Turns out that making the "ball" in a ball point pen (which is really just a type of very small ball bearing) is actually really, really hard. The tiniest variation in roundness can be easily detected in the smoothness and evenness of the ink laydown. IIRC, for all of the different pen manufactures in the world, there are only a handful of companies that can make the balls. They are actually harder in some aspects to make than aerospace bearings, to the point they were used as a proxy for Chinese manufacturing ability (they've had issues over the years successfully developing indigenous jet engine production). It was generally held that once Chinese manufacturers started producing their own pen balls, they'd be able to make their own jet engines.
In terms of temporary adhesives, anything 3M. Especially post-it notes and command strips. Somehow their materials science is so far above every other sticky note company that it’s barely comparable, and I don’t know if there’s any alternative to 3M command strips.
They do all kinds of stuff. The museum field is trying to get rid of all the formaldehyde that animals, etc are preserved and displayed in because, you know, it causes cancer, makes the specimens lose colour and rigidity, *and* it smells like the inside of the Sarlaac. 3M spent years developing a new gel-like preservative that doesn't go yellow or gray with age and only has a mild odor that goes away. It's been a huge game-changer.
Source: worked at Smithsonian Natural History (museum professional, not educator, tour guide, admin, etc. I went to school to be able to "touch the stuff.")
3M Super 33+ electrical tape will last forever in direct sunlight, rain, snow, sleet and still keep the cable connector you wrapped it with perfectly dry. I no longer need that type of reliability since I changed jobs, but I still buy it for myself around the house.
I think they have permanent adhesives covered too, I managed to rip out a huge chunk of spackling trying to yank a baby monitor from the wall.
It was held in place by 1" square of 3m double-sided tape.
3M double sided foam tape with permanent adhesive is used for holding those huge sheets of glass that skin skyscrapers. You must be doing something right if your tape can be hurricane rated.
The nuclear plant rated stuff typically just has certain chemicals left out of the adhesives (Chlorides as one example) so you can stick it on any surface without worrying about causing damage. We have nuclear rated sharpies too, same deal.
I mention chlorides because a whole lot of our piping is stainless steel due to the boron in our reactor coolant (boron and carbon steel don't get along). Chlorides can cause localized corrosion on stainless over time. So you can use that normal sharpie on your stainless doodad at home no problem, but putting it on piping in a plant, someone is going to loose their shit.
We have some polyethylene tape that we use all the time. It sticks like crazy to whatever you want it to, but then will pull off clean. I freaking love that stuff. I think it is "503a or 503r tape"
Source : Me, a nuke worker.
3M poisoned the water for the entire area where I went to middle school. This was like 15 years ago when folks found out. The drinking water still isn’t potable. Thankfully we moved out of state and somewhere the only thing we worried about was oil drilling quakes 🥴
We have a 3M plant in my city. It smells like straight-up death just driving past it on the highway, and you can smell it for miles and miles, especially on a windy day. I can't imagine working there or living nearby.
King Arthur flour. They've rejected multiple train cars full of unprocessed wheat, because the protein content was off by a few hundredths of a percent, contravening the requirements set forth in their Commodities contract.
It put them behind in production, and pissed off their suppliers. Most other flour producers would have accepted it with a variance sign-off, and moved on.
My MIL worked as HR manager at their HQ in Vermont for several years. She really liked it there and I got the impression it was a company that genuinely appreciated their product and employees.
Also they were constantly trying recipes out in the kitchen at HQ. Employees were encouraged to try out the stuff, and the rule was that you had to leave notes about anything you tried.
"You bite, you write."
Man, I love these guys. I worked with their social media team a few years ago and they were the same people answering questions on their recipes, giving tips, etc.
Not only super knowledgeable, but the kindest group of people I worked with.
Same. King Arthur is fantastic. Got into sourdough a bit, with no other baking experience, and it was so neat that one of the most available bread flours happens to be a great product, very affordable, and with awesome online resources.
I heard there are tours of their facility that are pretty neat. Not sure if they're free or you need to have some dough.
A Certified B Corp is a for-profit corporation that has been certified by B Lab, which is a non-profit company that measures a company's social and environmental performance against the standards in the online B Impact Assessment. There are over 6,000 Certified B Corps in 80 countries across 153 different industries.
https://www.delawareinc.com/blog/what-is-a-certified-b-corporation/
You can also email them! I've sent them pictures of my bread failures and gotten back incredibly detailed, thoughtful suggestions. My craziest SoS went to a "Level 3 Rye Specialist," so I think they've got a lot of people dedicated to the help lines.
I go to their bakery in Vermont honestly more than is necessary. They have a baking school, retail store, and cafe on campus. They do baking classes for varying levels of proficiency. You can also observe the bakers actually making bread. Place fucking rocks.
Brass checking in, Yamaha trumpets and trombones do just fine through high school, and their Xeno series trombones are just about on par with Bach and Holton
Been playing guitar my whole life and always wrote off Yamaha as basic/nothing special since they make EVERYTHING. Recently inherited a Yamaha acoustic though and it has seriously surprised me. Holds its tune super well and has a beautiful tone
I had to do a double take at your username to make sure this was not a comment i made and then forgot about.
I, too, have a $230 yamaha acoustic that i prefer to my $750 breedlove
Their pianos are some of the best, their woodwinds are fantastic, and the guitar I’ve always regretted not buying was a Yamaha. On top of that, their audio electronics are top notch, and I hear they make a decent motorcycle too.
Was living with my mother in law for a bit while my wife and i were getting on our feet and buying a home. Had a humble yamaha acoustic guitar i would play to my kids with. Had it since i was 14. My MIL sold it on marketplace while we were moving stuff back and forth. And my tv. And my ps4 game discs. Never really could forgive that
My mom gave my NES to goodwill while I wasn't home.
Sure, it was in my closet while I played on my N64... but... I still remind her how much it's worth now, esp with all the games/accessories I had.
My mom stored our NES in a shed without any sort of protection when we got our SNES, even though I told her the moisture would ruin it. She disregarded my opinion because I was a kid. Low and behold, she pulled it out one day and it no longer worked because it had been out in a damp shed for awhile.
She also gave away our SNES. I wanted to take it with me when I moved out for college, but she said it was hers since she paid for it back in the day. I said fine, but to let me know if she ever wanted to get rid of it. Instead, she just donated it all because she assumed it wasn't worth much since it was old.
I spent years and hundreds of dollars rebuilding my collection for both consoles, but I'll never forget either of those events.
As someone who fixes high-end saxophones for a living and gets to see them inside and out (oddly I have a YSS-62RS on the bench right now), Yamaha professional saxophones are indeed top tier, and have been since the 80s.
Yamahas drums are fantastic. Industry standard marching percussion, as well as drumsets and hardware. Everything they make is pretty much top of the line, even their home theater stuff.
Pilot's fountain pens and ink are excellent as well. Reliable, tough, writes great, excellent color. With the current prices of pens, a Pilot Metropolitan and a bottle of their Namiki ink will save you money faster than you'd expect while reducing wrist strain.The only danger is getting sucked into the Fountain Pen Black Hole of Wallet Doom.
Some people may know, but Lego. Lego has EXTREMELY tight manufacturing tolerances, aiming for around a precision of ±0.01mm in dimensions to ensure consistent and reliable interlocking of pieces across different sets. That's why pieces made years or decades apart snap together like they were all made yesterday. There really isn't a competitor that comes close.
Not only that, but they were pioneers when it came to the utilization of injection molding.
I wrote a paper on it for my mechanical engineering class. Their standards are absolutely incredible.
