[TowerTalk] AES SK

Mon Aug 22 16:01:47 EDT 2016

Kudos to you for this terrific commentary.  We share the same opinions, 
point by point.  I voted with my feet at the turn of the century 
breaking a 30+ year sojourn in San Diego and moving to Rural Oklahoma. 
In my "spare time" I was an adjunct prof teaching S/W Eng and senior 
projects in evening classes at the 3rd largest private university in 
California. I worked at a large (over 5000 civil servants) Gov lab.  The 
quality of applicants for scientific and engineering not to mention Comp 
Sci was in a death spiral.

Patrick        NJ5G

On 7/11/2016 10:06 PM, Grant Saviers wrote:
> 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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