As a customer what is acceptable to you?

[Jon Obe]

bdog,
You as a business are extremely fortunate if you can still get your product in a timely manner. My appliance business on the other hand is not so fortunate. We can look on the estimated time of delivery from the manufacturer and give a customer a lead time for their order but it changes weekly sometimes daily, so what we told them is now a lie and it is completely out of my control. We couldn’t buy a freezer for over 8 months and still can’t get most refrigerators and gas dryers! Is that my fault as a retailer? I think not. Get real!! The manufacturing world is a mess right now it will be for the foreseeable future.
Jon

 

[Root Cause]

in the sixties, if you saw something made in Japan, you would put it back thinking it must be junk.
In the 90's we scoffed at tech and machined parts. We couldn't even weld Chinese metal.
Now we have lost the skill sets to even produce most this stuff so even if you could do it, you would have to train people and it would ake time to meet the same quality we have now.
If you disagree, then why are thousands of cars and trucks sitting in parking lots waiting for 1 computer chip over the last year. I have no doubt that all the auto companies and their suppliers would have jumped on this opportunity if they could.

 

[rademamj1]

in the sixties, if you saw something made in Japan, you would put it back thinking it must be junk.
In the 90's we scoffed at tech and machined parts. We couldn't even weld Chinese metal.
Now we have lost the skill sets to even produce most this stuff so even if you could do it, you would have to train people and it would ake time to meet the same quality we have now.
If you disagree, then why are thousands of cars and trucks sitting in parking lots waiting for 1 computer chip over the last year. I have no doubt that all the auto companies and their suppliers would have jumped on this opportunity if they could.

Interestingly i just read today, China rushed nine(9) new chip manufacturing plants into construction during the last 6 months. All construction projects are 24hours around the clock. Three new chip plants are completed in construction phase, and are being tooled right now. Their final goal is to increase Chinese chip production about 430% within the year. Apparently, China has also been impacted by the world chip shortage, because they imported 30% of their chips from Korea and Japan, both of which were hit hard during the pandemic. USA has not built a new chip plant in 12 years, and current plants need updating.

 

[Root Cause]

Interestingly i just read today, China rushed nine(9) new chip manufacturing plants into construction during the last 6 months. All construction projects are 24hours around the clock. Three new chip plants are completed in construction phase, and are being tooled right now. Their final goal is to increase Chinese chip production about 430% within the year. Apparently, China has also been impacted by the world chip shortage, because they imported 30% of their chips from Korea and Japan, both of which were hit hard during the pandemic. USA has not built a new chip plant in 12 years, and current plants need updating.

thanks for the post. Very interesting.

On the outside looking in, it would seem like a slam dunk to at least upgrade an existing plant.
Guessing that this would be highly automated, it would seem to be more competitive without a lot of labor costs baked in.
Sad that we can't compete even at this demanding level.

 

[CausticUrbanCoast]

Interestingly i just read today, China rushed nine(9) new chip manufacturing plants into construction during the last 6 months. All construction projects are 24hours around the clock. Three new chip plants are completed in construction phase, and are being tooled right now. Their final goal is to increase Chinese chip production about 430% within the year. Apparently, China has also been impacted by the world chip shortage, because they imported 30% of their chips from Korea and Japan, both of which were hit hard during the pandemic. USA has not built a new chip plant in 12 years, and current plants need updating.

The USA has 4 new chip fabrication factories coming online (including 2 in California), however the problem with microchips and discretes production are material shortages due to supply chain security requirements, responsible foundry suppliers, and precious metals shortages from smartphone and IOT device production.

Even plastic resin is being shorted and the US hasn't been pulling this much petroleum out of the ground in 50 years. However most of that resin stock has been chewed up by PPE production.

There is a large perception that input materials have declined in volume, however we have not produced so much raw feed stock (steel is an exception due to Australia being the worlds largest supplier) for manufacturing in the world that we are consuming to date. Unfortunately it is going to disposable stuff like product packaging rather than important or durable things. And our recovery/recycling practices are pathetic to say the least.

Those chip bags you buy: how much aluminum do you think they use? How many pallets/cases do you see in an average store when you walk in? A few micrograms here a few there...

That Apple iPhone? Apple wants you to buy a new one every year and the average American has 2-3 phones each.

That Amazon order you had? Does each item need it's own re-packaging and each item separately delivered by another driver?

Waste is our largest supply shortage and convenience creates that waste.

Think about how many vehicles are scrapped a year in the US, what do we do with them? We ship them offshore to be melted down rather than recovering the steel, metals, plastics to be reused in our own manufacturing. Even heavy equipment does not go to a foundry here.

We are so spoiled and entitled that we demand clean virgin materials. Sure, some processes require it, most do not. A floor mat is a floor mat, you can grind up old tires to make them but we grind up new rubber instead.

We are creating our own shortages by using more than we can produce.

 

[Steppenwolfe]

Most US manufacturing went overseas when the Corporate tax rate was 35% - which was one of the highest rates in the world. Tax rates are a big factor in addition to labor costs.

Now the rate is 21% which is competitive.

But - it takes time to relocate production PLUS you have to have faith the rate won’t go back up. Do you have faith the rate won’t go back up?

MoKelly

I disagree... US manufacturing went overseas when share holders became greedy, and sacrificed quality, a skilled workforce, and responsibility to America for $$$$$$$$$$.

 

[Hay Dude]

I think the environmentalists will catch on to the carbon footprint of those big ship smokestacks soon.
That type of pollution is relevant to their claims of man made global warming. Once they begin to admit the Chinese are huge manufacturing polluters and their exports requiring long distance shipping leaves an enormous carbon footprint, they will have to admit its cleaner to build here.
In today’s “executive order” and “woke corporation” environmentalist controlled USA, it has to happen, or they are just ignoring the obvious. It’s all about the environment, right?

You can’t clean up the worlds pollution by letting another manufacturer take over production that’s even dirtier than we are (China) then smokestack it across the oceans back to us and not recognize your error in judgement.

We live in a global community now, right? Isn’t that what they say?
If that’s what they say, then polluting here or polluting 8,000 miles from here is still pollution.

 

[MoKelly]

I disagree... US manufacturing went overseas when share holders became greedy, and sacrificed quality, a skilled workforce, and responsibility to America for $$$$$$$$$$.

You need to read Wealth of Nations.

MoKelly

 

[Steppenwolfe]

You need to read Wealth of Nations.

MoKelly

You need to read Robert Reich...

 

[/pine]

One reason so many manufacturers went overseas was because the labor unions forced them to...with extremely high tax rates and excessive labor costs it was either fold up or move abroad...
In a lot of cases the greedy unions and their members demanded themselves right out of their jobs...and it serves them right...!