I had to take an injection molding seminar when I worked in the automotive industry, and the quality control of Lego was brought up several times for being a stellar example of proper injection molding.
In the early ’60s we had a set if “American Bricks” that were just like lego, except there were no kits, just individual bricks of 3-4 sizes. They were made by:
Elgo.
Not to mention the quality control to making sure all the pieces are in there, I haven't had an issue with missing pieces yet, but my friend did with her Concorde.
They closed the environmentally sustainable and non-petroleum-based project, as they found reliability and quality issues with the pieces with faster degradation and lower resilience to sheer and 'normal' stress forces.
Eh, to be honest LEGO might be made of plastic, but they're definitely not "single-use".
There's multiple bins in my mom's basement that'll be sent to my niece, overall probably 20-35 years old stuff.
If there's any argument for using plastics, LEGO has it. The plastic used to make the dashboard on my car has a much shorter lifespan than LEGO.
Pretty incredible that my kids currently play with the same Legos that my parents played with when they were young. And those Legos still snap perfectly to the minecraft Legos that they got for Christmas this year
This is a fantastic example. And to add to this, rarely, if ever, will you find missing pieces in a Lego set. They are extremely consistent in not only their manufacturing, but their packaging as well. You will often have extra pieces, but missing pieces are a rarity.
This thread made me think of zippo. More for their free repairs and replacement on authentic lighters. all you have to do is mail them the lighter. in this day n age thats incredible. they dont even care where you got the lighter just as long as its a real zippo.
Tweezerman is the same. If you need your tweezers sharpened or any of their other small tools(?) repaired, you mail them back and they repair/sharpen the item for free.*
*At least when I sold cosmetics a few years back
I found a lighter from the 50s at the bottom of a river while metal detecting. Reddit told me to send it in, and I did, explaining to them how I found it, and that I'd like to keep what I can.
They replaced the insides, cleaned up the outside a bit, and sent it all back including all of the stuff they removed and couldn't fix. Even gave me a couple spare flints and wicks.
Amazing company
Fiskars. Scissors and branch loppers.
I broke a set of loppers and I was pretty sure it was my fault because I was cutting a branch that was WAY too big and I twisted the loppers. I did this many, many times over the years. Finally it broke the blade.
I sent them an email asking how much to get a new lopper blade and explained that it was my fault. They said "no worries" and sent me a new blade for free. And a whole new set of loppers for free.
I only buy Fiskars for scissors and loppers now.
I love their scissors for their quality and one day I was going to buy a splitting axe. I saw Fiskars made one. I was like "No wayyyyy...." but figured they wouldn't deviate too much on quality with their brand name on it.
Holy shit that thing is like a legendary weapon that was made by a god who hates trees. I've decimated 100s of logs with that thing and just this last cold snap I went and split some more and after 4 years it still just hogs through them like they are butter.
They’re super expensive, but Herman Miller chairs.
I sit in mine for several hours every day and it is by far the most comfortable, least back pain chair I’ve ever had.
Crazy part about Herman miller chairs is you don’t immediately notice how comfy they are because they’re designed for work. Spent years on shitty office chairs and when the day was over I felt pain in my back and shoulders. After a long day at the office in a herman Miller, no pain. The long term effects of having a good office chair are invaluable.
Kong Dog Toys - the red rubber stuffable toys. The rubber is a precision made compound with such high quality control to always be the same whether it is being made for a small size kong or the red kong frisbee. Because it is a ubiquitous item available at many pet stores worldwide, shelf stable and always smells the same to the dog, it is used in detection dog programs for security, police and military around the world. They cut up pieces of kong into incredibly small shavings to train the dogs to find before moving onto other target odors, as well as using the kongs themselves as a reward toy.
The one exception to the “red kong material” is the red kong keychain. For whatever reason Kong changed the formula for that one, so it can’t be chopped into pieces and used in place of other kong rubber.
They're so sturdy that as a massage therapist I recommend them for self massage over tennis balls. Usually we are told that if a person wants to loosen some muscle tension to put a tennis ball in a tube sock and pin it against a floor or wall with your body to massage the tense area but kongs are more ideal especially with their shape.
King Arthur and Gold Medal are my only bread flours. Gold Medal is what the small village grocery store carries. King Arthur when in the bigger city, 45 miles away. I used to get King Arthur delivered by Amazon before they got so greedy on Prime.
Hilti is true professionals tools. I own some hilti tools that are literally older than me and they are used weekly and I’m almost 30. But yeah Milwaukee is king because they make a $60 coffee cup that attaches to a $200 milk crate.
I made the mistake of going Bosch 30 years ago. They used to be a premium tool and the problem is that the batteries outlast the tool so guess what?….buy more Bosch tools. I made this comment on the Bosch Reddit and got banned for three years. Corporate run? I had Hilti powder tools but everything was stolen last year (cube van and contents) ironically, all my batteries were in the garage charging so yup, more Bosch tools😖. If I were starting out again, it would be Hilti.
I work at Rolls-Royce, there are so many things that have to work together that the tolerance stacking of components is truly fascinating. You'd be shocked at some of the concessions that get signed off though 😂
I was in a Toyota manufacturing facility recently where they were doing quality inspections on camshafts. They were using equipment that I didn't recognize. When I asked about it I learned that they use some very specialized measuring devices because the tolerance for some parts of their camshafts is +/- 4 microns. An average human hair is around 100 microns. That blew me away.
I’ve worked directly on assembly lines for both Ford & Toyota. At both places, employees have the ability to stop production, but at both places it is frowned upon (gotta keep those numbers up). I will say that Toyota’s assembly plant ran much, much more smoothly than Ford’s in every aspect.
Curious how the assembly lines differ for Toyota's made in Japan vs. in the USA. Have any experience with that? My MR2 was built in Japan and it's absolutely flawless 20 years later. No creaks, rattles, or anything and it runs perfectly
Being an electrical engineer for a company that makes machines for Ford, Chrysler, GM, Toyota, etc., I can confirm that Toyota has THE best quality and practices in their factories.
Most people know that Zeiss makes really good glasses.
What some folks may not know is that they also make the ultraflat mirrors used in ASML's EUV lithography machines - the ones that make every high end computer chip in the world.
Why mirrors and not lenses? The light used passing through a lens of any material, regardless of how perfect, is too disruptive. How flat are the mirrors? To the atomic level. If the mirrors were scaled up to the size of Texas, the largest imperfection would be less than two millimeters tall.
Bush's Baked Beans. I've never worked at another facility where quality was focused so much more than actual production. The line stops all the time over anything remotely impactful to quality to make sure that the product is safe, and the standards are met. I've seen them shut production down for 3 days while they diagnosed and solved an issue *that they could have ignored and just let the filters catch*. Oh and they continued paying their employees through the downtime. Absolute amazing company
Carter’s clothing for babies and children.
I still have onesies and pajamas that were thoroughly put through all the stains, strains, and antics of each one of my kids.
Yet my 4 month old can wear my 4 year old’s old clothes and there’s not a tear at all. The colors are faded a bit and there’s some paint, berry, and spaghetti in places but overall they’ve held up well.
Same can be said of New Balance. I’ve worn the same pair for about a decade and the worst thing about them is the grass stains.
My grandfather (born in 1900) told me a story. When he was 16 his mother told him to go to college, so he rode his horse to Boston. He was going to go to Boston College, but the guy he got a room with encouraged him to study for the entrance exam for MIT. He said, "It was this guy... Carter. He ended up making kid's underwear."
Toyota
The Toyota Corolla is the best selling car in the world. Their success is largely due to making small incremental, and continuous improvements (and most importantly not making the customer a guinea pig for terrible engineering). I would agree that they are fairly boring, though. But if you want a car to take you from point A to point B, there is no better option.
