Manufacturing "A Minimal Pen" in China, failures and successes

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cwandt/pen-type-a-a-minimal-pen/posts/122492?ref=email&show_token=211fce8da0f216dd

by rizumu • 15 years ago

150 85 15 years ago

kickstarter.com

hugh32• 15 years ago

I assume there was some context in previous posts in this series, but I have no idea what's going on here.

Why are these guys trying to build a pen? What's a "minimal" pen? What's wrong with a fifty-cent Bic?

naner3• 15 years ago

It is a pen snob thing. Apparently, there's these Pilot G-Tec-C gel roller ball pens that write really well and are available in really fine points (down to 0.25mm). The pens themselves are cheap plastic and are also not available in most retail places in the US. So they engineered a pen casing that they felt addressed these shortcomings (well... still not available in US retail stores) and that fits these G-Tec-C refills.

cobrabyte4• 15 years ago

I have met a couple 'pen snobs' but I'm not sure the Hi-Tec-C falls into their category.

I write very small and the Hi-Tec-C's three or four tip sizes made it a good choice. The 0.25mm tip is insanely tiny and I actually had to kick-up one size to the 0.3mm.

They're relatively easy to find if you know where to look. I think the last time I purchased any, I found them online at JetPens.

I don't know why you need a $99 pen body. Pentel sells a slim, metal pen body that cures everything these guys are going after. Their only complaint may be that it's not 'substantial enough' in the writer's hand.

Bud• 15 years ago

You don't have to be a pen snob to appreciate how much nicer a good gel pen (and they don't have to be expensive, there are great ones for $2 or so) writes than a Bic. Really, just try one...it's a night and day difference. Darker, more consistent line, less pressure needed to write, which means you can write longer without your hand tiring, ink that is more permanent and less likely to smear, etc.

BTW, disclaimer...I AM a pen snob. I have a 25-year-old Montblanc on my desk.

huhtenberg2• 15 years ago

I chipped in $50 and I am not a pen snob.

Kickstarter has less to do with buying things and more with supporting people that do stuff that is genuinely interesting and original. This pen - or rather the pen casing - is a really unique piece of design work and I happen to like it so much that I wanted to let the designers develop it into a real product. For fun and profit, yay.

reason• 15 years ago

What's a "luxury" car? What's wrong with an $11k Hyundai?

What's a "designer" suit? What's wrong with $50 Walmart-brand?

What's a "classy" watch? What's wrong with a $10 Casio?

What's a "perfectly cooked" steak? What's wrong with an $8 Denny's one?

What's a "sleek" laptop? What's wrong with a $300 Dell?

You could essentially use your line of logic to make any purchase of a product bought on qualities more than just practicality look absurd.

We all enjoy looking for that one thing of great quality. Apple is evidence enough. And what's it to you if I like to spend a little extra on a great looking pen? You've certainly paid a bit more for things because they "felt or looked better".

Stratoscope• 15 years ago

Whoa, hugh3 had a question about pens, and we've multiplied it into cars, suits, watches, steaks, and laptops?

Those are all fascinating topics, but maybe we could take them one at a time? :-)

I thought the original question was sincere: he wasn't sarcastically saying there's no difference between these pens and a 50 cent Bic. On the contrary, he was asking in the genuine spirit of hacker curiosity: what is it that makes these pens special and interesting and worth building?

Edit: In other words, hugh3 was looking for this page:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cwandt/pen-type-a-a-mini...

(Thanks, fishtoaster!)

unwind• 15 years ago

What's wrong with a fifty-cent Bic?

Nothing that $281,989 can't fix, it seems. Amazing project.

dramaticus33• 15 years ago

Try the project home page http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cwandt/pen-type-a-a-mini...

fishtoaster• 15 years ago

Quick Context link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cwandt/pen-type-a-a-mini...

