DeWitt Nebraska

[Lonnie in Orlando]

Good luck DeWitt. Sadly you're not the only US town with the problem ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KHc7jr_PGY

- Lonnie

[woodturner]

Good luck DeWitt. Sadly you're not the only US town with the problem.

That video is two years old - and it has really been within the last two years that the outsourcing trend has reversed. I wonder if Visegrip is one of the many companies that have brought manufacturing back to the US?

Interesting show on PBS on US manufacturing - and they point out that most of what we "know" about US manufacturing is not accurate. Cliff note version is that the US still manufactures more products than any other country, by a long shot.

Manufacturing of some products should be automated or outsourced, due to environmental impact, quality requirements, or cost requirements, but the US still excels in higher tech and more complex manufacturing. Innovation is our real strength, not grunt work "hard" manufacturing.

[cabinetman]

The parent company moved its production to China in 2008.
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/far...chines_12.html

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[cwsmith]

I worked in the Ingersoll-Rand Painted Post Plant for most of my career. When I started my career as an illustrator back in 1966, I-R was assigned to me as a client (I worked at a sub-contract house from 1966 to 1973). In 1972 the Painted Post and Corning area suffered from a major flood (hurricane Agnes) and the I-R plant saw major damage. But, they invested almost $5 Million and with NY State help got the plant up and going again.

The Painted Post plant was quite historic, first being the Imperial Engine Company back in the mid-1800's and becoming one of only two I-R plants around 1889. Over the years, it has made everything from artillery shells for WW1 and Liberty Ship engines in WWII (as well as other military equipment). We made compressors for everything from gold mining to the petro-chem industry; and, we invented the first automotive-type compressor, as well as produced portables used on almost every highway construction job in the world.

We also made rock-drills at one time and between that and our compressor equipment we've been instrumental at the Panama Canal, Mt. Rushmore, and more recently the pumping stations at the Great Salt Lake.

But in recent times the company management has decided that China and India are better places to employ workers. At one time our plant employed over 4800 faithful employees. Today it is less that 700.

In 1986, I-R spun the plant off in a joint venture with Halliburton-owned Dresser Industries and we became Dresser-Rand. Dominated by Dresser management in the last two decades, the plant has continued to dwindle and most of the manufacturing occurs in China and India, with a lot of equipment returning here for refitting and correction. D-R is now a separate company, held by an investment group. It's prime concerns are maximizing profits, and hence it's focus on Asian manufacturing. It's "footprint" in Europe and America greatly reduced; and all in the face of customers who much preferred "Made in the U.S.A."

All over NY and especially the southern tier area of this state I see the same thing. Nothing is coming back, but I do think new businesses are taking a look. As you drive through the area you'll see a lot of empty and abandoned factories and warehouses. Gone are the many foundaries, assembly plants, machine shops, and industrial centers that made the area great right up through the 80's. And gone too are the hundreds of smaller companies, shops, restaurants, and service facilities that were supported by these industrial giants.

Focus is on "technology" and "high-end" people like scientist, electronic, avionic, robotic, and similarly high-education jobs. Unrealized is the working class folks, the highly skilled manual workers and craftmen-like jobs of machining, assembly, etc. It's sad in many ways to see the area deterioting and places that I got my start in and earned a good living at now gone, forgotten, and very little left for the new generations of workers.

CWS

[LCHIEN]

Its a problem that goes much deeper than the sheer cost of labor.
One of the factors driving the offshoring of manufacturing is more lenient laws concerning workplace requirements, health safety and environment. Its the entire manufacturing friendliness of the US vs other countries.

On the one hand you have some costly laws that force companies to spend large amounts of money... things like handicapped facilities (parking, building accessiblity, special considerations). I don't mean to sound insensitive and I see where it gives equality to those less fortunate, but it does drive up the cost of businesses, and other countries don't have them. We have in addition rules for keeping the air and water clean, again very lofty goals. Every country should have these types of laws but many will mortgage their future for business now, much as the US did during its early industrial years.

Unfortunately there is not a level playing field. True economic freedom means choosing the lowest cost providers no matter the country. If the bid low and pollute their country, to have to clean it up 50 years later, its an investment they are making to get business now - but they should have our experience to note.

Other factors: liability, taxes, social security, unemployment insurance, and health costs, energy costs. Note that Japan and Germany are about to price their domestic production higher due to increased electricity costs thru their decisions to give up nuclear power. A trend California might well take notice of.

Is there a solution? I don't have an answer.

[woodturner]

Focus is on "technology" and "high-end" people like scientist, electronic, avionic, robotic, and similarly high-education jobs. Unrealized is the working class folks, the highly skilled manual workers and craftmen-like jobs of machining, assembly, etc.