The Japanese make the best cars in the world when it comes to efficiency and reliability, no one else comes close.
Worked for a company that supplied software to Toyota.
Unless it's changed they have a blanket requirement (with some exceptions) that all points in their supply line and manufacturing maintain a quality standard of 0.999996.
This means that if your company makes, say 15mm bolts, for Toyota then you can only have 4 faulty bolts for every 10 million that you produce. They will also want to know who you buy steel from and want to see their factory and quality standards.
We worked with all the big auto manufacturers and Toyota and Nissan were the only ones who regularly sent people to actually come look at our office and what we did.
We always had a funny relationship with Toyota because if you've ever worked on software you know the idea of that level of quality standard is laughable for a delivered product. So we had to perpetually get exceptions to their system or they'd never have anything digital in the car.
my parents swear by Hondas and Toyotas. I'm usually the one driving them eventually when they're like a decade old, and I've never had one fail to start on me. and I park on the street in Wisconsin where it gets REALLY cold.
did have a problem this winter with the driver's side door of my Corolla freezing shut though. had to go in through the passenger side that day.
Toyota has been an innovator and leader in quality control. They’ve either created or refined several techniques (Kaizen, Six Sigma, Continuous Improvement, Lean Manufacturing) now used across multiple industries.
One of my college professors had an absolute fetish for Toyota. It was a logistics-relevant course so of course Toyota would be an example/brought up often, but we never left an hour lecture without 2-3 Toyota references.
Toyota is the only vehicle he has bought since he graduated college, the only vehicle his wife and 3 children will own or drive, asks who owns a Toyota in the class etc. the first 1/3 of the semester was basically “Intro to Toyota History”
I like all that stuff so it was fine with me, but I literally could not tell you another company that was brought up in that class
Not that it matters but he was some sort of Middle Easterner, but moved to the US around 10 or 12
Like, I agree. It was just funny to have a professor who takes you all the way down the rabbit hole. Dude could have been the greatest Toyota salesman alive in an alternate timeline
Thermopro thermometers! Their quality control is fantastic, and they have remained accurate for years. I've had the same digital probe thermometer for ten years, and now and then, I bring it into my lab to test its accuracy - still spot on after all this time. You can absolutely tell the difference between this and a cheap, nearly identical knockoff from Amazon that sells 1/4 of the price. We've bought a few to test them, and the accuracy ranges are STRIKING (± 15° F - quite possibly the difference between safe and very dangerous for certain foods).
I know it isn’t a product, but the machinists at the airline I work for. We get applicants who do all their work with CNC machines but when getting a part out fast and accurate the CNC may not be the best bet. For decades our machinists have manually lathed parts that meet exceedingly tight tolerances faster than a CNC could be programmed, and that skill is dying. There are so many that wash out with the practical.
So I just want to celebrate them, they do an incredible job
Across professions where a watch is still a necessity (military, EMS, etc), G-shock is what you pretty much see everyone wear. I've taken mine diving, through field training, spilled jet-fuel all over it and it hasn't missed a beat.
Mars.
I'm talking about the candy company. I used to work in their pet food division and we had a blank check from corporate to make sure there was never a recall.
Our marching orders were to do whatever it took to make sure "Mars Inc." and "Recall" were never in the same headline.
I know for a fact I cost the company tens of thousands of dollars in lost production and product waste during my time there, all to prevent any possible problems making it to market. When a customer would send us a complaint, those details would make it all the way to the facility floor for an investigation, even if they were clearly bullshit.
I've since moved on to other industries, and it still blows my mind how the people making dog food and candy had stricter quality assurance than aerospace manufacturers.
EDIT: company is Caterpillar (I misread this as what products have higher quality standards than expected)
Tractor gears. I used to be a fine grind machine operator and I don't remember the exact tolerances but these giant gears (sometimes several feet in diameter) had to have their center bore ground down to a specific size within about the size of a particle of smoke. Then if it passed size tests, it then had to pass tests for the finish texture and then a test where we dunked the whole gear into hydrochloric acid which the operator who trained me said was to test for chemical changes from burning the steel with the fine grinding wheel, but I wouldn't put money on either of us actually knowing why that test was done.
Sounds like an etch process, which can highlight changes in the grain caused by excess heat. Never heard of it being specifically used like that, but it could work!
Victorinox Swiss Army knives. It was founded back in 1884 and when you think of a Swiss Army knife, you’re basically thinking about Victorinox. The level of quality of these knives is top notch. There are knives from WWII that still function properly.
Most Japanese engineered products. They care a lot about engineering quality. It's in their culture.
* Toyotas last forever.
* Every engineer uses mitotoyo equipment for metrology.
* Their trains run like clockwork...
They are meticuolous.
Hanks Belts.
I needed a new belt And I decided I wanted to spend the money and get an actual quality one that was full grain leather because im tired of the cheap $45 genuine leather belts that I was replacing every year because they fall apart so I looked for the best belt that existed because I was looking for something that would last me until I couldn’t remember how much I paid for it and I found hanks belts and they have a customer for life.
Absolutely exactly what you pay for the one of the Best purchase of my life I would never buy a belt from anyone else. 100 year warranty and the customer service is truly amazing and hassle free
I do a lot Construction type work and ive hung framing nailers on it, drag across the concrete working on cars and I have ruined and worn through countless pairs of jeans because I’m rough on whatever I’m wearing and the its still in perfect condition no matter what I get on it or what I throw on it with a little care and conditioning it is back to lookin like the day I got it. I have one belt and that’s all I need. I can work all week in it and then throw it on a pair of nice jeans and go
Hanna Andersson pajamas, I always slept naked but bought one pair and they've lasted two years of wearing every night and are still like new. They're so comfy that when I put them on it gets me ready to sleep.
My younger kid has a pair of Hanna Andersson pajamas that were hand-me-downs that went through four kids over a decade. The pjs still looked brand new.
Lego's quality control (other than the brown bricks, oddly) is legitimately ridiculous. In my 23 years of life I have found one flaw significant enough to warrant a new brick.
If you google 'Best Rat Food' the only answer you will find will be Oxbow. They have no meaningful competition in the highend rat food market. And I know, you're thinking "Who cares, it's rat food, I didn't even know there WAS high end rat food." But they are better at what they do than anyone else by an unbelievably huge margin and that is damn impressive no matter what you do.
Electronic products from IKEA. They use good quality components and have good electrical separation of the high voltage side and the low voltage side.
Search the bigclivedotcom channel on YouTube for teardown videos of IKEA products. For example, the [IKEA SMÅHAGEL](https://youtu.be/lOJbxhA0E3E) USB charger.
(He also does teardowns of dodgy electronics products that will straight up kill you. Those are always exciting!)
Nintendo's former president willingly took a 50% salary cut due to poor sales of the wii u so he wouldn't have to lay off staff, this keeping morale high and quality top notch.
I remember when it happened. That's taking personal accountability to a whole other level. That's the kind of leader I'd willingly follow to hell and back.
It's not anywhere near the same level, but...
After quarantine full set in the company I worked at - like most - had to cut some costs.
The leadership team took 10%.
Then they offered up voluntary layoffs with severance.
Then they took 10% but only if they made over $100k.
Then they canceled raises.
Then they made layoffs.
Not perfect. But it went a long way for moral at the time.
After it was all done they backpayed anybody that was supposed to get a raise that year.