Short version: They want to take the venerable Hi-Tec-C pen and put it in a steel body with a steel ruler sleeve. It will retail for $99.

earl2• 15 years ago

Retails for $50.

https://img.skitch.com/20110926-fgc35nm4q2wr8mspaq7c8fpyf7.j...

mrbill2• 15 years ago

If you got in on the Kickstarter round. After that, it's $99 according to the link on the front of the kickstarter page.

dramaticus33• 15 years ago

A ruler is someone who rules.

A rule is a device for measuring length.

Shame the project homepage introduces this error. Language barriers are cross domain, not just cross culture.

tincholio• 15 years ago

The OED and Merriam-Webster (along with the wiki, and many more) agree that a 'ruler' is also a 'a straight strip or cylinder of plastic, wood, metal, or other rigid material, typically marked at regular intervals and used to draw straight lines or measure distances.', so your pedantry is a bit out of place.

2muchcoffeeman• 15 years ago

"The factory owner tried to tell us that in China laser etching is synonymous with CNC milling. We were not amused."

Really?

nickpinkston3• 15 years ago

I bet this was with regard to making the ruling marks on the sleeve. In which case - CNC etching & laser marking isn't that much different and could have just been the Chinese trying to optimize costs - which frankly makes a lot of sense for something like this in my mind.

naner3• 15 years ago

Pen Type-A is a stainless steel replacement for the Hi-Tec-C's cheap plastic housing. To us, the Hi-Tec-C cartridges deserve a more durable home.

This is kind of funny, I sort of did the same thing -- though my solution was much cheaper. I write a ton with ink and I had a hell of a time finding a pen that wrote smoothly, was gel, was rectractible (pen tops are a PITA), didn't smear, gave consistent lines, and was available at office stores for an affordable price. Well, the Pentel Energel pens met these requirements but the pen casing is flimsy and fat and very cheap feeling. So I just buy the refills and put them in a Sarasa SE pen casing. My only gripe is I would prefer a finer point. The Pentels only go to 0.7mm and I'd like at least 0.5mm, but this is good enough. Every gel pen I've used that size has problems (scratchy, suffers roller ball blowouts, etc.) so maybe good gel roller balls at that size present engineering problems.

Oh, and I also tried that Mont Blanc "hack" where you modify the refill cartridge so it fits in a cheapo Pilot G2 casing. I'm not willing to regularly pay $10-$15 for 2 ink refills, I just wanted to see what the fuss was all about. The writing was mediocre at best. Most noticeable was the problems I had with skipping and inconsistency. The value of Mont Blanc pens certainly does not come from the ink cartridges.

ineedtosleep• 15 years ago

Had the same experience with the Mont Blanc+G2 "hack" and don't really recommend it. At first, there was a noticeable increase in smoothness, but it was horribly inconsistent.

During my honeymoon phase with the G2 "hack", however, I recommended the hack to a friend who kept complaining about his cheap pens. He tried it soon after I introduced it to him and to this day he still swears by them -- it is about 2-3 years now since I introduced it to him.

EDIT: Also I found this from a quick Google search since I did not know what a Hi-Tec-C pen is: http://www.jetpens.com/Pilot-Hi-Tec-C-Cavalier-Executive-Gel...

It looks like a Hi-Tec-C with a better case. And for much less than $50.

DannoHung• 15 years ago

Dude, you owe yourself the $10 to try one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Fisher-Space-Pen-Non-Reflective-SM4B/d...

Pretty sure they're gel. They sure as hell don't smear. And that model is retractable.

I fucking love the Space Pen cartridges. Finding the right pen body can be kind of annoying though.

naner3• 15 years ago

I have one. They are cool because they can write on almost any surface at any angle. The writing isn't remarkable, though, and the pressurized refills are too much for how fast I would go through them.

rubashov3• 15 years ago

Just get a $30 lamy fountain pen with a refillable cartridge, and a large bottle of ink. You're done worrying about pens and cartridges for the next 15 years or so.

megrimlock2• 15 years ago

For anyone who found this tale interesting, "Poorly Made in China" is a well-written and eye-opening account of similar antics.

http://www.amazon.com/Poorly-Made-China-Insiders-Production/...

