Badge Engineering
Badge Engineering
(OP)
We have long known about badge engineering in the automotive world (Chevy and GMC trucks, etc.). It appears that the practice has now spread to other consumer products. I just bought a Black & Decker 20v back pack sprayer to use around my 7 acre "estate". The owner's manual was missing so I went on line to find one. I entered "B & D model 63980" as my search term and the first or second hit was "Chapin 63985 20v sprayer". They looked to be identical except for the emblem on the tank. I then read through the comments section on a gardening website (don't remember which one)and it was stated that the two sprayers were one and the same. So, I went to Chapin's website and down loaded a manual for my Black & Decker sprayer.





RE: Badge Engineering
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Black_%26_De...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_%26_Decker
Near as I can tell "Black & Decker" is no more a company of it's own, being purchased and merged into "Stanley Black & Decker" in 2010.
It further appears that "Black & Decker" is not a brand that is currently used by "Stanley Black & Decker".
I suspect that the brand of "Black & Decker" has been licenced or sold to whoever wants to use it.
RE: Badge Engineering
The first time I really saw this in action was when I first started to go out on job-sites to bakeries when I was new engineer working for a company the manufactured capital machinery for the commercial baking industry. One of the first large bakeries that I visited, in addition to supplying baked products under their own store label (the bakery was part of a large Texas grocery store chain) they also produced bread and rolls for both independent labels as well as even some of their competitors in the grocery business. When I asked about this I was told that it's pretty common and it's what's known as "Private Labeling". Years later when I had a chance to visit companies in Asia which produced consumer goods, like coffee makers and other such small appliances, as well as power-tools and even hand tools, this was a very common practice.
And it also happens in more subtle ways as well. When I was in college I drove an an AMC Javelin with a small-block V8. Anyway, the starter failed and when I went to the auto parts store (there was no AMC dealers in the area) I was told that they didn't carry starters for my car but all I had to do was to buy a Ford starter and simply swap-out the two-bolt flange on the Ford starter for the three-bolt flange from the AMC starter and it would work fine since, other than the cast-iron flanges, they were identical. And it wasn't like the starter was some off-brand generic as it was a Ford OEM replacement part, right down to Autolite stamped on the nameplate on the motor housing.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Badge Engineering
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: Badge Engineering
We made some Jeep parts for Chrysler that date back to their AMC ownership days, the drawings are Ford formats inside AMC formats inside Chrysler formats. So glad those are gone.
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The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.
RE: Badge Engineering
RE: Badge Engineering
Sometimes the products are highly customized other times just label and maybe color changes.
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?
RE: Badge Engineering
Even in the same product segment, we had different product development groups for products at the low end price range and those in the higher end, quality products, with the low end products coming with a one year warranty compared to the better products having a 3 year warranty.
After I took a buy out from the company, I went back as a contractor working in product support and saw first hand the customer issues with the lower end products. Definitely a product to stay away from. At least the 1 and 3 year warranty differences gave the customer some tangible sign to look for, when wanting a long life, quality product.
After living through that, for me personally, a manufacturer's name as an indicator of product quality largely went in the bit bucket.. I look at the quality reviews of the specific model in a product line.
RE: Badge Engineering
This post at Garage Journal is a pretty good cross-reference list for the different brands.
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?...
RE: Badge Engineering
Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: Badge Engineering
That being said, one of those factories that I visited in China years ago, the one that made hand tools, Sears was a big customer and they made Craftsman tools. Today I usually buy my tools at Harbor Freight. At least there's no wondering where they're from and besides, you can get some pretty good deals and the quality is often very good. Granted, there's a lot of really cheap stuff there, but for most things, it's more than worth the price. And if you look close, they even sell some stuff 'Made in the U.S.A'.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Badge Engineering
It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. (Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia.)
RE: Badge Engineering
RE: Badge Engineering
Brand has, in most products, long ago ceased to be a useful proxy for quality. Regrettably there is no replacement proxy for quality. So you are off after the cheapest thing most of the time, unless you buy enough of it/them that you can do your own QA/QC review.
As for tools, here it's not Harbour Freight, it's Princess Auto, or Canadian Tire sometimes, but same basic idea. I have a 7" angle grinder from Princess Auto that's a decade old and has cut hundreds of feet of concrete and brick and just will not die- the same with the little sausage air compressor I bought around the same time. It just runs and runs, vibrating itself around the room until the cord stops it from moving.
My personal hobby horse is Swagelok: they still have legions of people brainwashed into thinking that their compression fittings are the only ones that work. The salesmen get people when they're young and impressionable, in university labs etc. They do make a good product, still, but the cost is absurd. Tons of 3rd party review and testing has demonstrated that their compression fitting are interchangeable and intermixable with those of the myriad of 2-ferrule "-loks" out there, all except of course the Hoke products which have a different ferrule geometry. We particularly like Ham-Let because they not only make a pretty good product in overall quality terms, and of course sell it to us for about 40% less than Swagelok does, but unlike Swagelok they haven't given up innovating. They're making new products all the time- clever combinations of valves in a single package for less than the cost of the individual components much less the labour to assemble them. They've even improved time-honoured designs like the 0/1 series Whitey integral bonnet needle valve, so you can panel mount them without having to take off the packing nut.