A year ago, I would have never guessed at my massive involvement in off-shore tooling. As a toolmaker by trade, I have an inherent amount of pride in US manufacturing. When Mark Stephens and I went to China in April/06, I knew I would need a lot of convincing.

Now, eight months later, I have been involved in six mold projects with three vendors out of the five we approved. My thoughts follow:

1. Quality is good. Overall, quality of the molds we built in China have been good. Most problems were fixed in a couple of hours in our shop. Usually, the problems were of the nitpicky variety: threaded Knock-out bars were omitted in the ejector plate, a pressure transducer was cut, etc. One of the molds did have a few areas that needed more tool work than I expected, but we fixed the problem and got back on track within a few days. Our vendor responded quickly to all of my findings and will be considered for future business.
2. Communications are a struggle. Most of the time, I have found e-mail works best. I now take the time to send written instructions along with sketches where needed. Sketches have definitely helped bridge the language gap. I find it best to follow up and document our agreements to ensure all involved have a clear picture of our needs.
3. Projects have been on time - mostly. One delivery was blown by two weeks, which was mostly attributable to the design phase. I have learned to be very aggressive during this phase of a program and am more involved than I am with US sources. US Customs has been less of a an influence on the delivery of the molds than  expected. Further work will be needed to fine tune the trucking of the molds to us once they clear customs.
4. Customers have been happy. They especially like that Ironwood stands behind an off-shore tool with the same life-time guarantee as a US-built tool. They also are enjoying the 30% savings.