I would second these views having had plants in the US, Asia, and
Europe. While local politics often "encouraged" local manufacturing, in
the end the most efficient producer environments win. When countries
make it an objective to be competitive on a global scale and have good
leadership they often achieve that goal - witness Singapore's history.
Engineering as a profession is "too hard" for many US students, PolySci
is easy but then graduates wonder why their jobs are in retail or food
service. A recent major magazine article was about the "crushing
college debt" of many students and their inability to pay. NOT ONCE did
it mention the career choice of the students profiled - DUH. When I
introduced 6-Sigma statistical process control to my operations and
checked on "how is it going?" at a plant, the plant manager said, "we've
hit a snag, we have to teach much of the workforce how to add and
subtract." The failure of US public education to produce a workforce
educated for the jobs of today is appalling. In Asia, the skills needed
were there and the techniques enthusiastically embraced by the labor
force. The "top 5%" are a much larger population besides.
Consider that the Philippines graduates more engineers (5 year program,
accredited) than the USA. There aren't the MIT, Stanford, or Berkeley
PhD level institutions, yet. The degrees granted focus heavily towards
the semiconductor industry (BS/MS EE & CS). Now they are rapidly
up-skilling into test design, design spins, and then original designs
and that work is being off-shored by US companies. TSMC (Taiwan) didn't
become the largest semiconductor company in the world by accident.
Cheapest labor is less important as automation has reduced the
handwork. Years ago the garment makers realized that computer driven
sewing machines were changing the game. The latest and most productive
machine tools cost the same everywhere in the world and it is the
innovation in them and the workforce skill to optimize their performance
that makes a difference. That takes a very skilled labor base. Then
there are the regulations and bureaucracy. Many years ago Andy Grove
(SK) promised California he would not build another Intel plant in CA
unless the state fixed its bizarre permitting and tax/regulatory
burdens. I had to LOL when the press and politicians 10 years later
bitched that Intel was building all plants elsewhere. It took me 6
years and many dollars to get a single family home building permit in
Santa Clara County, on a large property with ZERO issues. Now I don't
live in CA. People and companies can vote with their feet. Especially
with the incentives, skilled labor, low taxes, and streamlined
permitting offered by competing political entities. SiVly is propping
up CA finances for now, watch out when startup stock options aren't "in
the money". The rest of CA is in the tank, just drive through the
Central Valley.
I've been buying machine tools and tooling for the last 25 years. The
three most scary words 15 years ago were "Made in India." In the past
year, several items I've purchased had that dreaded marking, but are
first class. Maybe not Hardinge or Starrett level yet, but so close as
to not be important to me. Several of the well known but lesser brands
are now India made.
Grant KZ1W
On 7/10/2016 20:27 PM, Roger (K8RI) on TT wrote:
Overly simplistic with the reasons for ham gear as well as many
products off shore include all the things someone said were unrelated.
Unions, politics, skilled and unskilled labor, work ethics,
unrealistic expectations and attitudes taught all the way through the
school system. Add to that the global market system.
The company I worked for had numerous plants around the US. There are
many states that welcome new industries with minimal regulations and
taxes. Unfortunately the Feds regulations can make starting a new
business anywhere, more than a little difficult.
We had plants on nearly every continent to take advantage of those
"local markets"
"Ham Radio" is no where near a large enough market to support that
kind of business model.
"Off Shore" does not mean junk, but as long as most hams are cheap,
someone, here or there will build and sell "cheap stuff". Let's face
it. If WE didn't purchase enough cheap stuff to support the making of
cheap stuff, then they'd stop making cheap stuff.
You don't need to be very old to remember when Japan was synonymous
with cheap stuff.
Those producing cheap stuff soon learn there is a lot more money in
building "good stuff"
"Cheap labor" has a way of becoming expensive labor.
Japan was replaced by Korea and Mexico. Now why would Japanese
companies start building cars in the US? It doesn't take long for an
open mind to find those answers.
Korean cheap labor is being replaced by Chinese and Indian labor.
A thought:
I read that in another generation or two, India will have more people
with 4 year college degrees than the total US population. Can China be
far behind? They have highly qualified people who WANT to work, while
we have many college grads who want to tell their employers what they
will do. I've seen a drastic change in new hire attitudes in my 50
plus years in industry
Whoever remarked about the falling # of Hams needs to read
http://www.arrl.org/news/amateur-radio-showing-steady-growth-in-the-us
True, fewer build their own HF and VHF rigs, but LF and SHF are now
the domain of the home builders. OTOH many of the new hams with store
bought equipment understand the programming and protocols for some
very sophisticated communications that leave old time CW and SSB hams
scratching their heads?
All of these things/topics affect Ham Radio, one way or another.!
73
Roger (K8RI)
On 7/9/2016 Saturday 3:55 PM, David Gilbert wrote:
That's a bit simplistic. I spent over 30 years working for a huge
North American based semiconductor company, and there were a variety
of reasons we ended up moving most manufacturing elsewhere. Labor
cost was certainly one of them, but rarely the deciding factor.
Others included:
1. Availability of trained engineers. Places like China and India
have a far greater pool of highly skilled and dedicated engineers,
and engineers in the U.S. tended to think of manufacturing as being
"unglamorous."
2. Proximity to local markets. As the world economy became more
global, being able to be closer to your customer had tremendous
advantages in terms of customer relationships and cycle time
reductions, not to mention trade (many countries lower tax rates for
local content) and currency issues.
3. Bureaucracy and overhead issues. At one point we wanted to
significantly expand a wafer fab locally, but were told by the city
that it would take at least 18 months simply to get the approvals for
it ... in spite of the fact that we had already proposed every safety
and environmental upgrade imaginable for it. Markets don't wait for
that kind of crap, and we ended up having to build the fab offshore
where some other entity actually wanted it.
Other industries faced different issues ... tax burdens in the U.S.,
ridiculous union requirements (much less of an issue now, of course,
at least in most places), availability of raw materials, etc. The
problem as many of us recognized even back then was that once such
manufacturing migrations begin they are very difficult to curb. How
many colleges and universities in North America offer engineering
courses specifically geared toward manufacturing? Damn few, if any.
In Asia they are everywhere. Compare tax rates. Compare
transportation costs to major markets (North America is no longer the
only one).
The list of reasons why such "big box" products are built elsewhere
is almost endless, and while it may be convenient to blame the
manufacturers for that it is simply scapegoating. Consumers who tend
to buy the cheapest available product regardless of quality (and they
are still the majority, to which I can attest having worked for a
while at a big box store) share the blame, as do most other elements
of the economic system that ignored cost and efficiency in favor of
other factors. I'd even bet that your own investment funds lie with
companies that make as much profit as possible, as opposed to some
company that tried to fight the system by paying higher wages, paying
higher taxes, training it's own engineers, paying higher
transportation costs ... etc, etc, etc.
Manufacturers mostly follow ... they don't really lead the parade. I
can say with great experience that moving manufacturing offshore is
one of the riskiest, most traumatic actions a manufacturer can take.
It doesn't happen without significant outside pressure from one place
or another.
73,
Dave AB7E
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