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the main reason for offshoring was labor costs being cheaper in less developed countries.
once human labor has been removed from the equation, and factories and plants can be run almost entirely by machines, do you think manufacturing will return?
That's an intriguing question. I'd suppose that it depends on supply-chains, regulation (environmental impact and use of chemicals, zoning,...), vs. the cost of importing from overseas. If a return of manufacturing, now heavily automated, could be culturally accepted as being "high tech" rather than "blue collar", then such return is viable.
Where would it be located? The shuttered factories of the Midwest? Or just outside of the tonier and costlier big-cities, where there's a ready labor-force of software people and lawyers and so forth, to manage the operation?
No, the US simply doesn't have the infrastructure or the factories to manufacture it's own goods.
Furthermore, there will never be mass automation and robotics due to peak oil and the coming capital scarcity. Our future is one of lower tech, not hi tech.
Last edited by Taggerung; 12-08-2020 at 02:05 PM..
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There are still labor costs associated with operating a big factory with robots. There is also the cost of the robots, the cost of the buildings to house them, and the utilities. As long as all of those will remain less in countries like China the manufacturing will not come back to any great extent. Another problem is that technology is eliminating some manufacturing, by allowing companies (and hobbyists) to do their own. Consider, for example, the CNC laser and the 3D Printer. My laser cost $16,0000 in 2004, now I could replace it for $3,000. The first time I saw a 3D printer for sale was $10,000 for a tiny one that was very slow. Now you can get one much faster with software for $700 on Amazon.
Yes, excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 13, 2018
Quote:
It began with an ambitious — but in hindsight fanciful — proposition: Uber’s biggest expense was its drivers. If it could replace the drivers with machines, it could eventually reduce expenses and become profitable, ending years and billions of losses.
Uber began its work on autonomous vehicles around 2015 when it announced a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Center. Uber poached 40 engineers and scientists from Carnegie Mellon later, establishing the foundation for its autonomous vehicle unit, called the Uber Advanced Technologies Group, or A.T.G. It came to have 1,200 employees.
In 2016, Uber acquired the autonomous trucking start-up Otto, led by Anthony Levandowski, a former Google engineer. When Google first tested its self-driving car on public roads a decade ago, Mr. Levandowski and Mr. Urmson, who had played a key role in Google’s original self-driving car project before cofounding Aurora, were two of the project’s key engineers. The test was a milestone that eventually led to an investment frenzy. . . .
The death of a woman in Tempe, Ariz., in March 2018 — ultimately attributed to driver error and other safety shortcomings — was a grim turning point for Uber and other self-driving car projects. Uber and other companies suspended their road tests. Even after tests resumed, new investments slowed. When Uber finally returned its cars to the road, they continued to fall short of expectations.
what was/is a more compelling reason than labor costs for offshoring manufacturing?
Cleaning up their act to comply with clean air, clean water and workplace safety laws.
Doing that right in most instances would have required building all new at ENORMOUS expense
New land purchases, new buildings, new equipment -- and all at once.
Some of these companies COULD have done so (and some did) ...
but the NEW MODERN equipment and processes would still eliminate most of the jobs.
That's the biggest problem with the 're-shore' schemes:
the 2020 labor hours per ton of output wouldn't employ a fraction of what was needed in 1970
and almost none of that fraction would be the no/low skilled sort who used to make those things.
Last edited by MrRational; 12-09-2020 at 04:13 AM..
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