[TheForge] Conventional wisdom- Wrong again?

Tue Sep 3 00:04:00 2002

Well stated! Thanks.

RIES NIEMI wrote:

> All this talk about cincinnati milacron going out of the machine tool
> business has got me to thinking about America's shrinking industrial base.
> The standard received wisdom is that all of american industry is leaving,
> going to asia beacuse:
> A- some sort of bad gubbimnt poicy
> B- Corporate greed going for short term profits
> C- You cant compete with countries where people will work for a dollar a
> day.
> Now personally, I think there is some truth to all three of these arguments,
> but theres more to this picture than that.
> Recently I bought a milling machine. (just to make tooling for the power
> hammer, I swear) I looked at Bridgeports, at about 15 grand, and ended up
> buying a taiwanese machine for about 5 grand. Now I have used both in the
> past, and for what I am doing, there is no functional difference to justify
> triple the price. The bridgeport style milling machine has become a
> commodity, and the americans cant compete on labor costs, so the asians take
> over the market. But what if I wanted a slightly larger CNC machine? the
> asians would clean our clock again, right? well, no- I could have spent 5
> grand more than the bridgeport, and gotten a Haas, made in Ventura
> California. Now this doesnt  make any sense at all. Here is a guy who
> started his company, in America, about 20 years ago, right when all of the
> american machine tool companies were going out of business. He produces a
> line of high quality, cost competitive machine tools right in the socialist
> republic of california, with its high costs of living, high taxes, high
> labor rates, and business unfriendly environment. Whats going on here?
> As I looked around my shop, I saw machines made in germany, turkey, china,
> japan, italy, spain, and, surprisingly, quite a few made in the US. And all
> of these american made products are on top of their market, even though
> theoretically the chinese could make them all cheaper. But if you have ever
> used chinese copies of enerpac hydraulics, or miller welders, or johnstown
> compressors, or ellis bandsaws, or good old hossfeld benders, you would know
> that they arent any good, no matter how cheap. And why is it that Honda and
> Makita tools both make almost all of their US sold product here in america?
> Actually a lot of american companies are very competitive, but only the ones
> that dont sit back on their asses and expect things to continue the way they
> always have. There is all kinds of new manufacturing taking place all up and
> down the west coast, mostly in small, smart shops. Hell, if there was a war,
> I am sure my shop could tool up to make 80 mm mortar tubes in about a month.
> What has happened is a change from the old rust belt economy of 2000 man
> shops, to a new paradigm of small cnc shops all over america. In my area of
> rural washington state, there are, within a few miles, cnc machine shops,
> waterjet cutters, a guy with the largest 3d cnc router on the west coast,
> electronics manufacturers, cnc sheet metal shops, a company that makes
> aluminum livestock management corrals, another one that makes NBA basketball
> hoops, aluminum boat shops galore, and tons more. No smokestacks, no big
> factories visible from the highway. Small distributed industry, but
> industrial capacity nonetheless. A lot of these companies sell stuff to the
> asians. My powdercoater does the aluminum benches for ferries in hong kong.
> America still does have what it takes, it just isnt quite so obvious as it
> used to be.
> Ries
>
> _______________________________________________
> http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/theforge
> theforge mail list group photo site is
> http://www.photoaccess.com
> Login:  [email protected]
> password:  anvil
> ___________