniatures are still made in the UK and US, but everything else appears to be outsourced.

I know they make the mini's in the Uk but I did not relies ethey made them in the USA?/ Where abouts in the US do they make the GW stuff??

They built a factory in Memphis a couple of years ago.

Hmm I would like to hear what Triggerbaby says about this.

I hear he has some chinese factory experience. I am sure it will be just as entertaining as it is informative. *no pressure*

The rulebook is like the Rosetta Stone.

Written in multiple languages yet still so incomplete...

Posted By Hellfury on 07/24/2007 7:19 PM
Hmm I would like to hear what Triggerbaby says about this.

I hear he has some chinese factory experience. I am sure it will be just as entertaining as it is informative. *no pressure*

Triggerbaby's too pretty to sew up Nike Air trainers to sell to fat gweilo dogs.  I'm sure his experience involves an appletini and a steam iron to apply to truculent, er willful workers.

As far as the minis being made in China goes, why not?  If they can make Space Marine Scouts with a tenth as much flash as was on the last squad I bought, I'll be happy.  I swear their injection molding machine is just a cardboard box filled with broken calculators...

And while they're at it, they should let them handle the White Dwarf production, too.   

Product safety is a big concern here now so I'm not sure I like this idea of GW buying stuff from China.

This one time I bought a toaster and I was making toast with it and all of the sudden it grew an arm and stabbed me in the gut.

It was made in China.

http://xkcd.com/293/

As long as they can guarantee product quality, they can make their stuff in Atlantis for all I care.

Outsourcing isn't always as great as many claim. This artile was published today on CNN.Money

Is sourcing in China worth it?
Businesses weigh the costs and benefits, in the wake of product recalls and bans.


(FSB) -- When Amber McCrocklin launched Paws Aboard, she followed a pattern familiar to thousands of small-business owners. McCrocklin, now 35, had created a line of gear for pet owners who like to take their dogs on their boats. She started by handcrafting boat ladders, life jackets, and waterproof leashes with the help of a local engineer.

When the orders began pouring in, McCrocklin decided to shift operations to China, which could trim costs by half and give her time to design more products to expand Paws Aboard (pawsaboard.com). On the recommendation of another Indianapolis business owner, she hired an engineer in Shenzhen to redesign the products for mass production and let him find a factory to do the work.


"It worked for the guy who recommended it, so I wasn't really worried," she says. She immediately cranked up production fivefold and saw her profit margin double.

Then the problems started. The clasps on her life jackets were breaking, the shipments were late, her contact in China was unresponsive. McCrocklin's patience finally expired when she opened a container of 3,000 leashes-all defective. "The colors were completely reversed, and the logos were all upside down," she says. The factory would not make good on the order, and McCrocklin didn't want her clients, retailers and online stores, to see the shoddy work. "I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to sell these," she says.

A bad batch of leashes may seem trivial compared with the potentially deadly output of Chinese factories that has paraded across the headlines-including 1.5 million toy trains coated with lead paint and 60 million containers of toxic pet food. In July the Food and Drug Administration banned shrimp and four species of contaminated farm-raised fish from China.

Suddenly, outsourcing to China-standard procedure for thousands of entrepreneurs-looks a lot more complicated. Now businesses must factor in the true cost of obtaining their products at the world-beating "China price." After the recalls, says Andrew Bartolini, an expert on global sourcing at Aberdeen Group, a research firm in Boston (aberdeen.com), "there's an understanding that low costs come with risks."

Even big companies have trouble dealing with the fallout from defective products-unsellable goods, bad publicity, recalls, crippling litigation. Menu Foods, a $303-million-a-year company with more than 1,000 employees, spent $38 million recalling melamine-tainted pet food. Foreign Tire Sales, a 13-employee importer based in Union, N.J., says it faces a $90 million pricetag for its recall-and possible bankruptcy. The company, which sold only 700,000 tires last year, must replace 450,000 made by the Hangzhou Rubber Co. that may have dangerous defects.

The cloud over Chinese goods does have a silver lining. Some Americans are shopping harder for goods that say MADE IN THE U.S.A. And the nightmare scenario playing out at places such as FTS has alerted business owners to be more aggressive in managing their Chinese connections. They must imitate the ways in which multinationals control supply chains, says Bill Primosch, senior director of international-business policy at the National Association of Manufacturers (nam.org).

Unlike big companies, most entrepreneurs can't afford to put employees on the ground to watch the assembly line. But a growing cottage industry of consultants specializes in managing overseas manufacturing contracts, says Bartolini. Many will help find a sourcing partner. Others can inspect goods at the factory and arrange shipping. Some handle everything, from selecting an industrial designer to overseeing quality control, even assuming liability for a factory's output. Sourcing consultants earn their income by marking up products, but the client can still come out ahead because these sophisticated players have connections to factories that other consultants and brokers don't, says Bartolini.

As with Chinese sourcing partners, the quality of middlemen varies. "There are a lot of cowboys-lone brokers with websites-some of whom have never even been to China," says Christopher Devereaux, managing director of China Savvy (chinasavvy.com), a sourcing company based in Hong Kong. To find reliable middlemen, Devereaux says, check with other importers and trade associations in your industry.

McCrocklin of Paws Aboard found her new consultant, One World Sourcing (oneworldsourcing.com), at a local trade show. One World, based in Brooklyn Heights, Ohio, took over the manufacturing, quality control, and shipping of McCrocklin's dog gear last summer. Her defect-driven headaches faded, and profits have improved: "My costs dropped another 30% with the factory they hired," she says. "I get more done, at a more reasonable price-and I don't receive late-night phone calls from China anymore."