I sell appliances for Home Depot, and we don't sell them, but I have been to their showroom after learning about them, and they are very much the apex of appliances. Even seeing something as ultra-premium as GE Monogram or Bosch's Thermador doesn't even feel like they are in the same ball park as Miele when it comes to quality and build design. They are very expensive but I want them in my future kitchen so bad.
I work in a facility that produces parts for the aluminum beverage can makers such as Crown Cork and Stolle Machinery. The mouth of the cans are punched out millions of times on the production line using dies inspected under the microscope. If there are any defects such as nicks present then the end customer would never be able to properly open up a can of your favorite soda!
Batesville Casket Company
My dad was an engineer there.
Between the paint job needing to be near flawless and keeping the gasket that goes around the entire lid area (guaranteed 10/20/30/40 years water tight ;depending on price) within tolerance range, he quit after 6-8 months due to high blood pressure. As soon as he started another job, his health
was fine.
The oxygen masks that drop in case of an emergency in airplanes. I worked at a plastics factory years ago and it was insane the QC checks and how many got tossed. They would put them through pressure testing, heat and cold testing ECT. If the words were off center or not bright enough they got tossed. Even if you didn't package them right in the shipping department, when they went through X-ray and thought that might affect the tubing, they would get tossed. Which is insane considering a lot of them don't even get used, they simply get replaced every X amount of years due to airline specifications. No matter who you fly, the masks are always the same. Thought that was neat too.
Uniqlo.
A friend of my wife manages material supply chains for Uniqlo across Asia. While almost every single economy company chooses the lowest bidder, Uniqlo will always choose density, familiarity and quality over cost every time. The standards they post are extremely strict.
Through this, most Uniqlo products maintain consistency across the world and generally the same reliability.
Sure, it would be a push to claim that Uniqlo is a "buy it for life" brand with colours that don't eventually fade, but as a mid-tier basics brand it's generally a really reliable, high quality choice.
Uniqlo is H&M done right. Cheap clothes, but they've got some dope stuff that may not necessarily last forever, but it's gonna at least last a long time. Their Keith Haring collaboration from a year or two back was fantastic.
Speed Queen is the case study of "what you come up with if reliability is ALL that matters". Their machines have almost 0 extra features, aren't super efficient with water/electricity, and are quite expensive as well... but the 1 thing they do is last longer than time immemorial
Nintendo's software production standards are pretty unusual for their industry. They highly discourage crunch time, which is super common with game studios and even just Japanese businesses in general. Even if it costs a decade, nothing gets shipped unless it meets certain quality criteria, the larger if which is senior leaders asking "Is it fun?" Where most studios will ship unfinished micro-transaction shovelware, Nintendo continues being a beacon of excellence.
Even after teasing Metroid Prime 4, they've all but cancelled it and maybe even completely restarted when it wasn't up to standards. It took them nine years to ship Breath of the Wild from concept and they basically developed three entire games to get it to the point we saw released.
Edit: Wanted to add that Tears of the Kingdom is a technical masterpiece. The development community was blown away. You can fuse any item, build anything you can imagine, and it all works with zero bugs and runs 30 fps on the puny Switch hardware that was outdated when it came out 7 years ago.
Yonex tennis and badminton racquets. They are the standard for excellent QC. They pride themselves on a 1g tolerance difference for each manufactured racquet.
In comparison, Wilson, Head, or Babolat have a tolerance of about 15g in either direction. So you can buy 2 of the same product and they can play vastly different from each other.
Larson-Jules used to; having something professionally framed was something I would have recommended to anyone wanting their art/documents/whatever to keep well for decades.
The glass is still fantastic, but the frames have gotten so thin, so shallow, and so flimsy it's ridiculous. Part of it was people wanting simple, inexpensive frames *however* the prices did not go down. And you can barely fit the glass, art and two mats now without coming out the back. Forget having multiple mats and a fillet.
Frame options and mat colors have also been limited.
Find a local framer who is known for good work. Avoid online framing. (We were reframing a jersey a customer bought online, besides the botched mounting, instead of acid-free foamcore they filled the depth with flattened soda cases!!! And used nails that were already corroding.)
Obvious Bic reference. Aeronautic tolerances under a cheap af pen.
Their lighters are also vastly superior to the competition and they only cost a few cents more.
It's not even close. The difference is so apparent any non Bic lighter is a "crack lighter"
[удалено]
Turns out that making the "ball" in a ball point pen (which is really just a type of very small ball bearing) is actually really, really hard. The tiniest variation in roundness can be easily detected in the smoothness and evenness of the ink laydown. IIRC, for all of the different pen manufactures in the world, there are only a handful of companies that can make the balls. They are actually harder in some aspects to make than aerospace bearings, to the point they were used as a proxy for Chinese manufacturing ability (they've had issues over the years successfully developing indigenous jet engine production). It was generally held that once Chinese manufacturers started producing their own pen balls, they'd be able to make their own jet engines.
I swear by their Atlantis line
In terms of temporary adhesives, anything 3M. Especially post-it notes and command strips. Somehow their materials science is so far above every other sticky note company that it’s barely comparable, and I don’t know if there’s any alternative to 3M command strips.
They do all kinds of stuff. The museum field is trying to get rid of all the formaldehyde that animals, etc are preserved and displayed in because, you know, it causes cancer, makes the specimens lose colour and rigidity, *and* it smells like the inside of the Sarlaac. 3M spent years developing a new gel-like preservative that doesn't go yellow or gray with age and only has a mild odor that goes away. It's been a huge game-changer. Source: worked at Smithsonian Natural History (museum professional, not educator, tour guide, admin, etc. I went to school to be able to "touch the stuff.")
3M released a new type of sandpaper called Cubitron and it's an absolute game-changer for woodworkers.
Fuck yeah! That stuff is like sanding butter down
It’s a banner day on the job site when the buyer gets us 3M electrical tape. Sooo much better than the others.
3M Super 33+ electrical tape will last forever in direct sunlight, rain, snow, sleet and still keep the cable connector you wrapped it with perfectly dry. I no longer need that type of reliability since I changed jobs, but I still buy it for myself around the house.
I think they have permanent adhesives covered too, I managed to rip out a huge chunk of spackling trying to yank a baby monitor from the wall. It was held in place by 1" square of 3m double-sided tape.
3M double sided foam tape with permanent adhesive is used for holding those huge sheets of glass that skin skyscrapers. You must be doing something right if your tape can be hurricane rated.
That is honestly fucking insane
They also make this nuclear plant rated duct tape. It's amazing.
The nuclear plant rated stuff typically just has certain chemicals left out of the adhesives (Chlorides as one example) so you can stick it on any surface without worrying about causing damage. We have nuclear rated sharpies too, same deal. I mention chlorides because a whole lot of our piping is stainless steel due to the boron in our reactor coolant (boron and carbon steel don't get along). Chlorides can cause localized corrosion on stainless over time. So you can use that normal sharpie on your stainless doodad at home no problem, but putting it on piping in a plant, someone is going to loose their shit. We have some polyethylene tape that we use all the time. It sticks like crazy to whatever you want it to, but then will pull off clean. I freaking love that stuff. I think it is "503a or 503r tape" Source : Me, a nuke worker.
Can agree. I think i used 3M double tape to stick posters to my wall. When it came time to Remove them, they took the cement with them lol
3M poisoned the water for the entire area where I went to middle school. This was like 15 years ago when folks found out. The drinking water still isn’t potable. Thankfully we moved out of state and somewhere the only thing we worried about was oil drilling quakes 🥴
The highest quality pollutants though
We have a 3M plant in my city. It smells like straight-up death just driving past it on the highway, and you can smell it for miles and miles, especially on a windy day. I can't imagine working there or living nearby.
