And the consolidations go on..... Another American manufacturer struggles to stay afloat....
Dana Corp has agreed to sell it's hard parts business to Mahle GMB for $157 million. Subject to approval from the US Bankruptcy court which has jurisdiction over Dana's chapter 11 proceedings. Includes a distribution agreement to Victor-Reinz.
39 manufacturing facilities that include piston rings, engine bearings, cylinder liners, camshafts. Product names include Perfect Circle, Clevite, Glacier Vandervell.
What I would like your opinions on, based on my business background and as a teacher of today's youth, is what do we replace our manufacturing base with? If our manufacturing and iniatives and production has been the model for the world; Why are we losing so much ground? I do not wish to start any agruments, but, TRULY, would welcome all of your opinions. I have my own which I won't state ar this time. I purely wish to know what my contemporaries are thinking. Think of it as realresearch. If you wish you can email privately. Your opinions will help me orhanize my high school and college presentations. Thank you all before hand. snipped-for-privacy@aol.com.
Unfortunately, manufacturing jobs are being replaced by service industry jobs (lower paying, no benefits or few benefits, no loyalty up or down). We are at 80 percent service jobs now. Other industrialized countries including Japan and Germany aren't too far behind. My source for this information is the text that I am using this semester in the undergraduate program where I teach night classes (Essentials of Organizational Behavior,
8th edition by Stephen P. Robbins. Tell your students that their best (if not only) hope is to stay in math and science. Paul Johnson
The four things necessary for wealth generation are labor, energy, capital and raw materials intelligently combined to create something worth more than the sum of its parts. All of a nations wealth generation comes from either a worker standing on a rubber mat making something that can be sold for more that the sum of its parts or from an agribusiness employee harvesting a crop. Everything else, government spending, and health care is just consumption that adds little to a nations wealth. We have labor, energy, capital and raw materials. I wonder about the intelligence. Bill
I would say it is the result of our massive deficits which have weakened the dollar in relation to the Euro. America is being bought up by foreign companies.
We have sanctioned an anti-jobs agenda for years through guv'ment policies that include excess red tape for employers, a broken public education system and false incentives for foreign competitors to replace our manufacturing base.
Technology is the biggest factor reducing manufacturing employment. A factory that turns out 250,000 cars per year at maximum capacity employs
3-4000 people today, vs. 24,000 at Studebaker in 1950, for example.
Growing up in the '60's, we watched the Jetsons and dreamed about three day workweeks and more leisure time because of the increase in technology.
Reality turned out much different.
In the 50's & 60's, there were countries who tried desperately to prove our economic system was flawed. They have either dissolved and disappeared (USSR), or try desperately to emulate us within the confines of their culture (China).
Former enemies Germany and Japan, when examined realistically, have become economic mirror images of us.
And as far as being the economic engine of the world, we still do pretty well despite all the gloom and doom (.pdf - must have Adobe):
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No other country develops more new technology. That's why the days of getting a lifetime job with only a high school diploma are behind us. And that's what we do now more than just smelting, stamping, painting, etc.
But not everyone can be and engineer or mathematician, and if they all could there would never be enough jobs for all those engineers. And China and India are turning out mathematicians and engineers in huge numbers. We are only doing well now because of the lead we had in the past. That lead, just like our lead in manufacturing is rapidly disappearing. The only place we really will be ahead for some time is innovation which comes from our free and open system. Rigid rote systems like in China or Japan do not create as many free thinkers. As the middle class of workers disappear our economy will go down with them.
and 'blue' collar in the treatment given in US plants. The prime example is the corporate lunchrooms. In Japan, there is only ONE lunchroom, for EVERYBODY who works for the entire company. No matter what your postion is, from the President to a shop floor sweeper, they all eat and talk in the same air conditioned lunchroom. If the truck driver comes in a little late from a delivery with his lunch, and the there's empty chair is next to the President, he will unashamedly sit next to him. If the Vice President comes in a minute or two after the truck driver, the truck driver is not expected to give up his seat for him, either. The VP will have to find an empty chair regardless who he ends up sitting next to. The US companies fail to realize what the consumer sees first is what is what was produced by the blue-collar staff on the plant floor.
I've been to the HQ of the division I worked for of the company I left a couple years ago a few times... they actually had a lunchroom like that in New Jersey. I don't know if it was so egalitarian that the VP would actually sit at the same table as the manufacturing people, but I have seen them both in the same room at the same time. Although IMHO they did a lot of things wrong, they also did some things right.
As an employee of a distributor whose major product line is provided by a Japanese firm, I must strongly and absolutely disagree with your statement, Craig.
I'm sure there are differences between Japanese companies. But the major problem we have with our supplier is getting upper management to acknowledge problems, and the rigid, bureaucratic reporting structure designed to protect and isolate those at the top.
Other Japanese companies (Like Toyota), have adopted more Western type management styles. Toyota even goes as far as having Americans in charge of their American business units (Jim Press is an American, and President of Toyota, NA.).
If I have to address a product support issue, I'd rather address it with one of our American product lines. If a Japanese company is behaving in an open manner, it is only because it is trying to behave in a Western manner. Asian culture and behavior is much more rigid, protective and structured than ours.
I have worked in the semi-conductor bussiness for over 44 years,
Changes I've seen.
Companies no longer try to have more than 1 supplier to insure no problems if there is a distribution problem. They all use 1 supplier if possible to get the cheapest parts at a given date.
Tax law changes make products in invertory face additionallyaxes if held for too long. Book stores are particullarly hard hit by this. This is also why few products are in stock and have to be ordered. No one wants to keep them in inventory for excessive time.
American CEO pay ratio to the blue colar worked is much higher in the US than in Japan.
All companies move manufacturing jobs to 3rd world contries as the labor is cheaper but more so due to the tax burden on them.
The result is all major countries lose Manufacturing jobs and have to rely on the so called Tech Companies. Even they have to stay ahead of the curve as soon as you can prove ti works, all any one has to do is buy the equipment and build it overseas.
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