Milwaukee Tool Raises the Bar with New USA Factory

This is good news, but Milwaukee is primarily a power tool company. Bringing power tool manufacturing back to the USA would be much bigger news.<p>Project Farm is a YouTube channel that reviews tools. I&#x27;ve noticed that most of the made-in-USA products are relatively simple - hand tools, drill bits, adhesives, lubricants, and so on. Any complex assembly that includes electronics is almost invariably made in Asia.<p>It feels like the remaining made-in-USA tools are those where the manufacturer doesn&#x27;t need to do much more than maintain some old machines and keep them fed with raw materials.

I don&#x27;t think this will make much of a difference aside from the branding advantage. The quality of a mass-produced product like a consumer hand tool isn&#x27;t a function of the country in which it is made but rather of its design. All the decisions made during that process and all the cost &#x2F; performance considerations made are what determine the ultimate outcome.<p>It&#x27;s common to blame Chinese manufacturing for cheap tools, but this gets the causation backwards. We wanted cheap tools and sending production overseas was the only way to get them. In fact because less is spent on labor, a better quality product can be had for the same price.<p>So bringing it back here without increasing the cost to the consumer means altering the design to make it cheaper to build, or banking on supply chain efficiencies to make it worthwhile.

Increasingly looking like my decision to give up bootcamping myself into a coastal tech job and come back home to the midwest and work in a factory was the correct choice long term. Plenty of job security with all the onshoring happening. Ironically I&#x27;d be worried if I was in tech about the WFH trend and out of touch entitlement of the zoom class bringing about outsourcing again. Oh and the funny money ponzi scheme collapsing + that whole ageism thing..

Milwaukee&#x27;s battery tools are pretty great (M12 and M18 lines), but their hand tools aren&#x27;t particularly good in my experience. So &quot;raising the bar&quot; for them would be just making hand tools that people want to buy over the competition.<p>Made in the US is fine&#x2F;good&#x2F;whatever, but what I want to see from them is tools that are just good in their own right. I want to see their hand tools top Project Farm charts like their battery stuff. Time will tell.

I noticed at the most recent Milwaukee power tools event that they’re really going all in on specialist tools. This is a strong signal that they’re going to continue to cream the competition because irrational or not, people end up preferring a single battery platform, it’s not guaranteed they’ll stick to one brand for future power tool purchases but it’s extremely sticky. The Milwaukee battery power tool ecosystem started off being better than the competition by having better battery technology on the market sooner. Now they’re going all in on diversification of specialist tools.<p>Should i buy a dewalt or makita or bosch battery power tool knowing that i can add other common tools in future or should i go Milwaukee and enjoy better battery choices, and a far far wider selection of power tools for future purchases?<p>If i hadn’t started out with team blue, I’d be buying team red. I might switch when i need to replace batteries next.

Country-of-Origin (CoO) metadata can influence some buying decisions.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.madeinamerica.gov&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.madeinamerica.gov&#x2F;</a><p><i>&gt; When the U.S. government spends your tax dollars on American goods, we ensure our future is made in America. “Made in America” policies are designed to increase reliance on domestic supply chains and ultimately reduce the need to spend taxpayer dollars on foreign-made goods ... Various laws and regulations establish requirements for U.S. government procurement and assistance to support American manufacturing.</i><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ftc.gov&#x2F;business-guidance&#x2F;resources&#x2F;complying-made-usa-standard" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ftc.gov&#x2F;business-guidance&#x2F;resources&#x2F;complying-ma...</a><p><i>&gt; The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is charged with preventing deception and unfairness in the marketplace. The FTC Act gives the Commission the power to bring law enforcement actions against false or misleading claims that a product is of U.S. origin.</i><p>April 2022, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ftc.gov&#x2F;business-guidance&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2022&#x2F;04&#x2F;ftc-charges-battery-maker-first-case-under-made-usa-labeling-rule" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ftc.gov&#x2F;business-guidance&#x2F;blog&#x2F;2022&#x2F;04&#x2F;ftc-charg...</a><p><i>&gt; FTC charges battery maker in first case under Made in USA Labeling Rule ... the order prohibits them from making unqualified U.S.-origin claims unless they have proof that the product’s final assembly or processing – and all significant processing – takes place in the US and that all or virtually all ingredients or components are made and sourced here ... The order further requires that any qualified Made in USA claims include clear disclosures about the extent to which the product contains foreign parts, ingredients, or components, or involved foreign processing.</i><p>Some ecommerce tool sites have reliable CoO metadata and search filters.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.harryepstein.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.harryepstein.com&#x2F;</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;madeinusatools.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;madeinusatools.com&#x2F;</a>

Isn’t Milwaukee tool owned by a Chinese company? Some irony here.