Much like the kickstarter project mentions, this book covers repeatedly broken promises, misleading claims (like the laser etching that turned out to be CNC), continuous reassurances followed by convenient disappearances, completely mythical factory sites and machinery, supposedly mechanical processes that turn out to be skilled hand-labor, and the need for vigilant and cynical quality control. It makes a convincing argument that once you account for the cost of all these shenanigans, export manufacturing is nowhere near as good a deal as it seems.

derleth2• 15 years ago

Are there any explanations about why China is like that?

catch23• 15 years ago

capitalism at work. price has always trumped quality there, probably due to a much poorer middle class than any other 1st world nation.

barkingcat• 15 years ago

When the average annual income in China is around $4000 USD, it's no wonder that people would lie through their teeth to get at a contract. This is the answer to the "lowest price at any cost" game. Capitalism at work. No one wants the company that offers the best quality, only the company that is the cheapest.

megrimlock2• 15 years ago

One nice thing about the book is that it gives sympathetic economic context to some of these issues, humanizing what might otherwise seem like utter fraud. Briefly, it's a combination of:

- inevitable human motives when faced with a chance to escape poverty

- different cultural expectations about what it means to deliver on a manufacturing contract (i.e. does it have to always be exactly to spec, or can it just be roughly equivalent in the important ways)

- different cultural focus on surface appearances vs. less visible qualities

- information asymmetry between local operators and distant foreign counterparties

- greed on the part of foreign counterparties, which the Chinese manfucaturers exploit to get deals and then ruthlessly trim back everywhere they can get away with, backing off only when they push too far and get called on it

What's almost as interesting are the similarly misaligned incentives within the foreign counterparties. Western capitalist companies are unabashedly greedy, short-term (gotta make the quarterly numbers), share-price-oriented, and have all their own dysfunctions as a result. That's not to say the kickstarter guys are guilty of any of that -- just that there's plenty of parties trying to screw the other on both sides of this international dynamic, and finding a truly honest partner is difficult in business anywhere.

wiradikusuma• 15 years ago

Because you get what you pay for, and because there are too much demand that they don't care if they screw you and lose their reputation (to you)--They can simply find another buyer. At least those are the reasons my friend told me about his experience with manufacturing in China.

nickpinkston3• 15 years ago

While these types of horror stories are everywhere - some of the best consumer goods manufacturers (by quality and price) are in China / Taiwan. While working to find injection molding and CNC suppliers - people continually referred me to their vetted suppliers in Asia.

The general consensus in my work was that Asia wants it more than we do. There are a lot of superfluous American manufacturers that survive based on old relationships and word-of-month, not on quality, price & innovative marketing - the former ones are becoming harder and harder to win with. The Chinese manufacturing sector is ultra-competitive with each other, more than in the US, and this leads them to their position - beyond just being cheap labor. This is at least my experience.

forgottenpaswrd• 15 years ago

"The general consensus in my work was that Asia wants it more than we do. There are a lot of superfluous American manufacturers that survive based on old relationships and word-of-month, not on quality, price & innovative marketing "

The general consensus in my work(engineering on a German multinational company) is that ANYTHING that is worth something on China is made from Europeans, Americans, or Japanese people.

This multinational is going to China because you don't pay taxes for something like 5 years, minimum taxes after 10 years there and so on...

Of course, once there they steal your plans and know how(as they force you to have Chinese partners), and a Chinese company starts making exactly what you used to, with very poor quality but at half or quarter of the price(they got their knowhow free from western greediness).

codecaine• 15 years ago

did they actually receive $281,989 in funding or is that a bug on kickstarters side?

cobrabyte4• 15 years ago

They got a lot more than they ever expected and I think that's the right number. I remember checking it a few times and couldn't believe how successful the campaign was.

brad_jetpens2• 15 years ago

Yep - that is the right number. I was backer #15 (I think) and just watched the numbers climb and climb. It was pretty amazing.

