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You seem to get it, but I'm not sure of the point you are trying to make. Yes, the foundry is actually the smallest part of that equation and yes, much of it is automated but I'm quite sure there is a huge team of skilled trades there on site to keep it running.
You mentioned pattern makers, then the molds. etc. Well you need a team of designers and engineers to get to that point. Then after you get the castings it has to go to the machine shop. More skilled people employed there. You can't have one without the other.
One of my early jobs was designing castings. It paid very well, I was 19 making 15 an hour as an apprentice working 56 hours a week. (this was in '88). Worked at a 50 year old company that ended up closing it's doors as offshoring and globalization became popular.
It wasn't a huge team to begin with. And with computers today, it's unlikely to be a huge team in the future. The problem, as I see it, is who is your market? High-paying manufacturing jobs mean high-cost/high-priced goods. Who is going to pay those high prices? Is the plan to drive up costs on imports so much that you create a domestic market for these high-priced goods? So Americans are going to be paying more for the same goods the rest of the world pays less for? That's the same strategy that's driven the healthcare market. Americans paying more, getting less.
Manufacturing supports a huge host of trades as well as other services industries that support the manufacturing trades.
The sub contractors and vendors, equipment companies, construction and maintenance crews, warehouse personnel, sales and distribution ....heck even the restaurants they all eat at at lunch every day.
Manufacturing is a huge chunk of the economy.....there is no way we can provide jobs to everyone by relying on a service based economy.
My suggestion to you and others is to read the book called Detroit.
There are MANY Tool, Dies and Mold experts, shops and industries. The book was written by a reporter who moved back there and his brother is one! His brother lost job after job as the plants shuttered. Finally, with a family and house, he took the only job he could find - in a Tool and Die shop doing the same thing he was doing before, but for 1/3 the price and no benefits.
$12.50 an hour. The book is written very recently.
Point it, greed is often the driver. To quote a lot of the people on CD, why should an employer pay one cent more or any benefits when they can get someone to do the job for less?
Maybe we should look in the Mirror more and less at "our government" as to who is responsible for many things?
So, yeah, you can go right now to Detroit and get a job as a tool and die maker - but if you make $20 an hour in wages and benefits I would be VERY surprised, and full benefits is a dream.
Greed. Wall Street Greed as well as the greed of individual entrepreneurs everywhere from the corner store to the local machine shop up to General Electric.
You cannot solve problems without admitting the true root and cause. Unbridled and unregulated Capitalism (which is really globalism) and personal lack of morals and ethics among employers, companies and others caused a lot of this. It all started somewhere - not like we woke up one day and, all of a sudden, machinists were paid $15 instead of $35.
I will check that book out.
I agree, why would a company pay $30 an hour when they can offshore it and pay close to single digits. And yes it is crony capitalism /globalism. When companies started focusing on the next quarter instead of the product it was producing is when things started falling. Along with our government allowed unfair trade by letting in goods that were often subsidized by the country of origin. While letting our companies here take advantage of low cost countries with no penalties. Both are at fault, both are to be blamed. It was almost so well coordinated one would think it was planned.
Companies have already found cheap labor overseas. Bringing back high paying manufacturing jobs in the US will only cause the cost of goods to increase. And let's face it, labor is being quickly replaced by machines.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by scarabchuck
I think the problem with many is they don't understand what manufacturing really is. They think it is just some guy on a line running a screw into something over and over and over. Assembly is the smallest part of the whole manufacturing umbrella. People seem to forget the Engineers, Designers, Electricians, Welders, Fabricators, Machinists, IT depts. , Software developers, Sales people, etc.... just too many to list, that make up what is Manufacturing.
Although quite dated, I think those who don't understand the concept would learn a lot from a good film about Ford's old River Rouge plant, where basically freighters carrying iron ore docked at one end and finished vehicles rolled out the other. If I could go back in time it's one operation I'd love to see running at its peak.
I think you are confusing "manufacturing" with "manufacturing jobs".
It always helps to take it down to an example. The USA needs...and has...many Foundries. These are used for casting metal for everything from cars to marine engines - countless uses.
Casting technology, in general, was somewhat the same for a couple hundred years. You needed a lot of people to work in the place - making patterns, then making the sand molds, pouring the iron, grinding and machining the pieces and doing QC.
Today, even the smallest (family) Foundries are quite automated..and the big ones are amazingly so. Processes that you could not imagine ANY other way to accomplish than humans - are now done by machine. The output from these places would blow your mind, as would the low employee count.
So consider how that figures into your question about jobs. This same dynamic drives most ALL manufacturing - even Foxcon instends to make it so the 1-2 million Chinese who work on iphones and pads lose their jobs (most of them) with complete robotic assembly.
The key to planning - which the USA does poorly and will likely be the big reason for our decline - is to look a few steps ahead.
So my answer is that manufacturing is important - but manufacturing JOBS are not. Or at least, the numerical count of manufacturing jobs are not. The fewer the better given the same or higher output.
This seems so simple to grasp - do we want a backhoe to dig our septic system or 10 guys with shovels and wheelbarrows?
Ditto the steel mills. Electric steel has reduced the demand for labor by 80%. The days of the open hearth mills with coke furnaces are gone because of tecnological advances, and automation and robotics will eliminate even more. The jobs remaining will be the people who program the mills and work on the robots and software. Trump could have helped U.S. manufacturing with laws requiring domestic steel on all government projects.
Trying to bring back ancient methods is an absurdity, and whatever actual physical production is still required will be done by the low bidder, whether domestically or abroad. Technology and all other factors being equal, whatever is needed will be produced more economically in countries where the currency exchange rate is favorable to US dollars.
The only three factors that play a role in keeping manufacturing jobs in the United States are time required for production, assurance of quality control of finished parts, and cost of shipping from the point of manufacture.
So which manufacturing jobs that went overseas are they planning to bring back, automobiles, steel and what else. Certainly not clothing and the larger question is how do they attract them back to the US, tax breaks, raise tariffs on their imports.
Yes manufacturing spurs many other jobs as was the case when automobile manufacturers started to go under back in 2007, so how do you attract companies. These companies left for a very good reason, profits.
It's just a matter of time before the Chinese factory is automated as well.
Have you seen some of the manufacturing plants in China ? They are beautiful, pure state of the art with automation. If anything globally I think most countries are on par with the level of automation.
Just like this country though, they still have some scary places that I wouldn't step foot into.
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