Will Appliance Manufacturing Lead the Way?

Not sure if some appliance guy will be the next Henry Ford, but I'd put my money on small business leading the way instead of big companies. GE was able to do what it did here because the job market is so lousy. If things get better, it will be harder for them to make these kinds of moves. Not so with a small business that hasn't got all the legacy stuff.

"General Electric's plans to invest a billion dollars in U.S. appliance manufacturing will save hundreds of existing American jobs and add 1300 new jobs."

That's 1/2 million dollars per person (assuming 2,000 jobs created/saved). Great value. I hope this isn't the only blueprint for creating jobs we have in the US. '

GE is doing so badly on the appliance front that all this rhetoric is expected. In this case they can't do anything to improve their product's actual value and performance in the eyes of the customer, so GE is only left to play the "Green" card (at a cost of 1 billion dollars).

The idea of restructuring their design-production process is for their stockholder's consumption. GE did this with their Six-Sigma initiative; that everyone in the engineering departments would be six-sigma trained to impress their stockholders years ago.

Considering what kind of crap current GE appliances are, they should look at improving their quality first.

GE is to appliances what GM used to be to the auto industry. A schlock product maker that treated their suppliers like crap.

Don't be surprised if they go to the White House for a handout ...and get it.