Hinckley triumph moving production overseas

baz

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Looks like all hinckley triumphs apart from some special models are going to be made in the far East
I knew the modern bonnivilles were made abroad but I didn't think it would go further than that
And now the new Norton company has packed up where does that leave us
I'm not in the market for a new British bike but it's sad to see
 
Looks like all hinckley triumphs apart from some special models are going to be made in the far East
I knew the modern bonnivilles were made abroad but I didn't think it would go further than that
And now the new Norton company has packed up where does that leave us
I'm not in the market for a new British bike but it's sad to see
Very sad indeed. More skills will disappear from the U.K.
 
I have no problem with foreign bikes I have owned many
I still own two foreign bikes
I personally don't like these Hinckley triumphs having triumph written on them as if they are made in England
But I guess that's just the way of it these days
I'd rather pay a little more for a British product
 
In the past there have been issues with the metallurgy used in manufacturing motorcycles. British motorcycles also suffered from these issues, but overcame them. I have a friend who works in a motorcycle shop in Victoria. People drive him mad by bringing bits of Chinese motorcycles to him to try and fix. One of the debts Norton has, is money owed to a Chinese motor manufacturer. What is in the heart of the new Nortons ?
The ISO9000 Quality system standards came out of BS4891 - which arrived as a result of WW2. It was taken to Japan and China by the Americans who were also responsible for neoliberalism. I cannot believe that labour costs are the sole reason companies go offshore. I think it is more about OHS&E. It is easier to make a profit if you can pollute and kill workers in the process.
 
I have no problem with foreign bikes I have owned many
I still own two foreign bikes
I personally don't like these Hinckley triumphs having triumph written on them as if they are made in England
But I guess that's just the way of it these days
I'd rather pay a little more for a British product

In Australia, we used to have laws about commerce markings. But since we have eased all of our laws in the interests of free trade, that does not mean anything.
 
Triumph have been in Thailand for 20 years now so I can't see the problem, I have 2 Thruxtons that are assembled in Thailand, all parts for modern Triumphs are soused all over the world and are assembled in England or Thailand, both factories are the same in each country, most motorcycle companies souse their parts world wide even HD, not all parts are made in house as well they can produce more Triumphs in Thailand than they can in England.
I could buy 2 new 1200 Thruxtons for one New Norton when I brought my new one 2 years ago, so no wonder Norton had money problems, I have always been a Norton man when I brought mine new in 76 but I have also been a Triumph man and have had 3 new ones and one second hand one and loved them all, but the modern ones you just hope on and ride without any problems with very little maintenance and they handle so good and feel so smooth the ride.

Ashley
 
Triumph have been in Thailand for 20 years now so I can't see the problem, I have 2 Thruxtons that are assembled in Thailand, all parts for modern Triumphs are soused all over the world and are assembled in England or Thailand, both factories are the same in each country, most motorcycle companies souse their parts world wide even HD, not all parts are made in house as well they can produce more Triumphs in Thailand than they can in England.
I could buy 2 new 1200 Thruxtons for one New Norton when I brought my new one 2 years ago, so no wonder Norton had money problems, I have always been a Norton man when I brought mine new in 76 but I have also been a Triumph man and have had 3 new ones and one second hand one and loved them all, but the modern ones you just hope on and ride without any problems with very little maintenance and they handle so good and feel so smooth the ride.

Ashley
Not saying it's a problem Ash it's just a problem for me when I hear regularly people telling me they have a British bike made in England just like mine on a regular basis
There's a little Chinese 125 AJS that they sell over here is that a British bike?
It's made abroad and sold here with a British name on the tank so where's the difference?
The only difference I can think is the triumph is probably designed here?
 
The difference with this current story is that Triumph are going to stop all volume production in England and move it to Thailand.

So it’s no longer a story about having global factories for global markets etc.

This is one of those topics that either bothers you or it doesn’t. And neither camp is going to change the views of the other!