Elepsis• 15 years ago

Keep in mind that in this case "funding" also equals pre-orders for the actual pens at half the price they intend to eventually sell them for.

rizumu• 15 years ago

Another highly regarded pen is the Pentel Stylo MLJ20: http://www.cultpens.com/acatalog/Pentel_Tradio_Refills.html

The images from an artist who works with it: http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1332

zokier• 15 years ago

Reminds me of what Jeri Ellsworth told about making electronics in China[1]: "After getting to Hong Kong I opened one of the units to find that they had cost reduced my reference design without telling me. "

[1] http://www.eeweb.com/spotlight/interview-with-jeri-ellsworth

abcd_f• 15 years ago

Alternative HN submission: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3036351

albahk• 15 years ago

I'm amused at the mindset of trying to do low-volume and hence (for the factory) low-profit manufacturing runs in China and complaining when it turns out to be more difficult than uploading a file and waiting for a box of Apple-quality products to arrive at your front door.

Simple economics - if it was easy, everyone could do it.

I work on construction projects in China so I have an idea of the difficulties re: quality and expectations

noonespecial• 15 years ago

How much better would the world be if it was easy and everyone could do it?

I'd go so far as to say that it should be this way and will be this way. The more people who run headlong into the frustration and disappointment of this exercise, the sooner some talented people will realize that this is broken and fix it.

nickpinkston3• 15 years ago

The issue with trying to fully automate manufacturing, even just the quoting, is that it's such a complex process and the most efficient means of mass production require lots of fixture costs (molds, dies, automation programming, etc.) to see the technological gains.

This means that, in order to afford to get these types of cost gain, you must produce a lot of something in order to justify it. Also, it means your engineers working with their's to optimize the design. This isn't as easy as it should be - like the interpreter throwing errors on line #X - because much of manufacturing engineering is still the art of try-and-see. Whoever is closer to the production line knows best.

I'd love to see a world where CAD files go in and fully made products are quoted, interactively optimized using simulations, and then produced on demand. However, these systems are hard to justify when large costs allow humans to do this for only slightly less efficiently than an amazingly complex computer system for this purpose.

We'll get there - look at the full-auto sites like Ponoko where you can get laser-cutting, 3D printing and CNC in this manner, but it's a while until full products can be made this way.

ams6110• 15 years ago

Wonder if they even tried to find a manufacturer in the USA. Small volume, and technically very simple. No language, time zone, import, or travel barriers.

joe_bleau3• 15 years ago

My exact thought. I'd even pay more for one knowing it was made in the US. This just doesn't seem like the type of job requiring off-shore manufacturing.

huhtenberg2• 15 years ago

> I'd even pay more for one knowing it was made in the US.

How much? Serious question, just curious.

kamaal• 15 years ago

Manufacturing is so much more than cost. I don't about US, but I tell you about India I country that I live in.

I don't think as a country we will ever make up or compete with what China is doing currently. Although I can tell you you can hire people here at equally low prices. When you talk of manufacturing. The first sort is machine made the other ones are hiring human beings.

The latter sort of is what is most tricky. You need people who are ready to do a repetitive job, that can add nothing to their knowledge on the longer and are ready to work for long hours for cheap wages. Most of that work is generally precision work that you can't do with machines. With machines, its a different story. You begin to see how you can recover your investment over time. But with people, you have to start to look at scalability issues.

I don't know about America. But I think its worthwhile to ask a few questions.

a. Is it possible to hire such large volume of people at such low prices in America.

b. Will those people, be ready to work for long hours on repetitive mechanical oriented jobs. Which gives no value on a persons career on a longer run.

c. Since these jobs are low paying, the retirement long term financial benefits won't be exciting. The health care benefits won't be much.

d. Since industries have to be all at one place, for inventory co ordination, infrastructure issues et al. People will be forced to live in low rent houses. Often of sharing and accommodation basis. Is this lifestyle ok with those mass quantity of people.

