Why is LEGO now being made in China?

[kibosh]

I think the quality of the Disney CMFs is the worst yet. These are made in China, no?

[Aanchir]

I think the quality of the Disney CMFs is the worst yet. These are made in China, no?

Yep, same as all CMFs. What specific quality issues have you encountered?

[Hip]

I think they are putting less in sets and then charging more

Sad really

[betaplayer]

Yes ... It's sad ... However I don't know if Lego made in china are lower quality. I noticed the quality was going down, but that started before they opened the factory in china.

[1980-Something-Space-Guy]

Is the Chinese plastic more prone to cracking, or is this a more general problem?

[Aanchir]

Is the Chinese plastic more prone to cracking, or is this a more general problem?

I haven't heard any problems with the Chinese-made minifigures cracking more than ones made elsewhere. The most widespread issues with the Chinese-made minifigures since they first started showing up tend to involve color quality and more visible seams/molding marks.

I do seem to remember complaints about the early CMFs' leg and arm hinges becoming loose quicker than those made elsewhere if they were swapped around. I generally try to avoid swapping individual minifigure legs and arms around most of the time anyhow because the connection points are not really designed to sustain that in the long term, so I have no idea if this problem still exists with any kind of regularity.

[Faefrost]

The biggest issue with Chinese manufacture is the plastics need to be sourced locally. And doing so does not have quite the same 100% matchup the way the directly sourced Bayer stuff they use in Europe does. 

 

As as for why they are doing it? Take a look at the civil case against Lepin. Lego is using Chinese factories in part to facilitate entry into the large and growing Chinese market, and in part to give themselves leverage in Chinese courts against IP counterfeiters. As a wholly foreign enterprise the Chinese courts will by and large ignore them and international copyright law. However with a Chinese pressense it becomes a question of who is worth more to China business wise. Lego or the Counterfeiter? In essence they are establishing a Lego owned Chinese factory in order to buy coverage under what passes for the local rule of law. 

 

And no no they are not switching to Chinese manufacture to squeeze margin in the West. If that was their main goal the new factory would be in Thailand, Vietnam or Indonesia. Chinese labor costs are soaring. 

[1980-Something-Space-Guy]

3 minutes ago, Faefrost said:

The biggest issue with Chinese manufacture is the plastics need to be sourced locally. And doing so does not have quite the same 100% matchup the way the directly sourced Bayer stuff they use in Europe does. 

 

As as for why they are doing it? Take a look at the civil case against Lepin. Lego is using Chinese factories in part to facilitate entry into the large and growing Chinese market, and in part to give themselves leverage in Chinese courts against IP counterfeiters. As a wholly foreign enterprise the Chinese courts will by and large ignore them and international copyright law. However with a Chinese pressense it becomes a question of who is worth more to China business wise. Lego or the Counterfeiter? In essence they are establishing a Lego owned Chinese factory in order to buy coverage under what passes for the local rule of law. 

 

And no no they are not switching to Chinese manufacture to squeeze margin in the West. If that was their main goal the new factory would be in Thailand, Vietnam or Indonesia. Chinese labor costs are soaring. 

Wow! I never realized that it might allow them to take legal action against the Chinese counterfeit brands. It'll be interesting to see how the story develops, although in that case I do wonder why they didn't take legal action before.

[Faefrost]

23 minutes ago, BrickHat said:

Wow! I never realized that it might allow them to take legal action against the Chinese counterfeit brands. It'll be interesting to see how the story develops, although in that case I do wonder why they didn't take legal action before.

 

It's not that they couldn't take legal action before. It's that they would lose or the legal system would protect the Chinese company over them so doing so from a foreign position would be fruitless. Simply pissing in the wind. By having a greater investment in China than the counterfeiter it gives them leverage to encourage the Chinese court to at least give them a fair hearing. Yes it is wickedly corrupt. Welcome to China. 

 

They are are further building their own factory in part because it minimizes the use of their own tooling by the counterfeiters. The common rule when contracting a Chinese factory is they will work hard Mibday to Friday making your product to the best of their ability. Then they will work even harder Saturday and Sunday using your tooling and designs to make product for themselves. The same fatories that are making the original product are often making the knock offs. Often using the IP holders own tooling. Owning and controlling the factory prevents that (somewhat). 

Edited September 22, 2016 by Faefrost

[dr_spock]

We really don't know if they haven't taken legal action against other Chinese clones before.  LEPIN seems to be the one they made public.  Like Eurobricks administration, there are a lot of behinds the scenes stuff we do not publicly see or privy to.  In the past, LEGO only said they have taken legal action where they can and wish for in other cases without any specific details.  I think win or lose, you have to demonstrate an effort to protect your IP, otherwise, the lack of effort could be used against you in future suits.  Was it Bayer who lost a trademark case through not protecting it for years and then suing?