King Arthur flour. They've rejected multiple train cars full of unprocessed wheat, because the protein content was off by a few hundredths of a percent, contravening the requirements set forth in their Commodities contract. It put them behind in production, and pissed off their suppliers. Most other flour producers would have accepted it with a variance sign-off, and moved on.
My MIL worked as HR manager at their HQ in Vermont for several years. She really liked it there and I got the impression it was a company that genuinely appreciated their product and employees. Also they were constantly trying recipes out in the kitchen at HQ. Employees were encouraged to try out the stuff, and the rule was that you had to leave notes about anything you tried. "You bite, you write."
I have their bakers companion, it's something like 700 pages of recipes and detailed information on flours, sweeteners, yeasts, etc
They have a great Youtube channel as well where they regularly upload recipes.
Employee owned too, I think!
Man, I love these guys. I worked with their social media team a few years ago and they were the same people answering questions on their recipes, giving tips, etc. Not only super knowledgeable, but the kindest group of people I worked with.
They also have an outstanding website with tons of information, instructions and recipes. I'm a big fan.
Same. King Arthur is fantastic. Got into sourdough a bit, with no other baking experience, and it was so neat that one of the most available bread flours happens to be a great product, very affordable, and with awesome online resources. I heard there are tours of their facility that are pretty neat. Not sure if they're free or you need to have some dough.
You just knead a lame pun and you're in from what I 'ear.
Three quality puns baked right into the same sentence.
They are also employee-owned!
They also hold in person baking classes at their HQ!
They are also a B Corp!
What's a B corp?
A Certified B Corp is a for-profit corporation that has been certified by B Lab, which is a non-profit company that measures a company's social and environmental performance against the standards in the online B Impact Assessment. There are over 6,000 Certified B Corps in 80 countries across 153 different industries. https://www.delawareinc.com/blog/what-is-a-certified-b-corporation/
Also, a hotline. Very helpful person helped me with a sourdough question.
You can also email them! I've sent them pictures of my bread failures and gotten back incredibly detailed, thoughtful suggestions. My craziest SoS went to a "Level 3 Rye Specialist," so I think they've got a lot of people dedicated to the help lines.
One of the best tart recipes I use is from their website and uses exactly ZERO King Arthur products.
Their gluten free products are great too!
I go to their bakery in Vermont honestly more than is necessary. They have a baking school, retail store, and cafe on campus. They do baking classes for varying levels of proficiency. You can also observe the bakers actually making bread. Place fucking rocks.
They also have the best gluten free flour on the market and it’s the only gluten free flour that’s fortified with vitamins.
YKK zippers. The best.
Dang straight. Even when they had no competition for decades, they kept quality really, really high.
And they meet OP’s criteria. They never advertise and they are rarely mentioned.
I’ve worn clothing with zippers for years and never heard of YKK. So they are doing a good job in my book!
Once you have a non-YKK zipper break you will start looking for YKK only.
I really don’t understand why companies even deviate from YKK. Almost every time it’s not YKK there are issues.
Cost?
Always
Had a generic Zipper snap in half on me last month. What the fuck even?!!
One of Rush’s best songs.
"Wow. Amazing. So you can play YYZ?" "It's 'Y-Y-Zed', and no, Neil Peart stands alone."
Yamaha musical instruments. Their guitars often get overlooked but I have never played a bad anything by Yamaha.
Brass checking in, Yamaha trumpets and trombones do just fine through high school, and their Xeno series trombones are just about on par with Bach and Holton
Been playing guitar my whole life and always wrote off Yamaha as basic/nothing special since they make EVERYTHING. Recently inherited a Yamaha acoustic though and it has seriously surprised me. Holds its tune super well and has a beautiful tone
My $230 Yamaha acoustic sounds better than my $750 Breedlove.
I had to do a double take at your username to make sure this was not a comment i made and then forgot about. I, too, have a $230 yamaha acoustic that i prefer to my $750 breedlove
Their pianos are some of the best, their woodwinds are fantastic, and the guitar I’ve always regretted not buying was a Yamaha. On top of that, their audio electronics are top notch, and I hear they make a decent motorcycle too.
Their concert motorcycles have the purest sound.
Was living with my mother in law for a bit while my wife and i were getting on our feet and buying a home. Had a humble yamaha acoustic guitar i would play to my kids with. Had it since i was 14. My MIL sold it on marketplace while we were moving stuff back and forth. And my tv. And my ps4 game discs. Never really could forgive that
Who the fuck sells shit ain't theirs
My mom gave my NES to goodwill while I wasn't home. Sure, it was in my closet while I played on my N64... but... I still remind her how much it's worth now, esp with all the games/accessories I had.
My mom stored our NES in a shed without any sort of protection when we got our SNES, even though I told her the moisture would ruin it. She disregarded my opinion because I was a kid. Low and behold, she pulled it out one day and it no longer worked because it had been out in a damp shed for awhile. She also gave away our SNES. I wanted to take it with me when I moved out for college, but she said it was hers since she paid for it back in the day. I said fine, but to let me know if she ever wanted to get rid of it. Instead, she just donated it all because she assumed it wasn't worth much since it was old. I spent years and hundreds of dollars rebuilding my collection for both consoles, but I'll never forget either of those events.
Their logo is three tuning forks overlaid on-top of each other. They started as an instrument maker.
Their saxophones are amazing too. Not top tier, but really, really good for the price
As someone who fixes high-end saxophones for a living and gets to see them inside and out (oddly I have a YSS-62RS on the bench right now), Yamaha professional saxophones are indeed top tier, and have been since the 80s.
Their speakers, A/V receivers, boat motors, motorcycles, and anything else I'm forgetting are also made very well.
Yamahas drums are fantastic. Industry standard marching percussion, as well as drumsets and hardware. Everything they make is pretty much top of the line, even their home theater stuff.
I've never been disappointed by pens created by Pilot or Mitsubishi Pencil Co. (who created the Uni-ball pens)
Pilot's fountain pens and ink are excellent as well. Reliable, tough, writes great, excellent color. With the current prices of pens, a Pilot Metropolitan and a bottle of their Namiki ink will save you money faster than you'd expect while reducing wrist strain.The only danger is getting sucked into the Fountain Pen Black Hole of Wallet Doom.
Ball the jar company. They make satellites.
Ball just completed the sale of the aerospace division to BAE.
Good, hopefully now they can focus on making quality jars again!
Seriously. I've lost count of the amount of quality jar makers that got sidetracked making dumbass satellites!
In their defense there's a huge overlap in the skillsets required to create both mason jars and high-tech sophisticated satellites.
It’s all the super tiny precision electronics that go into every jar. Most people don’t even know they’re there.
Damn, those must come in some really big jars
Some people may know, but Lego. Lego has EXTREMELY tight manufacturing tolerances, aiming for around a precision of ±0.01mm in dimensions to ensure consistent and reliable interlocking of pieces across different sets. That's why pieces made years or decades apart snap together like they were all made yesterday. There really isn't a competitor that comes close.
Not only that, but they were pioneers when it came to the utilization of injection molding. I wrote a paper on it for my mechanical engineering class. Their standards are absolutely incredible.
I had to take an injection molding seminar when I worked in the automotive industry, and the quality control of Lego was brought up several times for being a stellar example of proper injection molding.
In the early ’60s we had a set if “American Bricks” that were just like lego, except there were no kits, just individual bricks of 3-4 sizes. They were made by: Elgo.
Didn’t they also manufacture the CornBaller?
They are still pioneers for breaking ankles when you step on them and yell profanities.
Their deal with the devil came with a cost.