The way I see American lifestyle is more driven by spending, and expenses are really high for an ordinary American. Both in terms of daily expenditure and other issues like sending kids to college and medical benefits.

The larger question is will the mass American crowd adopt to the lifestyle I describe?

If the answer is yes, I see no reason why this can't be done in the USA. In fact if it can be done, then it must be encouraged. The government must make it easy and facilitate them. Why should the average American suffer because of me in India or some one in China. If any thing that can be done here(India/China) it can be done there(America) if the conditions are suitable.(both in terms of economic and other factors).

nhebb• 15 years ago

Even if they did shift manufacturing overseas eventually, it still would have made more sense to have the initial fabrication done locally until they ramp up to higher volumes and dial in the process. The pictures look like a small job shop, and this doesn't look like the kind of labor intensive product that would benefit the most from being made in China. I used to work with local machine shops that would do small runs of similar complexity for a reasonable piece price. I'd be interested to know how they costed it out.

HeyLaughingBoy• 15 years ago

Exactly what I was thinking. I keep reading about all these small machine shops all across the US desperate for work, even taking work on at a loss so they can pay part of their overhead.

My guess is that they looked mainly at larger outfits that couldn't take on a small job, or they just didn't look very hard. Not blaming them: if you don't know where to get something made, it can be hard to figure out where to start looking.

Geekette• 15 years ago

No one jumps into manufacturing in China as a 1st choice, especially not small time producers. Who would skip the convenience and assurance of having stuff domestically?

I'd wager they did their research and could not find any in-country manufacturers that would custom produce a design (along with creating any custom tooling required), in such small quantity, at economically viable pricing.

In the past, I've tried to get relatively "ordinary" products (e.g. luggage & cosmetic packaging) made within North America (had to expand local to regional) to almost no avail. I found many "manufacturers" here import their products from China. Only a handful businesses actually make stuff here and their minimum requirements often do not make sense for small/new businesses. And the differences in pricing between local & overseas producers far exceeded the examples discussed here.

That said, as that kickstarter post showed, nominal pricing is only part of the cost of overseas production (they underestimated foreign logistic issues, refinement costs, etc) and final cost may make it not worth making the leap. Many products are simply too expensive for small businesses to produce at home OR abroad. They would have stopped their experiment earlier but they do have 11,280% of requested capital to play with in this case.

Wingman4l7• 15 years ago

This situation instantly reminded me of this recent Wired piece: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/ff_madeinamerica/all/1 (Made in America: Small Businesses Buck the Offshoring Trend)

shithead• 15 years ago

Being a pessimist, I foresee many owners bending the casing just enough to make it useless ...

If not that, a grain of sand down the shaft will probably jam it good.

And, to be a complete spoilsport, "how it will look in fifty years" must be minus the nicks and dents on the sharp edges.

jQueryIsAwesome• 15 years ago

The way they smile, talk, look at each other and all that buzz in the promotional video is probably the key factor for so much money on funding.

ck22• 15 years ago

I'm always confused why if we have to outsource we don't try to build up our physical neighbors (Mexico) instead of propping up a communist government that we do not get along with (China).

Imagine the reductions in delivery cost and time if everything came from Mexico instead of China.

lionhearted• 15 years ago

Because cross-ocean bulk shipping costs basically nothing these days, so you build wherever has more competent infrastructure, work culture, and whatever else you need. Having been to Mexico a few times and being in China right now, China's got a huge edge on Mexico in many, many areas.

Also, it's not communist here and hasn't been for a while, but that's another story for another time.

ck22• 15 years ago

Yes but US companies built up that infrastructure by consistently contracting to China over the years instead of Mexico.

China could market to Europe, middle-east and Oceania - Mexico could have been China to the US.

China is most definitely ruled by the Communist Party - just because there is economic freedom doesn't mean there are other freedoms and we feed that power, just like we feed the oppression in the middle-east when we buy oil from there. We're 100% guilty considering there are other options.

Manufacturing "A Minimal Pen" in China, failures and successes

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