Mechanical Components Blog

I'd say "amen" and "hallelujah" to America's industrial resurgence.

Before anyone gets too excited, however, it's important to remember that just because a factory is located in the U.S. doesn't mean that it's American-owned. The Toyota and Honda plants are cases in point. The old GE Plastics facility in Pittsfield, MA is another example. It's owned by the Saudis.

Hmmm..........

The British Airports Authority is owned by the Spanish, as is O₂, a major mobile communications provider in the UK (no disrespects).....

Yippie kie yea It would be nice to see more products with the tag made in America instead of made in China.One day hopefully we can become more self reliant again,its upsetting to see how we've become so dependant on other counties to make are goods for us and its down Right dangerous to have other countries in control of our needs.

What is wrong with Japanese, Saudis, Spanish etc having companies in the United States or elsewhere. Are there not lots of US/ UK companies operatiing in other parts of the world? Some members of this forum work and live in "foreign" countries.

In the case of the US, was it not immigrants who built up this country in the first place.

The only true American "companies" are the Casinos that the Native Americans are allowed to build on their reservations.

But the "native americans" are not really native either. Scientists believe that the people originally in the US were pushed into Central America by the American Indians that came across the Bering Straights in a later wave of immigration. Therefore the casinos are not american companies either.

You could take that argument to the extreme and say that everyone on the planet immigrated from some cave in Africa and therefore the only companies are African companies (tongue in cheek).

But, I agree with HoleInTheSnow with one exception. I don't believe any country in their right minds should be farming out infrastructure (i.e. the recent flap in this country over ports management). From a security standpoint that's just dangerous.

Actually the continents separated before people existed, so all the humans in the Americas, North, Central and South are immigrants. The languages are all distantly related to those found in Europe and the mitochondrial DNA also shows that they are distant relatives of the people living in Europe.

Mummies of red and blond haired people wrapped in plaid cloth have been found in western China and later on the Tokhars, a people who spoke an Indo-European language had a civilization there that lasted into the 1200's.

If it weren't for the Chinese, who persecute Christians, we could not have Christmas, because they make 99% of all the decorations, toys and other gifts. Just try to buy shoes that are not made in China, especially sneakers. Our industries would rather buy from rice-eaters that Americans cannot compete with for wages, rather than make it here and use a tariff to equalize prices, to level the field, not to protect our industry from all competition, but to put us on a more equal footing. In case of war we might have just enough oil to keep the military, industry and vital transport going, but nothing for civilian use. Ride bicycles .. oops, made in China and the tires require oil. OK, walk to work ...oops, the shoes wear out and can't be replaced because we have no shoe factories, they are all in China. So walk to work barefoot on searing hot pavement or on icy snow. Almost all our electronics and appliances are made in China or other countries with cheap labor and it shows in their quality.

The people know what the problem is, but the gutless, money and power hungry politicians ignore the people and buy their votes by spending the money they took from them to buy votes with special projects. Neither party will do anything meaningful about illegal immigrants because they are cheap labor and easy votes to buy, despite what the people want. The same applies to protecting our industry from unfair competition.

I think this pretty much nails the problem. We need to rethink the whole concept of 'economies of scale', with massive manufacturing plants and multiple layers of management. I my experience the best run businesses have one man (or woman) running the operation (and usually also working), one person answering the phone and keeping the books, and maybe a few dozen workers. Obviously there will always be some heavy industries that are only possible on a massive scale, but we have over the years mis-applied that model to businesses where it is not appropriate.

Fortunately the rising cost of transportation should favor this small-is-better model. The small increases in productivity that can be achieved by scaling up will be more than offset by the higher cost of distribution.

Regarding transportation, I totally agree with your comment.

Regarding the need to eliminate the excessive levels of management at all levels in corporations, I would refer the readers to Professor Paul Thomas's work in Wales (Univ. of Glamorgan) about which a thread is available. WHile certain areas of business need management, others do not and it behooves exec. management to learn which is which.

It is US who was eager for WTO.Except China all countries' businessmen were also eager to enter into WTO. It was only China who prepared it self for WTO by developing infrastructure first.Ofcourse man power is there.So what is the solution?

Just have chinese.

In India people are still suspecious about china made item except toys.But for US is there any option?I guess no.Only solution is EURO like common currency..probably.

The US will not ever manufacture again, it is too easy to shoot craps in the stock market and make money. Government policy and disdain for manufacturing has contributed to the loss of manufacturing. The policy is now showing up in the weaker dollar as our balance of payments goes more and more negative. the end result is the lower income the middle class is now suffering from. The poor continue to get more and more government subsidies and the rich have done well as well as received tax breaks to invest in foreign companies and short sales. This loss of riches for the american middle class if going to take decades to fully manifest itself. There is more debt than ever as we spend more than we make, There is more crime as the high paying manufacturing jobs leave the country leaving high school graduates with only low paying jobs, they turn to crime. Retirement benifits have been cut dictating more and more retirees will not enjoy the standard of living their parents had. We defeated the axis with our industrial might. Can we do that today?It is only a matter of time and we will have no domistic auto manufacturers, we are no longer an manufactuer of machine tools. How will we defend ourselves if necessary? The last 3 contracts for aircraft went to France. Boeing has outsourced to the point they cannot manufacture planes on time. Only a misinformed idiot would study engineering.