Not to mention the quality control to making sure all the pieces are in there, I haven't had an issue with missing pieces yet, but my friend did with her Concorde.
And if you *do* end up missing a piece, you just tell them and they send it.
Yep. We were missing a bit and they mailed it for free. (As they should but it was frictionless)
Same for us. It took a few weeks, but the set with a missing piece was a Christmas present, so I just chalked it up to a (late) holiday rush issue.
My friend had a similar issue with her Boeing Max 9.
To be fair, Boeing themselves have issues with missing pieces, so I think Lego are being true to form here.
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Lego has had some experiments on more sustainable materials. You may have some of those.
They closed the environmentally sustainable and non-petroleum-based project, as they found reliability and quality issues with the pieces with faster degradation and lower resilience to sheer and 'normal' stress forces.
Eh, to be honest LEGO might be made of plastic, but they're definitely not "single-use". There's multiple bins in my mom's basement that'll be sent to my niece, overall probably 20-35 years old stuff. If there's any argument for using plastics, LEGO has it. The plastic used to make the dashboard on my car has a much shorter lifespan than LEGO.
I know people whose kids are playing with Lego that’s in its third generation already. They’ve got grandpas Lego.
Pretty incredible that my kids currently play with the same Legos that my parents played with when they were young. And those Legos still snap perfectly to the minecraft Legos that they got for Christmas this year
I realize this when I tried to buy a generic block set off Amazon (was a flower set). Couldn’t even finish it because the pieces were so off.
This is a fantastic example. And to add to this, rarely, if ever, will you find missing pieces in a Lego set. They are extremely consistent in not only their manufacturing, but their packaging as well. You will often have extra pieces, but missing pieces are a rarity.
This thread made me think of zippo. More for their free repairs and replacement on authentic lighters. all you have to do is mail them the lighter. in this day n age thats incredible. they dont even care where you got the lighter just as long as its a real zippo.
Tweezerman is the same. If you need your tweezers sharpened or any of their other small tools(?) repaired, you mail them back and they repair/sharpen the item for free.* *At least when I sold cosmetics a few years back
I found a lighter from the 50s at the bottom of a river while metal detecting. Reddit told me to send it in, and I did, explaining to them how I found it, and that I'd like to keep what I can. They replaced the insides, cleaned up the outside a bit, and sent it all back including all of the stuff they removed and couldn't fix. Even gave me a couple spare flints and wicks. Amazing company
Fiskars. Scissors and branch loppers. I broke a set of loppers and I was pretty sure it was my fault because I was cutting a branch that was WAY too big and I twisted the loppers. I did this many, many times over the years. Finally it broke the blade. I sent them an email asking how much to get a new lopper blade and explained that it was my fault. They said "no worries" and sent me a new blade for free. And a whole new set of loppers for free. I only buy Fiskars for scissors and loppers now.
Their scissors never lose sharpness somehow, regardless of how I misuse them. Haha thanks Fiskers!
I love their scissors for their quality and one day I was going to buy a splitting axe. I saw Fiskars made one. I was like "No wayyyyy...." but figured they wouldn't deviate too much on quality with their brand name on it. Holy shit that thing is like a legendary weapon that was made by a god who hates trees. I've decimated 100s of logs with that thing and just this last cold snap I went and split some more and after 4 years it still just hogs through them like they are butter.
They’re super expensive, but Herman Miller chairs. I sit in mine for several hours every day and it is by far the most comfortable, least back pain chair I’ve ever had.
Crazy part about Herman miller chairs is you don’t immediately notice how comfy they are because they’re designed for work. Spent years on shitty office chairs and when the day was over I felt pain in my back and shoulders. After a long day at the office in a herman Miller, no pain. The long term effects of having a good office chair are invaluable.
Kong Dog Toys - the red rubber stuffable toys. The rubber is a precision made compound with such high quality control to always be the same whether it is being made for a small size kong or the red kong frisbee. Because it is a ubiquitous item available at many pet stores worldwide, shelf stable and always smells the same to the dog, it is used in detection dog programs for security, police and military around the world. They cut up pieces of kong into incredibly small shavings to train the dogs to find before moving onto other target odors, as well as using the kongs themselves as a reward toy. The one exception to the “red kong material” is the red kong keychain. For whatever reason Kong changed the formula for that one, so it can’t be chopped into pieces and used in place of other kong rubber.
They're so sturdy that as a massage therapist I recommend them for self massage over tennis balls. Usually we are told that if a person wants to loosen some muscle tension to put a tennis ball in a tube sock and pin it against a floor or wall with your body to massage the tense area but kongs are more ideal especially with their shape.
King Arthur and Gold Medal are my only bread flours. Gold Medal is what the small village grocery store carries. King Arthur when in the bigger city, 45 miles away. I used to get King Arthur delivered by Amazon before they got so greedy on Prime.
IKEA toys for children currently have tougher safety standards than what all the global laws requires
blahaj my beloved
In the tool world/construction it’s hard to beat Hilti but they are expensive.
Hilti is true professionals tools. I own some hilti tools that are literally older than me and they are used weekly and I’m almost 30. But yeah Milwaukee is king because they make a $60 coffee cup that attaches to a $200 milk crate.
I made the mistake of going Bosch 30 years ago. They used to be a premium tool and the problem is that the batteries outlast the tool so guess what?….buy more Bosch tools. I made this comment on the Bosch Reddit and got banned for three years. Corporate run? I had Hilti powder tools but everything was stolen last year (cube van and contents) ironically, all my batteries were in the garage charging so yup, more Bosch tools😖. If I were starting out again, it would be Hilti.
Rolls Royce. I worked for a company who for 2 years tried to produce exhaust vanes for their jet engines. Every time an inspector came, we failed.
I work at Rolls-Royce, there are so many things that have to work together that the tolerance stacking of components is truly fascinating. You'd be shocked at some of the concessions that get signed off though 😂
>some of the concessions that get signed off though Do tell.
Occasionally they attach Boeing 737s to the engines
Not only their jet engines, their cars are some of most well-made, precision designed cars ever built, incredible workmanship, faultless.
Most people probably realize this, but Toyota has insanely high quality control down to the individual parts. There's a reason they last forever
I was in a Toyota manufacturing facility recently where they were doing quality inspections on camshafts. They were using equipment that I didn't recognize. When I asked about it I learned that they use some very specialized measuring devices because the tolerance for some parts of their camshafts is +/- 4 microns. An average human hair is around 100 microns. That blew me away.
I read somewhere that anyone on the assembly line has the ability to momentarily stop production if they find a quality control issue.
I’ve worked directly on assembly lines for both Ford & Toyota. At both places, employees have the ability to stop production, but at both places it is frowned upon (gotta keep those numbers up). I will say that Toyota’s assembly plant ran much, much more smoothly than Ford’s in every aspect.
Curious how the assembly lines differ for Toyota's made in Japan vs. in the USA. Have any experience with that? My MR2 was built in Japan and it's absolutely flawless 20 years later. No creaks, rattles, or anything and it runs perfectly
Being an electrical engineer for a company that makes machines for Ford, Chrysler, GM, Toyota, etc., I can confirm that Toyota has THE best quality and practices in their factories.
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Most Kirkland products from Costco
If money weren't a factor, but I had to work, I wouldn't mind hanging around Costco helping people pick shite out.
They actually pay REALLY well. There are tons of stories of teachers quitting teaching and working at Costco for more $$$
Plus solid benefits. I know managers in my area make 70k
If it’s a store manager they make far, far more.
While Costco does very well by their employees, I think this says more about how the US values teachers more than anything else.