Local production is always good, so this is good news.<p>But I fail to see that &#x27;this changes everything&#x27;. That tone of the article just feels patriotic. What will change, exactly? Did I miss some facts?<p>As for quality, regardless of whether it&#x27;s with or without power, I doubt there is a big difference in US, German, Japanese, Australian tools -- it&#x27;s a matter of preference and workshop organisation (e.g., for cordless power tools, the batteries should fit what is already there). One company may have a slightly better circular saw (Festool?) the next has a slightly better plunge router (Triton?) -- whatever. But most of that is marketing and branding policy (DeWalt is for the tough and sweating man and Festool is for the clean and thoughtful engineer -- but is there a quality difference in their cordless drills?) Milwaulkee is good and in the same league and I don&#x27;t see changes coming by this.

Raises the bar from whom? Klein has been making tools in the USA for over a century.

Non-American here: Made in USA isn’t a marker for quality any longer. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. These days, I make an effort to not buy American products. I wish that was different, but rarely have I seen this mix of carelessness and poor quality control without any attention to detail.

The new factory is in Milwaukee but they put a lot of money and effort into a new engineering center in downtown Chicago. I&#x27;ve been contacted by more than a handful of recruiters trying to fill positions there.

While I have no doubt a lot of HN&#x27;rs are handy... for those that don&#x27;t know, Milwaukee is _the_ professional tool line. If you get your house framed, your driveway re-concreted, your roof redone, your toilet cleared... they contractor was probably using a Milwaukee tool. It&#x27;s owned by TTI (Techtronic Tool Industry) and oddly enough is the same people that make Ryobi.

I&#x27;m not entirely sure how any of this matters. Tools and what bar they have to pass are just design choices. If you design a tool to be bad, it will be bad, no matter who manufactures them or where. At the same time, if you don&#x27;t have good quality assurance&#x2F;control and no tests that the manufacturer has to pass, then the design doesn&#x27;t matter, because the product apparently doesn&#x27;t have to meet the design specification and the whole design is practically arbitrary.<p>The only true change to the product that could happen is either a design change, or a change in available resources. Some multi-axis CNC machines are apparently not legally available everywhere in the world, so that could be a locality factor. On the other hand, plenty of companies design assemblies with complex components manufactured in various places around the world to be integrated elsewhere later on.

I’ve met some Milwaukee engineers. They do a lot of computer simulation with commercial analysis tools in their design.

Glad they&#x27;re doing this, though I think there&#x27;s a place for globalization too.<p>I bought a couple USA-made Milwaukee carpenter squares a couple years ago and found the quality (accuracy) wanting, unfortunately. I hope whatever strides they make with manufacturing in the USA keep quality at the forefront and don&#x27;t just end up eroding trust in the idea that USA-made means it&#x27;s going to be a quality product.<p>I ended up trying a number of bad squares from them at the hardware store and finally found a couple I was willing to buy because I like them and wanted to make it work.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;MilwaukeeTool&#x2F;comments&#x2F;jmv52u&#x2F;square_accuracy_not_what_i_would_expect_video_in&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;MilwaukeeTool&#x2F;comments&#x2F;jmv52u&#x2F;squar...</a>

Anecdotal, but the Milwaukee packout modular stacking toolbox&#x2F;rolling system has become wildly popular with electrical and low voltage + premises fiber contractors.<p>Home Depot and several others have tried to clone it with their own cheaper house brands which are kinda okay, but not as good as the original.

Makita makes power tools in Japan... for domestic Japanese customers. Makita power tools in the US (and I suspect elsewhere?) are made in China. Either Japanese customers are more patriotic, or Makita can&#x27;t compete pricewise with Chinese made power tools in US market.

If only they would make the Unix^H^H^H^HHole Hawg [0] in the US of A.<p>[0] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.team.net&#x2F;mjb&#x2F;hawg.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.team.net&#x2F;mjb&#x2F;hawg.html</a>

Non-American here: Made in USA isn’t a marker for quality. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. These days, I make an effort to not buy products that are made in the US.

hope it sticks! Sears&#x2F;craftsman tools were well respected before they dumped production overseas.

So, a Chinese company offshoring manufacturing to the United States. How the tables have turned.

The only reason I recognized this brand is because of Project Farm who delivers insightful tool review&#x2F;comparison videos.<p>Latest was published 4 hours ago.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;E-Xfv-7FFNk" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;E-Xfv-7FFNk</a>

They&#x27;ve got a lot of bar to raise. Really all TTI hand tools have always been rather meh, so this could turn the tide.<p>For anyone interested, apparently Craftsman also just opened a huge hand tool plant in Texas.<p>Nice to see a little resurgence in locally sourced stuff.

It&#x27;s not actually too hard to walk into a big box store like home depot or lowes and find US made hand tools. They tend to be higher priced but quality is pretty variable.<p>Almost all the power tools are made in china, though.

I am seeing the following trends:<p>- supply chain is moving to US (ex. Korean conglomerates, TSMC, Japan)<p>- cost of goods is rising as result of Made in US<p>- increased number of articles justifying this for improvement in quality

I&#x27;m interested in how these compare to quality Chinese tools like Harbor Freight&#x27;s ICON line.

This reads like AI-produced ad text.

Go team Milwaukee. I love it.