Dear Guest, May I ask where the issue is in having the French building the aircraft for yourselves - is it the fact that they are French. Apparently the US, among many others, purchase alot of their weapons from Sweden and one of the reasons they do so is because they are of higher quality (and probably cheaper)

The fact that these companies are not located physically inside your country of residence/ allegiance does not mean that they inherently pose a security risk or that the quality of the product is inferior in some way - I agree that there are exceptions. In addition alot of these companies have foreign shareholders which are from your country of residence/ allegiance.

In some way the rising cost of fuel/ transport may (as JohnFotl pointed out) be a good thing in some respects as it may force us to have local companies supplying certain products - I am sure some bean counter somewhere is working out that it is still $0.001 cheaper to manufacture it abroad than at home.

Kind Regards

Mr. W.A. Snow

I must admit that engineering was not a recommendation to my sons.

And it is hard to sell management on long-term growth when Wall Street wants quarterly results.

So don't borrow money, don't expand and die.

And don't get me started on tax code - the government's major input on what a company does day to day. The snow-ball effect of offsetting taxes on an American's salary abroad has ensured that American manufacturers HAVE to hire overseas if the need exceeds two years.

Union = Monies in the consumers pocket--instead of the greedy.

One word .....DUH!!!!!

I've been saying this all along. Ever since Clinton enacted NAFTA in "94".

Clinton isn't President anymore, and he hasn't been in office in almost 8 years. Time to find a new scapegoat, dontcha think?

As per my understanding if your manufacture cost of one product is $10 & if you sell that in USA for $40 then it is anytime good to manufacture the product in other countries like brazil, India, China with lesser labour cost.( creating more profit)

Other option is to lower the labour rates in USA & manufacture the product there only.

Which seems difficult as people there in USA are used to with unnessesary richer lifestyle.( resulting in higher labour cost)

Surendra

My first job out of school was for an outfit that made electrical devices (Eagle Electric). The year was 1962. They had more than 11 plants in Long Island City, a community across the East River from Manhattan. They had thousands of hourly workers, women mostly, who could not speak English.

It's all gone! I am told that what little is left of the company is all down in Mexico now. Theirs and many other industrial buildings have been converted into condominiums. Real estate values, labor and utility costs have escalated to the point where no manufacturer could survive trying to compete with off shore products. It's no different across the river in New Jersey.

Small as it is, during World War Two, the state of New Jersey was only second in the nation (behind California) in the production of war materials. Most of the factories have left driven out by taxes, over zealous application of environmental laws, OSHA and unions. However, one of the most burdensome factors is having to deal with multiple levels of red tape at the municipal, County and State levels. One client, a pharmaceutical company acknowledged this and swore that had they known what was waiting for them when they made the decision to expand their NJ headquarters, they would have chosen differently. They'd have closed down and moved everything elsewhere.

After all my years in mechanical design and in manufacturing, I am fortunate to still be possessed by a real passion for the activity. Alas, the only way to play the game is to leave the coastal regions of the US and relocate to those states who appreciate manufacturing. Pennsylvania seems to be one of them.

In order to be successful, however, those manufacturers will need a pool of skilled labor and frankly the schools do not appear to be up the task. None of the high-schools where I assisted offers an Industrial Arts class. Once they all did.

If the manufacturing transition back to the US is going to take hold and succeed then government bureaucracies are going to have to get out of the way and education is going to have to start teaching things that are of value to employers.

I've not verified this but I was told recently that Mexico graduates many times more engineers in one year than the US does. If that is accurate, we'd better get up off our collective behinds and do something.

If not, those returning industries will have nothing to come back to.

Hi Laughing,

Though I did leave a somewhat cynical post a few weeks ago regarding small wind manufacturers in America, I will say that within the large wind turbine sector we have done very well to draw manufacturing facilities within our borders (esp. in the Mid-West) and produce excellent products as a result. We have also been very responsive to this industry's call for trained technicians to maintain these complicated machines. I am currently participating in a cooperative effort between industry, and secondary and post-secondary educational institutes to establish a curriculum standard for large wind technicians. The prevailing atmosphere within these assemblies has been one of extreme excitement because we understand the significance of our endeavors. The "green" industry is about to revitalize our economy in a big way through the establishment of new manufacturing facilities (i.e. in 2007 the Mid-West had become home to several new large wind turbine component plants). The local workforce will receive first dibs on these high paying jobs because training will also be localized through neighborhood community colleges and technical schools. We're starting to look good to a lot of European large wind turbine companies because, by comparison, our laws are nowhere near as restrictive as those on that continent. Plus, our existing infrastructure would be able to handle a sudden influx of industry, whereas in other countries, such as China, infrastructure is struggling-- and sometimes tragically failing--to keep up with growth. In the end, it is not always cheap labor that attracts industry to a particular location, rather it is the ability of that location to supply a willing and skilled workforce along with a robust support network.

WindGenMan

There are certain prerequisites.

1. If an elected official takes a bribe, stand them against a wall and shoot them.

2. If a corporate official takes a bribe send them to the rock pile for a minimum of 10 years.

If you have been in the corporate world for more than a few years you should know that the whole thing runs on graft. From a complete system down to a gallon of paint a kickback is normally required.

Just the theft of stockholders money is bad enough but often the allocation of money from where it is needed to where the most graft is to be had costs even more.

This is the elephant in the living room. No one talks about it. The only group that is completely aware of it is construction.

Most of us think of graft as just a rakeoff by management that is fairly harmless. In fact it skews everything. It determines where billions are spent.

Recently Warren Buffet commented on the unreasonably huge salaries and perks that CEO's get. What he did not comment on was the role of boards of directors in this. Could it be that they share in the loot?