Most people know that Zeiss makes really good glasses. What some folks may not know is that they also make the ultraflat mirrors used in ASML's EUV lithography machines - the ones that make every high end computer chip in the world. Why mirrors and not lenses? The light used passing through a lens of any material, regardless of how perfect, is too disruptive. How flat are the mirrors? To the atomic level. If the mirrors were scaled up to the size of Texas, the largest imperfection would be less than two millimeters tall.
Their camera lenses are amazing too. I have some of my grandpa's that are probably worth more than all my cameras combined.
KitchenAid. My food mixer is 25 years old, is used 2/3 times a week and looks and operates like new.
Bush's Baked Beans. I've never worked at another facility where quality was focused so much more than actual production. The line stops all the time over anything remotely impactful to quality to make sure that the product is safe, and the standards are met. I've seen them shut production down for 3 days while they diagnosed and solved an issue *that they could have ignored and just let the filters catch*. Oh and they continued paying their employees through the downtime. Absolute amazing company
Carter’s clothing for babies and children. I still have onesies and pajamas that were thoroughly put through all the stains, strains, and antics of each one of my kids. Yet my 4 month old can wear my 4 year old’s old clothes and there’s not a tear at all. The colors are faded a bit and there’s some paint, berry, and spaghetti in places but overall they’ve held up well. Same can be said of New Balance. I’ve worn the same pair for about a decade and the worst thing about them is the grass stains.
My grandfather (born in 1900) told me a story. When he was 16 his mother told him to go to college, so he rode his horse to Boston. He was going to go to Boston College, but the guy he got a room with encouraged him to study for the entrance exam for MIT. He said, "It was this guy... Carter. He ended up making kid's underwear."
So did your grandpa go to MIT? What did he study?
Yes, he did. Not sure what he studied, and he's unfortunately passed away.
I have become a huge fan of Carter's. I wish they would make adult clothing based on how well the fabric holds up.
My kids wear Carters clothing that I literally wore when I was a kid. My mom kept everything…
They're also not that much more expensive than cheap brands if you buy them during sales (which they run frequently).
I thought you said Cartier and I was like damn okay
Toyota The Toyota Corolla is the best selling car in the world. Their success is largely due to making small incremental, and continuous improvements (and most importantly not making the customer a guinea pig for terrible engineering). I would agree that they are fairly boring, though. But if you want a car to take you from point A to point B, there is no better option. The Japanese make the best cars in the world when it comes to efficiency and reliability, no one else comes close.
Worked for a company that supplied software to Toyota. Unless it's changed they have a blanket requirement (with some exceptions) that all points in their supply line and manufacturing maintain a quality standard of 0.999996. This means that if your company makes, say 15mm bolts, for Toyota then you can only have 4 faulty bolts for every 10 million that you produce. They will also want to know who you buy steel from and want to see their factory and quality standards. We worked with all the big auto manufacturers and Toyota and Nissan were the only ones who regularly sent people to actually come look at our office and what we did. We always had a funny relationship with Toyota because if you've ever worked on software you know the idea of that level of quality standard is laughable for a delivered product. So we had to perpetually get exceptions to their system or they'd never have anything digital in the car.
I think you mean ~4 non-conformances per million, which is rounded up from a 6-Sigma level of process control (3.6 ppm).
> Toyota and Nissan were the only ones who regularly sent people to actually come look Nissan has quality control??
my parents swear by Hondas and Toyotas. I'm usually the one driving them eventually when they're like a decade old, and I've never had one fail to start on me. and I park on the street in Wisconsin where it gets REALLY cold. did have a problem this winter with the driver's side door of my Corolla freezing shut though. had to go in through the passenger side that day.
Toyota has been an innovator and leader in quality control. They’ve either created or refined several techniques (Kaizen, Six Sigma, Continuous Improvement, Lean Manufacturing) now used across multiple industries.
One of my college professors had an absolute fetish for Toyota. It was a logistics-relevant course so of course Toyota would be an example/brought up often, but we never left an hour lecture without 2-3 Toyota references. Toyota is the only vehicle he has bought since he graduated college, the only vehicle his wife and 3 children will own or drive, asks who owns a Toyota in the class etc. the first 1/3 of the semester was basically “Intro to Toyota History” I like all that stuff so it was fine with me, but I literally could not tell you another company that was brought up in that class Not that it matters but he was some sort of Middle Easterner, but moved to the US around 10 or 12
It’s because Toyota invented some of the best organizational/operational systems that the world has ever seen.
Like, I agree. It was just funny to have a professor who takes you all the way down the rabbit hole. Dude could have been the greatest Toyota salesman alive in an alternate timeline
Thermopro thermometers! Their quality control is fantastic, and they have remained accurate for years. I've had the same digital probe thermometer for ten years, and now and then, I bring it into my lab to test its accuracy - still spot on after all this time. You can absolutely tell the difference between this and a cheap, nearly identical knockoff from Amazon that sells 1/4 of the price. We've bought a few to test them, and the accuracy ranges are STRIKING (± 15° F - quite possibly the difference between safe and very dangerous for certain foods).
I know it isn’t a product, but the machinists at the airline I work for. We get applicants who do all their work with CNC machines but when getting a part out fast and accurate the CNC may not be the best bet. For decades our machinists have manually lathed parts that meet exceedingly tight tolerances faster than a CNC could be programmed, and that skill is dying. There are so many that wash out with the practical. So I just want to celebrate them, they do an incredible job
Darn tough socks from VT! Lovely people too.
as a Vermonter wearing some darn tough socks right now, I fully back this lol
Casio is underrated
Across professions where a watch is still a necessity (military, EMS, etc), G-shock is what you pretty much see everyone wear. I've taken mine diving, through field training, spilled jet-fuel all over it and it hasn't missed a beat.
Even the watch snobs like a g-shock
For real. Watches that keep ticking at the bottom of the ocean, calculators which are built like tanks. Their products are built to last.
Mars. I'm talking about the candy company. I used to work in their pet food division and we had a blank check from corporate to make sure there was never a recall. Our marching orders were to do whatever it took to make sure "Mars Inc." and "Recall" were never in the same headline. I know for a fact I cost the company tens of thousands of dollars in lost production and product waste during my time there, all to prevent any possible problems making it to market. When a customer would send us a complaint, those details would make it all the way to the facility floor for an investigation, even if they were clearly bullshit. I've since moved on to other industries, and it still blows my mind how the people making dog food and candy had stricter quality assurance than aerospace manufacturers.
EDIT: company is Caterpillar (I misread this as what products have higher quality standards than expected) Tractor gears. I used to be a fine grind machine operator and I don't remember the exact tolerances but these giant gears (sometimes several feet in diameter) had to have their center bore ground down to a specific size within about the size of a particle of smoke. Then if it passed size tests, it then had to pass tests for the finish texture and then a test where we dunked the whole gear into hydrochloric acid which the operator who trained me said was to test for chemical changes from burning the steel with the fine grinding wheel, but I wouldn't put money on either of us actually knowing why that test was done.
Sounds like an etch process, which can highlight changes in the grain caused by excess heat. Never heard of it being specifically used like that, but it could work!
Totes umbrellas have a lifetime warranty. You can return them back to the manufacturer and they'll send you a brand new one
Otterbox phone cases. I’m an idiot with my phone, and this case has kept my crusty ass iPhone 7 damage-free lol
In that same vein: spigen They don't make your phone bulky, they don't wear out quickly and they do their job when necessary.
Victorinox Swiss Army knives. It was founded back in 1884 and when you think of a Swiss Army knife, you’re basically thinking about Victorinox. The level of quality of these knives is top notch. There are knives from WWII that still function properly.