Some Chinese companies are building factories in India now because the labour costs are lower there than China. I guess they learned from themselves. 

 

[1980-Something-Space-Guy]

On 9/22/2016 at 4:09 PM, Faefrost said:

 

It's not that they couldn't take legal action before. It's that they would lose or the legal system would protect the Chinese company over them so doing so from a foreign position would be fruitless. Simply pissing in the wind. By having a greater investment in China than the counterfeiter it gives them leverage to encourage the Chinese court to at least give them a fair hearing. Yes it is wickedly corrupt. Welcome to China. 

 

They are are further building their own factory in part because it minimizes the use of their own tooling by the counterfeiters. The common rule when contracting a Chinese factory is they will work hard Mibday to Friday making your product to the best of their ability. Then they will work even harder Saturday and Sunday using your tooling and designs to make product for themselves. The same fatories that are making the original product are often making the knock offs. Often using the IP holders own tooling. Owning and controlling the factory prevents that (somewhat). 

Thanks for all the info! I was actually wondering why they hadn't sued Lepin right after making the factory in China, but it might just all be due to them trying to consolidate their position.

But I guess that's a fair point too, we don't really know if they have attempted other lawsuits before.

[BubbaFit45531]

My concern is a corrupt factory manager using lower quality materials and pocketing the difference between Lego quality standard materials and the junk stuff. I read somewhere that many years ago, made in China bricks were of lesser quality.

[Bricknblue]

3 hours ago, BubbaFit45531 said:

My concern is a corrupt factory manager using lower quality materials and pocketing the difference between Lego quality standard materials and the junk stuff. I read somewhere that many years ago, made in China bricks were of lesser quality.

The CMF series are made in China and my only complaint is they have really bad legs.

LEGO also has a plant in Mexico yet no one seems to care.

[Aanchir]

9 hours ago, BubbaFit45531 said:

My concern is a corrupt factory manager using lower quality materials and pocketing the difference between Lego quality standard materials and the junk stuff. I read somewhere that many years ago, made in China bricks were of lesser quality.

This new factory is the LEGO Group's own, and they have much better oversight than to allow that to happen on their watch. If it were simply a case of outsourcing production to another company I would understand that concern more, although even in that situation, LEGO has plenty of experience making sure things like that don't happen.

[Faefrost]

The biggest challenge Lego faces in China is sourcing the plastic. In Europe they are able to use a single source that is completely to their specifications (I want to say Bayer?). But due to a ton of carrying environmental and political regulations they must use local sources in China. Matching those plastics to Bayern formulations is the challenge. 

[BubbaFit45531]

I just hope the toxic stuff that ended up in dog food and baby formula doesn't end up in Lego sets.

[dr_spock]

LEGO may choose to sample test the properties of raw plastic material before using them.  If they passed, then use them.  If they failed, then send them back to the supplier and put them on notice.

[Adamskii]

The boss of the Chinese manufacturing Lego plant cannot tell the difference between Lego and Clone minifigs, Oh my.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFPbVM-JnFw

 

[Robert8]

Are you serious???

How come he can't identify an official LEGO minifigure

 

[zux]

7 hours ago, Robert8 said:

Are you serious???

How come he can't identify an official LEGO minifigure

 

He didn't have time to inspect minifigures properly.

I suspected Ninjago to be the clone as this theme is more popular.

[dr_spock]

He is wearing bi-focals and they didn't let him use a magnifiying glass.  I guess they'll have hire a much younger new boss with good eye sight. 

I think they're trying to say you can't tell the difference by a quick look since the clones have gotten so good.

[Kalahari134]

Besides which, his job is to manage a factory efficiently. Comparing his own products with clones is not his job.

[BrickG]

This doesn't seem important to me. Who cares if he can't tell? He could be a wonderful factory manager dude and he might let others whose job it is to worry about those details worry about it.

I'm not saying he IS a wonderful factory manager dude. Who knows?... but I don't really care that he can't tell. You can draw any of 1000 different conclusions based on this.

[Aanchir]

Brand confusion is also a wholly expected consequence of counterfeiting, and one of the reasons LEGO tries so hard to fight it. Rather than making this person look stupid or inexperienced, I think it's a really good demonstration of how you don't HAVE to be stupid or inexperienced to make these kinds of mistakes. An average person who hasn't done any kind of research or examined LEGO parts in detail shouldn't be expected to know where all the brand names and molding marks are supposed to be on a genuine minifigure.

[RetroInferno]

I thought knock-off mini-figs had awefull printed faces? If he only could take a very quick look without removing accesories from the mini-figs I could understand the confusion.