How's it Going ...

Dcad,

Mass production units are forced to produce to the efficient level of designed plant productivity, to prevent utilization losses.Many managements believe in to produce,dump and sell no matter whether true demand exists or not[stock lots].Then comes discount sales.Many prodution people are unaware of market conditions[,on sa fer side they are not informed about].24 hours 365 days may be a big idea to companies,but not to available resources sustainability[ENERGY,POWER,FUELS,ENVIRONMENT]. Is it worth this 24hrs humans working and producing?I think it needs a rethinking.The balancing aspect can be ultra speed productivity,limited production hours,energy efficiency and optinized production plan.Seasons will change and hopes are for a better tomorrow.No situation is permanent.

The company I work for seems to be doing well. No one's been laid off or anything. I don't know how long this will last since other companies are either closing or downsizing. Several have cut down on their working hours. This translates to people having less take home pay and that means less buying power.

I expect sales to decline a bit. How much, I don't know. We're trying to come up with other strategies to gain market share and conteract some of it but, still, I don't know.

One of the big big bosses came over recently and tried to answer some of our questions. He seemed pretty upbeat about our capability to weather the storm.

regards,

Vulcan

It is disheartening that after all the ups and downs we have gone through in business that we haven't developed the ability to see past our noses. My company probably trained and developed at least 100,000 engineers and let them go for "Budgetary Reasons".

Instead of planning properly for the lifetime of the company we are interested in only the next quarter. We have no interest in putting something aside for the bad times that are going to follow the good.

We have become lazy, we want to make money without making a product and we think we are smart enough to manipulate a system that is based simply on greed.

We are so self righteous that we preach our commitment to honesty and fair play while we search diligently for ways around our obligations.

So we are the kind of a company that looks at it's work force not as assets but costs.

Anyone else work for this bunch?

In answer to the question, we are fairly busy and gun shy like everyone else. We can't believe there is any business out there based on the 24/7 news coverage that assures us more is on the way.

I'm not at liberty to give any details, but we are doing at least as well as a year ago, and if a couple of recent items come to fruition, much better!

I'm graduating this summer and the company I planned to work for has a hiring freeze.

Also since the managers didn't want to fire anyone, all the employees worldwide had a 5% decrease in their pay, including executives.

For me that means maybe attending a MSc program for a year or two, since I still want to work with that company and I'm willing to wait and improve my skills in the mean time.

So its no tragedy for me. The reality is that its a very bad storm out there that needs to be weathered.

I January 09, I left a Company after I weathered 6 Lay Offs in 2008. They have since "Furloughed" half of what was left of the company. This means they were sent home without pay and told to wait 6 months and they would call them back. I too am receiving emails and phone calls from my former co-workers looking for jobs.

The industry that makes the equipment used to create Wafers (MicroChips) is going through hard times. We sold to all Major Manufactures of Wafers (T.I., Toshiba, Lam, AMAT, etc.). These industries have dramatically scaled back there production.

Hi DCaD,

I work for a manufacturing company that has/is laying off about 3,000. The good news is that the stocks I have looked at all show a recent up-curve indicating that they have bottomed out and are heading upward. Officially we are in a bull market because of 20% increase since the bottom.

S

I work as a sales rep for Schaeffer Manufacturing, a 170 year old lubricant and fuel additives company. We have seen a 10% increase in growth this year.

I can only assume that, though our customers have considerably decreased their production, everyone now sees the need to reduce consumption. Since our customers, utilizing our products, are typically able to reduce their consumption 50%, they have become Schaeffer's best salesmen. 97% of our customers, when asked, would recommend our products to their friends and relatives.

My customers now have a propensity to test my assertions before they purchase company-wide. Prior to this down-turn, it was harder to convince them to even test the product.

In addition, we are hiring those persons that have the aptitude for sales, and the ability to take rejection. Please call me anytime if you are interested @ 216-401-1845.

I wish everyone else good luck.

Sincerely,

Richard Greenwald, Lubricant Specialist

My contracts ends at the end of June, orders are low, one of our factory layed off 300 people, so i guess i will be let go too

c'est la vie

I used to work for the steel industry in the US but have been retired for several years. We went through all the cutbacks, etc. but to no avail. Look at the steel industry in the US (or worldwide for that matter). Just glad I'm retired.

Quit a job in the Environmental Industries, which was doing good. to work back in the Mechanical/Electro Mechanical Design industry.

The new company laid off half the personal including myself after a month of working there. Frankly when you get down to it, they never should have been hiring in the firat place.

Other than that................ok.

I usually contract independently in software for aviation.

We were being held up nicely by government spending, but the recent cancellation of a large helicopter program reflects general belt-tightening in the defense sector.

I'm working for about 60% of what I was earning after 5 months on the street and while the current project is promising, it is limited in duration. Still looking.

Hello DCaD,

I am located close to San Francisco. I've worked 3 years with a company who injection mold for an Auto Plant called NUMMI. NUMMI is a combination of Toyota and GM from 1984 till now. They make Toyota Corolla and Tundra and Pontiac Vibe Cars. Sales on both cars are down ~10% and Trucks by ~ 70%.

We mirror NUMMI production and have been on a 4-day week Jan and Feb, and a 3-day week March with April at 4-day week with a week off in the middle (= 3-day week in April)

May back to 4-day weeks and June ?, they hope back to 5 days for the duration.

The time off was to reduce inventory on dealer lots to the 60 day norm for Toyota. Toyota sales were off a combined 37% in December 08. They cut production by 40% immediately. Corolla and Vibe are solid sellers where as Lexus sales are off ~ 80% or higher on the larger cars.

Generally in this area, people are lucky to have a job. The company above laid off ~ 180 people so far and 18 more are due this week. Many union workers working 3-day weeks were further reduced to 7 hr days. It is survival mode.

I am happy to have a job and have side work to get by. Many do not have that option and it is pitiful to hear the sad stories from cities like Sacramento and Fresno in the Central Valley of California. There are large tent cities growing, as many out of work people have lost their homes and their work and have to resort to tents. There are 3,000 + recently homeless families to be cared for.

It is important to try to keep up the morale and take a night course or improvement course where possible. It is hard to say if there has been any improvement, it looks like it is in a holding pattern with the bulk of layoffs done for now.

What brought you to China. I spent 7 weeks around Shenzhen about 1 1/2 years ago getting 75 molds built. I really have good contacts there and they are worse off than us at the moment as they depend heavily on offshore contracts to feed their vast economy. I would go back in a second, pollution was tough but the people were great.

Good Luck

Hello there DcaD,

Thank you for the reply, I have been busy and am now just trolling through the site. You have had some cool life experience.

I moved to San Francisco in '81 so I know what its like to be a foreigner, still. Best of Luck to all there, if things get moving here soon I may get to visit China again for the next big car project. I understand what you said about the language and getting quickly overwhelmed when you initiate a conversation in Chinese. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to get around, as there always seemed to be a buddiing english scholar ready to help.

Regards

I'm really late in posting here -- but that's because we're so busy!

My company is in semiconductors. Like DCaC, we currently have more work than we can handle. But money is really tight (as a shareholder, I've been skipping some paydays to help keep things afloat). So we can't increase staff. Serious dilemma! We would *love* to hire some new grads to offload the senior design staff, but can't ... yet.

The good news: Our industry tends to lead the general economy by 6 to 9 months, so we hope to see a general turnaround by the end of the year. A few more months of postponing home repairs and eating mac-and-cheese, and then maybe we can breathe easier & start hiring!