1nterceptor

A few years ago, I lived for a while in China. Visited a few cities including Shenzen.
People were nice; very patient for this foreigner that spoke very little Mandarin.
Food was amazing; I already liked chinese food before I got there. Back on topic;
would be interested to see pics/vids of quality control testing.

ThorUSA

dahon lunch break. boy oh boy the food was good !

thor

ThorUSA

https://scontent-hkg3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...fe&oe=5ADEC75E

and yes the frames are made here :-)
alloy welding station one of 20

avole

Just out of interest, how long do staff get for lunch? Also, how many hours must they work per week?

ThorUSA

they do an hour and half for lunchbreak .... basically a mini siesta
which is actually pretty cool, i was surprised , but gives peeps time for a short lunchride as well

will ask about the hours later

avole

That's pretty good! Here in France the norm is still 2 hours outside Paris and the major towns, and you do see the odd cyclist taking advantage. Fully kitted out in lycra, carbon frame road bikes and so on.

Siu Blue Wind

No lights in the lunchroom?

tcs

Huge windows. Natural light. Healthy. Green.

ThorUSA

yeah plus i made a pic with the sun in the back, its really nice and bright from the other side lol

couple other answers .... the workers work 8.30 hours a day ....
they are happy to make overtime if y'all order more bikes ..lol

workers condos are 2 rooms with kitchenette as long as they share one condo its free, if they want to have whole condo for themselves or have the family living with them and only one person works at Dahon they pay 25 dlr a month.

have some pics from badmington court, did not have time to see the table tennis hall or the baseball court.
quite a few kids running around ....

Ceo and CFO etc etc all eat together with the workers. If there are guest than they go in a seperate room, but food is the same as buffet for workers ... pretty darn good food by the way

its a pretty cool place

more pics from the international conference later , its a 3 hour drive from here.

thor

avole

Cantonese cuisine, I assume? Dim sum, congee etc. If you go to the factory in Beijing, you'll find the cuisine changes markedly.

Bonzo Banana

That looks like one of the low end Ford frames which is interesting in itself because another website stated the Ford branded Dahon bikes had the frames made by someone else although that was some time ago.



The welding station image dare I say looks very low tech, not exactly cutting edge or exact tolerances. I was hoping to see some of the higher end frames being manufactured. Are the higher end frames actually made at the same facility? Robot welded?

tcs

Clearly a Visc frame, but thanks for playing!

ThorUSA

Yup. A welder with 10 years experience can weld better than a robot.
And he can weld different frames much faster than a robot

Just saying.
And indeed a visc frame

All welded frames get checked for trueness before they go to heat treatment

Bonzo Banana

Yes I can see that now, the Visc didn't come up when I searched. Hardly a lot of difference though, mainly the curve on the top tube. My other comments still stand.

Bonzo Banana

Yeah maybe I'm being unfair but it doesn't look too impressive. Fuji-ta admittedly does some of the manufacturing process of aluminium frames by hand as well as parts by robot. I think full robot welding is more reserved for steel frames. Giant hand welds I believe and their frames are rated up to a maximum 160kg load with a lifetime warranty for aluminium frames. Carbon frames so called state of the art frames seem to be an almost full manual process hence the cost. I think Dahon themselves must think their aluminium frame production is a bit low tech as so many of their videos have avoided showing it, your image is the first I've actually seen and I don't think Dahon would want to use it for marketing purposes. On face value I think it shows Dahon frames are manufactured to an inferior standard to Giant and Fuji-ta in my opinion. It would have been nice to have seen some of the other processes too to get a bigger overall picture, a few wide shots encompassing a larger view of the factory and aluminium frame production.

ThorUSA

Bonzo
if i would have taken wide frame shoots you would have seen some dead rats in a corner and some miss treaded child labour in action .....

it was early in the morning and i had limited time in the factory meetings were scheduled before all workers even started to work on their respective positions. The steel welding line is in the background but at 630 in the morning most had breakfast before going to work ......

low tech or not .. the quality is up there with no issues and bikes get delivered, which you cannot say about the people who are depending on a robot. ( without naming names )

thor

berlinonaut

I am in Bonzos boat here to a degree: I too find it surprising (and very interesting) that the frame-building seems to be a manual affair and had the assumption that high-volume production of aluminium frames in an Asian factory would have a high level of automation, especially with the welding. Do not know how this is handled with other manufacturers and maybe I had just wrong assumptions, partly misled by videos like this series from Fujiata


or this from another factory:


On the other hand manual welding seems not to be uncommon as well:


But in general an automated process always is more efficient and delivers a more consistent level of quality than a manual one - and is worth the investment financially as well (aka cheaper in the long run) if the volume is high enough and manual work is worth more than pennies.

Any idea on how many bikes Dahon does produce per year?

Bonzo Banana

I'm not sure if you are joking or not with your first comment, hopefully the second part isn't true anyway.

As I said in a previous forum comment I have seen a Dahon bike, it was the entry level model a year or so ago and the welds looked a bit poor. I don't know if this is because max.com actually weld the european model frames or they just assemble the final bike from kits. My impression from a European perspective is Dahon frames are an inconsistent quality but I don't mean in the same extreme way as Tern just they look like a company either sourcing frames from different companies as well as making them themselves or maybe its an indicator of inconsistent quality in-house. I feel like I'm the anti-Dahon person on this forum a sort of yin to your yang .

ThorUSA

you guys are wound up way too tight, lol
about that starter comment... no money ? how much money peeps invested in that idea and still waiting to get any return ? I wish them well, but if we would be in the same boat you would kill us.

of course i am joking about child labour and dead rats..lol
i have some pictures with kids playing in the Dahon compound though. Its way cool that hey can live with their families and play in a safe enviroment.

I cannot post as my computer does not work, wifi doesnt etc etc I will do that later

BikeLite

Thor, everything you say, can and will be used against you...lol

Abu Mahendra

Can you ask them why they don't expand their LockJaw offerings?

ThorUSA

Abu I could tell you but than i would need to kill you ... at least until the info can be shared :-)

tds101 

I agree on the Lockjaw bikes,...especially for us here in the USA/Canada. I'm DYING for a Lockjaw bike that I DON'T need to IMPORT!

L Arnold

I'll bet I coukd get you a Lock Jaw bike but you woykd need to import it (or I would) from USA.

Nice bikes
Lock jaw is strong. A bit sharp edged in folded position (by nature).

Lets PM if you are interested.

Best regards