The fact is that the market, on the whole, is not bothered. If it was, it would hit sales and Triumph would suffer. And they wouldn’t do it. As it is, whatever they do lose in sales is more than compensated for by increased profit margin.

Make no mistake, that is all this is about: increased profit for the Bloor family. What I don’t understand is, how much money does one family need?! I’m no socialist, but surely when you have more money than you can ever spend, you can afford to be a little altruistic?

I’m one of those that it does bother. It bothers me that people often blame their governments for job losses and the decline of manufacturing... but then buy products made in low cost economies. And it bothers me (a lot) that Triumph exploit Britishness to such a big extent... and then decide to stop all volume manufacturing in England.

If they used the Thai flag in their marketing, if they made a big deal out of being Thai, if they proudly put gold “made in Thailand” stickers on the frame down tubes, then I’d have no problem, that would be honest. But they don’t.
 
They have said they expect to lay off 50 workers
What a shame for those people ,I hope they stop at 50 redundancys
 
I understand where you are coming from but new Triumphs do not have any stickers or anything saying they are made in England or any other place the only way to tell where they been assembled is a letter in the frame number/letters and it don't matter what country they are assembled in the parts are sourced from the same places from all over the world.
Most motorcycle companies do the same thing and isn't owning, building and selling motorcycles all about making money as any business and looking after their share holders or partners, and even better if they are looking after their workers.
Look what happened to the old Triumph motorcycle company as well Norton, BSA etc etc they all went belly up after GOV refused to bail them out any more with public money and really you got to give Triumph credit as they are a world wide manufacturing success with the modern Triumphs and selling bikes that people can afford, then look at what has happen to the mess Norton are now in.

Ashley
 
A few months ago a mate of mine bought a new Triumph Explorer (made in Thailand) it was a bag of shite. New cam chain and tensioners almost immediately, started to rattle again virtually straight away so he binned it and bought a Yamaha, you know Yamaha who don't have any pretensions about making a British bike. I never thought I'd say it but I'd rather have a new Kawasaki than a new Triumph - British bike my arse !
 
I do not care much for the "Britishness" of my bikes, being a Dutch citizen, the UK is a foreign country for me. In Triumph's case, the design and engineering facilities will stay in in the country of origin and the production will move abroad, same story with Ducati, and many other (non motorcycle related) products.
As much as I feel sorry for the job losses, this is the reality of today, It's a global economy, better get used to it, there is no way back, only if the costs of production in Asia will become to high. What will happen next ? made in Ethiopia or elswhere in Africa perhaps ?
Unfortunately, we will not be able to stop this.
 
I do not care much for the "Britishness" of my bikes, being a Dutch citizen, the UK is a foreign country for me. In Triumph's case, the design and engineering facilities will stay in in the country of origin and the production will move abroad, same story with Ducati, and many other (non motorcycle related) products.

Ducati has made it clear that the bikes produced in Thailand will only be sold in the Southeast Asian markets. The reason for assembling bikes there is to avoid high tariffs (up to 40%) on the import of complete bikes from Europe. That is a logical move, and several japanese factories as well as HD have done likewise. The big question is, if operations are running very well, will it stay like this?

Triumph seems to have chosen a different path by closing down its assembly lines in the UK. Why? I believe the key factors are profit margins and productivity. Lower-priced models such as the Bonneville models require a very cost-efficient operation. I believed the profit margins of making the triples would still allow production to stay in the UK. Maybe that's not possible anymore unless the production figures are high enough. Furthermore, in terms of productivity Britain has lagged behind other western countries for decades. Automation has helped to preserve jobs in the UK, but there are still many steps in assembly which require manual operations.

In business terms, there is no room for being "a little altruistic". On the other hand, I do believe that maximizing return of investment (i.e., profit) is a big factor in Bloor's decision.

-Knut
 
A few months ago a mate of mine bought a new Triumph Explorer (made in Thailand) it was a bag of shite. New cam chain and tensioners almost immediately, started to rattle again virtually straight away so he binned it and bought a Yamaha, you know Yamaha who don't have any pretensions about making a British bike. I never thought I'd say it but I'd rather have a new Kawasaki than a new Triumph - British bike my arse !