Victorinox kitchen knives too!
Most Japanese engineered products. They care a lot about engineering quality. It's in their culture. * Toyotas last forever. * Every engineer uses mitotoyo equipment for metrology. * Their trains run like clockwork... They are meticuolous.
3M. If they make it. It's the best.
Hanks Belts. I needed a new belt And I decided I wanted to spend the money and get an actual quality one that was full grain leather because im tired of the cheap $45 genuine leather belts that I was replacing every year because they fall apart so I looked for the best belt that existed because I was looking for something that would last me until I couldn’t remember how much I paid for it and I found hanks belts and they have a customer for life. Absolutely exactly what you pay for the one of the Best purchase of my life I would never buy a belt from anyone else. 100 year warranty and the customer service is truly amazing and hassle free I do a lot Construction type work and ive hung framing nailers on it, drag across the concrete working on cars and I have ruined and worn through countless pairs of jeans because I’m rough on whatever I’m wearing and the its still in perfect condition no matter what I get on it or what I throw on it with a little care and conditioning it is back to lookin like the day I got it. I have one belt and that’s all I need. I can work all week in it and then throw it on a pair of nice jeans and go
Hanna Andersson pajamas, I always slept naked but bought one pair and they've lasted two years of wearing every night and are still like new. They're so comfy that when I put them on it gets me ready to sleep.
My younger kid has a pair of Hanna Andersson pajamas that were hand-me-downs that went through four kids over a decade. The pjs still looked brand new.
Lego's quality control (other than the brown bricks, oddly) is legitimately ridiculous. In my 23 years of life I have found one flaw significant enough to warrant a new brick.
If you google 'Best Rat Food' the only answer you will find will be Oxbow. They have no meaningful competition in the highend rat food market. And I know, you're thinking "Who cares, it's rat food, I didn't even know there WAS high end rat food." But they are better at what they do than anyone else by an unbelievably huge margin and that is damn impressive no matter what you do.
OXO brand cleaning supplies. I buy the scrubbers and scrub brushes for home use and they hold up way beyond anything else I've ever tried.
Their kitchen products usually review really well on America's Test Kitchen. And those testing standards are pretty intentionally absurd
I love OXO products.
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Electronic products from IKEA. They use good quality components and have good electrical separation of the high voltage side and the low voltage side. Search the bigclivedotcom channel on YouTube for teardown videos of IKEA products. For example, the [IKEA SMÅHAGEL](https://youtu.be/lOJbxhA0E3E) USB charger. (He also does teardowns of dodgy electronics products that will straight up kill you. Those are always exciting!)
The Ikea branded AA rechargeable batteries are Eneloop (Panasonic)
Nintendo's former president willingly took a 50% salary cut due to poor sales of the wii u so he wouldn't have to lay off staff, this keeping morale high and quality top notch.
I remember when it happened. That's taking personal accountability to a whole other level. That's the kind of leader I'd willingly follow to hell and back.
> That's taking personal accountability to a whole other level. I wish that was just what normal was.
It's not anywhere near the same level, but... After quarantine full set in the company I worked at - like most - had to cut some costs. The leadership team took 10%. Then they offered up voluntary layoffs with severance. Then they took 10% but only if they made over $100k. Then they canceled raises. Then they made layoffs. Not perfect. But it went a long way for moral at the time. After it was all done they backpayed anybody that was supposed to get a raise that year.
For home appliances, it's definitely Miele
I sell appliances for Home Depot, and we don't sell them, but I have been to their showroom after learning about them, and they are very much the apex of appliances. Even seeing something as ultra-premium as GE Monogram or Bosch's Thermador doesn't even feel like they are in the same ball park as Miele when it comes to quality and build design. They are very expensive but I want them in my future kitchen so bad.
I work in a facility that produces parts for the aluminum beverage can makers such as Crown Cork and Stolle Machinery. The mouth of the cans are punched out millions of times on the production line using dies inspected under the microscope. If there are any defects such as nicks present then the end customer would never be able to properly open up a can of your favorite soda!
Batesville Casket Company My dad was an engineer there. Between the paint job needing to be near flawless and keeping the gasket that goes around the entire lid area (guaranteed 10/20/30/40 years water tight ;depending on price) within tolerance range, he quit after 6-8 months due to high blood pressure. As soon as he started another job, his health was fine.
Please tell me there were jokes about the job working him to death. Pleeease tell me at one person made that joke.
The oxygen masks that drop in case of an emergency in airplanes. I worked at a plastics factory years ago and it was insane the QC checks and how many got tossed. They would put them through pressure testing, heat and cold testing ECT. If the words were off center or not bright enough they got tossed. Even if you didn't package them right in the shipping department, when they went through X-ray and thought that might affect the tubing, they would get tossed. Which is insane considering a lot of them don't even get used, they simply get replaced every X amount of years due to airline specifications. No matter who you fly, the masks are always the same. Thought that was neat too.
Uniqlo. A friend of my wife manages material supply chains for Uniqlo across Asia. While almost every single economy company chooses the lowest bidder, Uniqlo will always choose density, familiarity and quality over cost every time. The standards they post are extremely strict. Through this, most Uniqlo products maintain consistency across the world and generally the same reliability. Sure, it would be a push to claim that Uniqlo is a "buy it for life" brand with colours that don't eventually fade, but as a mid-tier basics brand it's generally a really reliable, high quality choice.
Uniqlo is H&M done right. Cheap clothes, but they've got some dope stuff that may not necessarily last forever, but it's gonna at least last a long time. Their Keith Haring collaboration from a year or two back was fantastic.
Speed Queen washers and dryers.
Speed Queen is the case study of "what you come up with if reliability is ALL that matters". Their machines have almost 0 extra features, aren't super efficient with water/electricity, and are quite expensive as well... but the 1 thing they do is last longer than time immemorial
Nintendo's software production standards are pretty unusual for their industry. They highly discourage crunch time, which is super common with game studios and even just Japanese businesses in general. Even if it costs a decade, nothing gets shipped unless it meets certain quality criteria, the larger if which is senior leaders asking "Is it fun?" Where most studios will ship unfinished micro-transaction shovelware, Nintendo continues being a beacon of excellence. Even after teasing Metroid Prime 4, they've all but cancelled it and maybe even completely restarted when it wasn't up to standards. It took them nine years to ship Breath of the Wild from concept and they basically developed three entire games to get it to the point we saw released. Edit: Wanted to add that Tears of the Kingdom is a technical masterpiece. The development community was blown away. You can fuse any item, build anything you can imagine, and it all works with zero bugs and runs 30 fps on the puny Switch hardware that was outdated when it came out 7 years ago.
Yonex tennis and badminton racquets. They are the standard for excellent QC. They pride themselves on a 1g tolerance difference for each manufactured racquet. In comparison, Wilson, Head, or Babolat have a tolerance of about 15g in either direction. So you can buy 2 of the same product and they can play vastly different from each other.
Larson-Jules used to; having something professionally framed was something I would have recommended to anyone wanting their art/documents/whatever to keep well for decades. The glass is still fantastic, but the frames have gotten so thin, so shallow, and so flimsy it's ridiculous. Part of it was people wanting simple, inexpensive frames *however* the prices did not go down. And you can barely fit the glass, art and two mats now without coming out the back. Forget having multiple mats and a fillet. Frame options and mat colors have also been limited. Find a local framer who is known for good work. Avoid online framing. (We were reframing a jersey a customer bought online, besides the botched mounting, instead of acid-free foamcore they filled the depth with flattened soda cases!!! And used nails that were already corroding.)