• shads@lemy.lol
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    2 days ago

    I’m not sure Miele is struggling that much, was a few years ago now but I remember a sales rep telling me the story of the annoyed German executive who “was unhappy” with a division of Miele as they had run out of room and had to “off shore” a factory to keep up with demand. The new factory was in Austria.

    I am a huge advocate for them, back when I sold white goods and small appliances they often had really solid products and they maintained their “prestige brand” status by testing their products to an extent I haven’t seen many other brands bragging about.

    Usually we sold to new customers on word of mouth from existing, and existing customers who wanted to scale up or down as family requirements changed.

    • IceFoxX@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      Well, these predetermined breaking points can be found in all appliances. However, this is nothing new. The current problems at Miele are for other reasons. For example, pushing prices down as far as possible during production.
      Wave of layoffs
      It is questionable to what extent the wave of redundancies will take place
      Well
      as many have already left as a result.
      Another reason… After Germany had managed to turn “Made in Germany” into something positive, things went downhill again. Since many work steps are carried out in China or elsewhere and only the final work steps are carried out in Germany… Just enough to allow the label to be used legally. Our legislators should have done more. Why should you pay more for alleged German quality when most of it is not German quality?

      • shads@lemy.lol
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 day ago

        Huh, the more you know. It was some time back that I was selling them, a depressingly long time ago now I guess. It’s a shame they have bowed to economic circumstances, the article I just read (which was translated so nuance may have been lost) makes it sound like they fell into the pandemic trap of scaling to meet demand during an unforseen boom and then couldn’t justify the size and scope of the workforce once that demand rationalised.

        My family recently purchased a Bosch front load washing machine (autodose 1 button operation and teenagers is a match made in heaven) and they have 3 series available, 2 are manufactured in China, the other is manufactured in Spain. I had several retailers tell me to steer clear of the Spanish product, it carried a higher price tag than the Chinese lines and had a higher fault and return rate. We have been happy with ours so far but time will tell.

        • IceFoxX@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 day ago

          One way or another, the pandemic has put a lot of things in extreme disarray here and politicians are helping to destroy our industry because lobbying and their own pockets full of money are more important… the pandemic in particular has revealed the worst corruption among our politicians. Von der Leyen… the same at European level and now is the time when she has to face up. But it will come to nothing otherwise she wouldn’t have been re-elected…

          As far as quality is concerned… Well, the West (not just Germany) has outsourced a lot to China. Many people still make fun of the fact that the Chinese only copy and produce poor quality. But that has not been the case for a long time. They have left the West behind in many areas (even if there is still a lot of crap from China, of course). You can’t keep up with China, especially when it comes to prices. But well, you can get very good or better quality from China.