On Chinese visas, I found that they're not at all hard to get through an agency. The agency ensures your paperwork is in order and are able to represent you at the consulate so you don't have to travel. I think they also just have good relationships with the consulate staff that a random applicant will never have.
We recently had to get a Chinese visa for our baby and at first I was concerned we might not have it by the time of our flight last December. His U.S. passport, even with expedited processing, took about four months. Immediately after getting it in August I submitted our paperwork to an agency and they told me that the consulate doesn't accept applications more than three months prior to travel, but that processing time is only about four days, and they'd submit it as soon as it was eligible.
Given how long the passport took, I was inclined to not believe this and was still worried, but actual processing time turned out to be four days. With shipping we had baby's passport more than two months before our scheduled travel.
I went through CIBT, no idea if other agencies offer the same experience. I got the basic package, no upgrades, and still was given an agent assigned to my case that I could talk to one-on-one.
Also on Chinese factories, I think it may not be apparent that a lot of factories are pretty small operations, and better technology is enabling them to run even leaner. A family friend owns a dental appliance factory, making crowns for implants. It's maybe thirty people total. In the past where they would have had people processing physical molds shipped in from the dentist's clinc and creating teeth with labor intensive processes, now it's very automated.
The patient's mouth is 3D scanned at the clinic, and this scan is sent to the factory. The factory employs 3D modelers that create the replacement teeth in software. From there a CNC cuts the new teeth from a block of ceramic, and a 3D printer prints the patient's current gums and teeth, sans replacement, so that proper fit can be ensured. At that point the process becomes labor intensive again as workers color match the teeth to patient photos and paint them by hand, and then the finished products get a final review and are then packaged up to ship out.
The owner is looking to further increase efficiency by using LLMs to complete the first pass of making the new tooth model.
On Chinese visas, I found that they're not at all hard to get through an agency. The agency ensures your paperwork is in order and are able to represent you at the consulate so you don't have to travel. I think they also just have good relationships with the consulate staff that a random applicant will never have.
We recently had to get a Chinese visa for our baby and at first I was concerned we might not have it by the time of our flight last December. His U.S. passport, even with expedited processing, took about four months. Immediately after getting it in August I submitted our paperwork to an agency and they told me that the consulate doesn't accept applications more than three months prior to travel, but that processing time is only about four days, and they'd submit it as soon as it was eligible.
Given how long the passport took, I was inclined to not believe this and was still worried, but actual processing time turned out to be four days. With shipping we had baby's passport more than two months before our scheduled travel.
I went through CIBT, no idea if other agencies offer the same experience. I got the basic package, no upgrades, and still was given an agent assigned to my case that I could talk to one-on-one.
Also on Chinese factories, I think it may not be apparent that a lot of factories are pretty small operations, and better technology is enabling them to run even leaner. A family friend owns a dental appliance factory, making crowns for implants. It's maybe thirty people total. In the past where they would have had people processing physical molds shipped in from the dentist's clinc and creating teeth with labor intensive processes, now it's very automated.
The patient's mouth is 3D scanned at the clinic, and this scan is sent to the factory. The factory employs 3D modelers that create the replacement teeth in software. From there a CNC cuts the new teeth from a block of ceramic, and a 3D printer prints the patient's current gums and teeth, sans replacement, so that proper fit can be ensured. At that point the process becomes labor intensive again as workers color match the teeth to patient photos and paint them by hand, and then the finished products get a final review and are then packaged up to ship out.
The owner is looking to further increase efficiency by using LLMs to complete the first pass of making the new tooth model.