Yes, those are the businesses where the US holds and edge and can profitably manufacture.

It seems there are couple of issues:

Geographic location - many of those workers are in places like DeWitt Nebraska and aren't willing to relocate to areas where there are jobs. That's one reason the unemployment rate is so low in cities and high in rural areas. In a nearby city, there are 700,000 skilled manufacturing jobs they cannot fill - there are not enough workers. As a result, those companies may be forced to outsource, they really have no other options. Even when they offer 200K salaries, they don't get enough workers, and only certain industries can afford to offer those salaries, notably the oil industry.

Skilled workers with obsolete skills - some of those skilled machinists, etc. have not kept up with technology. Even though there are free programs and guaranteed jobs, some don't want to learn to use modern equipment such as CNC machines and computers.

Those who are essentially unemployable - our current business world and manufacturing world requires a minimal level of ability and motivation. Some people don't have those abilities or can't or don't want to develop the skills needed. What do we do with these people? That's the part I can't figure out - how to help people who don't want to or can't "fit in" with society.

Regardless, it's a difficult issue all around.

[woodturner]

Is there a solution? I don't have an answer.

There are no easy answers to these questions.

Another issue is the difference between Eastern and Western thought and community. In the West we value individuals above the community, so we seek to protect each and every worker with very strict and expensive safety and environmental laws. Eastern culture considers the community more than the individual, and is more willing to the advance the community at the expense of the individual.

I'm not sure Eastern countries will ever impose the individual protections we value in the West. If that remains the case, they will remain the more economical choice for polluting industries and those that use dangerous materials, such as the semiconductor production industry.

[cabinetman]

An interesting statement:
http://www.weathertech.com/assets/1/...o_you_1212.pdf

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[capncarl]

Allow me to play the devils advocate for a minute.
Why wouldn't a company want to move its production to another country?
Latest labor stats show that there are more working female family bread winners than males. That ought to tell you something. If what I am seeing is an accurate indicator, I would send my work overseas also. The hundreds of young people that I see every year are only interested in playing with their ipod "toilet toys", and the only thing that they know anything about is sports. They are experts at that. Ask them who the previous president was and they say duuh, but ask the them who has them most yards rushing and they would get into all kinds of stats. This is pittiful. They know nothing. They have no skill to build on. I am suprised that the Marine Corps can even teach them to shoot. Heaven forbid that they have to fix something on their own. What's wrong? Sports have become the major focus, simple as that.
capncarl

[woodturner]

The hundreds of young people that I see every year are only interested in playing with their ipod "toilet toys", and the only thing that they know anything about is sports. ....

The problem with stereotypes and grouping people into large groups is that it distorts reality. There are certainly some young people such as you describe, but I can tell you my students are generally nothing like that. Granted, this is an engineering program so we tend to get the brighter students, but I still feel it is inaccurate to assume every young person is like the least capable of the group.

[cabinetman]

Allow me to play the devils advocate for a minute.
Why wouldn't a company want to move its production to another country?
Latest labor stats show that there are more working female family bread winners than males. That ought to tell you something. If what I am seeing is an accurate indicator, I would send my work overseas also. The hundreds of young people that I see every year are only interested in playing with their ipod "toilet toys", and the only thing that they know anything about is sports. They are experts at that. Ask them who the previous president was and they say duuh, but ask the them who has them most yards rushing and they would get into all kinds of stats. This is pittiful. They know nothing. They have no skill to build on. I am suprised that the Marine Corps can even teach them to shoot. Heaven forbid that they have to fix something on their own. What's wrong? Sports have become the major focus, simple as that.
capncarl

I agree, and it may not even be sports. I would think that engineering students would be an isolated group compared to students as a whole. The tech age has certainly deferred interests in the workings of the real world. The reasons to outsource IMO is the bottom dollar. Workers in those industries were not likely engineering students, but more representative of a general labor force that subsist from an hourly wage.

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[capncarl]

I offered my reason that there are more working female family bread winners than males. Lets hear yours. Dance all around the problem, use big words, my kids did this or my kids did that, or what ever and I'll still say that we as parents have turned the young male general popluation into a generation of noting but sports casters. Yes, it is about the bottom line. You hire them to run your factorys. That is the reason industry is moving.
capncarl

[LCHIEN]

There are no easy answers to these questions.

... If that remains the case, they will remain the more economical choice for polluting industries and those that use dangerous materials, such as the semiconductor production industry.

I'm not going to disagree with your assessment. pollution is a transference of costs to a later generation, e.g. by postponing an inevitable cleanup or causing future health problems.

