A Vacuum Cleaner, Cardboard, And Natural Selection

I found a 600-watt Bosch vacuum cleaner beside the street in Zurich. It looked intact, it was free, and I have enough curiosity to make that combination operationally dangerous.

It worked. Then I drilled holes for some shelves and used it on the wall dust. The cleaner did not enjoy this. It clogged out of its mind.

The fine dust had also reached the automatic cable reel and ruined the return mechanism. I got the screwdrivers out, opened the Bosch and worked through the mess. The reel was heavy, filthy and no longer useful. I could live with a cable that refused to disappear.

I cleaned everything very carefully. By "carefully," I mean I put the whole lot in a bucket and washed it with water as scorching hot as the tap could produce. Then I left it to dry overnight and took my chances.

The Dhandho arithmetic was excellent: upside, a working vacuum cleaner; downside, returning a street find to the street.

The next morning I started putting it back together and discovered one detail. The cable reel had also provided the mounting point for the cables. Removing it had solved the weight and mechanical problem while creating a small structural one.

Enter cardboard. What an amazing material. You can cut it, fold it, reinforce it and make a useful structure within seconds. I shaped a replacement mount, secured the cables and closed the machine.

It worked like a charm. The Bosch came back to life, the cable stayed where it belonged, and the missing recoil mechanism was not missed.

A few months later I drilled more holes and clogged it again. Apparently I had learned how to repair the vacuum cleaner, not what to stop feeding it. I cleaned it, tested it successfully and left it outside for the next person to pick up.

Its replacement was a bagless Dreame. Chinese technology is becoming seriously good.

People still say "built in China" as shorthand for cheap when something fails. The Bosch was assembled in China too. The important change is that the Dreame was also designed there.

China spent decades manufacturing products for the rest of the world, learned the stack and moved further into design, engineering, brands and margin. Of course that alarms the West. It should.

Chase fast profits, outsource the difficult work, get comfortable, then act surprised when the factory becomes the competitor. Natural selection remains operational.

I started with a clogged vacuum cleaner and ended up at industrial policy. The cardboard mount, for the record, never failed.