The build quality is praised by the press? However, if a factory is pressed to produce cheaply, they may be tempted to source cheaply too and relax on quality control. And that's exactly where QC is a necessity. There are ample examples from the car industry in which massive recalls and enormous expenses were the result of such attempted "savings".
However, I wouldn't condemn Triumph's product because of one dissatisfied buyer. Did your mate give them a chance to rectify the faults? If so, did the faults reappear?

-Knut
 
I worked as a consultant once on a due diligence for a company being sold / bought. The company had relocated its operations 5 times in 10 years (IIRC) to lower cost economies. It was madness. No one had ever looked at the total cost of doing this (which was extortionate), only the piece price. But to them, at the time, they believed they were doing the right thing. It’s like ‘The Emperors New Clothes’ story.

Contrast that to the model used by the largest, most successful and most profitable car company in the world, their model is to produce in their markets. They build (what compared to industry norms are) smaller, cheaper, simpler, more manual factories. This allows them to build more of them. It allows them to be incredibly flexible. It allows each factory to focus on fewer derivatives, etc. THIS is a sensible, logical ‘Global Market’ approach. It is NOT simply chasing cheap labour.

They have also bucked the trend that automation = productivity. Their focus instead is on genuinely eliminating all possible waste and ‘non value adding’ activities from their operations. In fact, more recently they have removed some automation to revert to more manual operations.

I can say with 100% certainty that if they built high end leisure motorcycles, they would NOT close their European based manufacturing operations.
 
The build quality is praised by the press? However, if a factory is pressed to produce cheaply, they may be tempted to source cheaply too and relax on quality control. And that's exactly where QC is a necessity. There are ample examples from the car industry in which massive recalls and enormous expenses were the result of such attempted "savings".
However, I wouldn't condemn Triumph's product because of one dissatisfied buyer. Did your mate give them a chance to rectify the faults? If so, did the faults reappear?

-Knut

Yes, I stated there that he had the bike repaired and the fault came back almost immediately. This wasn't the only problem, just the one significant enough for me to remember, the bike was full of minor faults and a complete waste of @£12,000. Obviously his new Yamaha has been faultless to the point of boring .
My point is that most in the UK do care that the bikes are built here, the ones that don't care, are ones that don't care about anything.
I am realistic enough to be aware of global markets and differing needs of companies, I'm also realistic enough to see greed and a lack of loyalty when I see it as well.
 
All manufactures of motorcycles, cars, trucks do have the occational failures, faults as well lemons, doesn't matter how big the company is, your mate had a problem with his bike don't mean the same model or their other models are going to have the same problem, myself have had no problems with my 2 Thruxtons, my 2013 Thruxton has over 50K miles my new 1200 Thruxton just over 2 years old and going as good as the day I brought it, my mate brought his 2006 Bonnie new and has over 120k miles clocked up , he rides it hard, takes it down the drag strip every year on it and has never been let him down and there are a lot of members on the Triumph Rat forum who are members of the 100,000 mile club who have never had any problems, your mate was just one of the unlucky ones, it happens and can happen to anyone on any bike.
 
It's not an isolated incident, since having his "lemon" my mate has spoke to many other owners whose bikes are defficient. I'm glad that yours is good, but that don't mean they all are.
 
It's not an isolated incident, since having his "lemon" my mate has spoke to many other owners whose bikes are defficient. I'm glad that yours is good, but that don't mean they all are.

Remember : Untill the mid 1960's everything from Japan was cosidered inferior rubbish.
From the early 1970's "made in England" on any motorbike or car was considered as a warning sign. (I was called stupd to buy a Norton in those days when everybody else bought Honda's).
Today some may have doubts about Chinese or Indian made products, take a look at Enfield, the build quality of these bikes improved considerably over the years, and will likely improved further as time moves on, same is happening to Chinese manufacturing.
Of course I regret the job losses in the old world, but unfortunately I think that this trend will be almost impossible to reverse.
 
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