I do think the example of semiconductor production needs some qualification.
Semiconductor production does use some dangerous chemicals, but is rather small quantities. Also semiconductor production plants tend to be very expensive, hundred of millions of dollars, so adequate pollution control is not an relatively large expense. Most semiconductor manufacturing is in what I call advanced countries - Japan, Taiwan, the US and parts of Europe, not the third world. This is because of the skilled labor and high technology required to produce the wafers that are broken into individual dies.

However semiconductor packaging, is often done in the third world because labor costs are cheaper. The tiny, unpackaged semiconductor dice are small and valuable. They are shipped to Malaysia, Phillipines, Mexico etc. where lower priced less skilled labor places them in leaded or other plastic or ceramic packages that can be placed on circuit boards.

[durango dude]

I spent a little less than a decade in the industrial town of Beloit (WI).

If you've ever heard of Wisconsin Knife Works or Regal cutting tools, that's them.

I understand the story.

I was one of the people that was simply so overwhelmed by the story - that I left.

[cwsmith]

I don't see it entirely the same way as Capncarl, though I do think he has a point with the massive emphasis on sports that we see.

But, I've spent practically my entire life in industry; first in small sub-contract companies that employed everything from a dozen to maybe a couple of hundred. Out of highschool, I was only in a non-skilled job a few months before I got a job in a factory. Though the opening was for a non-skilled "assembler", I landed a job as a electro-mechanical inspector, because I could read blue prints, micrometers, and knew what a VOM was used for. Those were simple "high school" skills, but it got me another twenty-fives cents an hour over the assembly job.

After that, every job I had was because I had some experience or skill that made it worth the employer to hire me. One doesn't get a job, unless it is to the employer's advantage to hire you rather than someone else.

But while such things were important right up until the late 80's, things have changed dramatically. Employer's, at least the big one's that I've experienced aren't so inclined. It seems that following is far more important than thinking, and especially for innovating. It's blind rules and procedures, and just "get the job done the way I tell you to do it".

I remember in my early year, whenever I used to visit IBM, in almost every office, and on every factory floor there would be a sign, "THINK". It appeared to be the guide for every employee, and the company seemed to be open to hearing the thoughts of those who worked there.

At one time I think that is how many of America's industries were; but not so much anymore, and in many of today's industries they don't want you to think at all. Unless you're being paid to do so, it isn't your job to think or be innovative. In many jobs, nobody wants anything from you except to do the **** job the way they told you to do it and in the time they alloted for you to do it. In other words, let's not screw up the system!

My last ten years in the industry was almost unbearable, as I watched them spent $Millions on designing a "Configerator". What's a "Configurator" you ask? It's a whopping big computer program that holds all the possible criteria that's necessary for an engineer, to configure a machine to fit a specific service application. Processing a machine order was a very conscience and time-consuming project that required specific engineering skills and a good bit of experience in a variety of process applications. It required a good number of highly skilled and experienced engineers to get it right and the company paid them well. It was great place to find yourself as a young graduate engineer and working and learning from guys who had decades of experience was very rewarding.

But some genius decided that it would be far more profitable to just take everything that these old engineers knew and build a computer program to catagorize all the possibilites. Then they could just hire guy with a little technical skill and just have him input all the questions... and the computer would spit out the answers! Job done, and with far less hours required. Of course there was No chance to learn, to innovate, to reason out... just do the input and get the output... job done!

Of course there would be no questioning the output and there would be no tweaking of the data allowed. We don't want it better, we just want it Tuesday!

The job gets done, and with minimal experience or skill. And most importantly, with minimal expense by the company!

I had the good, but also bad experience of being a TQM instructor for three years. I liked doing that, even though it was many extra hours outside of my regular job assignment. I elected to teach second shift people, as it seemed they were more interested and in fact less restricted by constantly visiting shop foremen.

It was frustrating though, as you could see that almost every class was filled with men and women who really knew their jobs, were highly skilled machinists and assembler's and who often had even father's and grandfather's who had worked at the plant.

But the company wasn't interested in suggestions. It just wanted to be able to say in "qualified" for the ISO 2000 process. Never mind havng the guys facing the problems actually participating in their resolution. Never mind having some power-hungry manager's decisions brought into question or have his production schedule rearranged for better productivity.

With my employer it was never about "better", it was labels, and having the "ISO" certification was much more important than having a happy and efficient manufacturing process in which the workforce might have some empowerment. So, when Democracy in the workplace failed, it was was better to dictate to those in China and India. You didn't have to pay them much, provide them benefits, or listen to their ideas. Actually, you didn't have to pretend to listen either!

And that is what happens in too many businesses in America. We have very little value for human labor, and even less for the ideas coming from the factory floor. Labor is only there to enhance profits and to squeeze more profits from, if they can find a way... and they usually do!

Fortunately, all companies are not that way... but I see little to tell me that there is a reversal of the trend.

CWS