Manufacturing is BOOMING in USA

Iggy, I'm amazed by your statement. When was the last time any product in the stores said "Made in the USA"? There is virtually no serious manufacturing left in the States. You don't need statistics to witness this and in point of fact, without seeing US products on the shelves, you have absolutely no justification for believing them. The same thing is happening in Europe and Japan. We have already exported almost all of our manufacturing to the third world to remain competitive in the world market. Don't believe the shit you read....look on the shelves. Steve

Steve Lusardi wrote: (top posting fixed)

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For an alternate set of data, consider my customer list -- with a few exceptions, I do all of my work for US manufacturing companies, and they support me very well indeed. No one hires a design consultant if they don't intend to be manufacturing what the guy designs, and relatively soon. While my business isn't booming it's certainly picking up steadily but slowly.

Or the unemployment lines . I'll believe there's progress being made when the job situation changes .

I do not want to own a manufacturing business because I will mess it up.

However, I welcome the commercial real estate collapse because I want to buy commercial (industrial) real estate to rent to manufacturing businesses.

Ultimately, the collapse of commercial real estate is good for buyers and renters of real estate, which means it is good for companies that look to expand and buy into new space.

If I could buy a collapsed company (assets only, no liabilites) I could sell off the equipment to help finance the purchase. Right now, the prices for industrial equipment that is still usable for modern shops, are increasing again. That's why I realized a few weeks earlier that we'll have a good uptick in manufacturing - someone is buying this stuff to expand on the cheap.

i

I see the same thing on the manufacturing end, Tim. Our orders keep increasing every month. New circuit board designs as well as old production. My GM made a delivery this morning of GPS boards. The customer had two pallets of finished electronic assemblies ready to ship TO China!!!

Our big problem is component availability. Many distributors list a component with stock on hand and then call and say oops, bin is empty and factory says they will deliver in 6-8 weeks. Meantime, we have to pay for all the rest of the components now and wait till the stray arrives. Then one pops up that gives us a December 15 delivery date. The Chinese way of saying they will NEVER make that transformer again.

Overall, things in manufacturing are getting much better than 2009.

Paul

This is the worst I have seen it in awhile. I was laid off in Oct. and I am about to run out of unemployment. Sales went from 4.5 million a month to 1.5 and I was one of many let go. I thought I was safe with almost 13 years into a big company. I think part of the reason is my age and being diabetic for not getting another job. Having a steel plate holding my head up doesn't help much either. Last time I was out of work it was for 9 days before I got another good paying job.

All I can do is keep trying to find another job and wait and see what happens with the economy. Only time will tell if our leader is good or bad.

Richard W.

I deeply admire folks that can keep a manufacturing operation running smoothly, and I'm deeply grateful that they're out there and enjoy doing it.

Because I've been there, I've done that, and if you asked me to do it again I'd have to run away screaming.

Awesome! How many manufacturing jobs are they moving from China to the USA?

RogerN

Let the Record show that Gunner Asch on or about Thu, 01 Apr 2010 13:20:55 -0700 did write/type or cause to appear in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

Which leads me to the question, how long would it take to rig such an enterprise onto transportation to another location, one which might be considered more business friendly?

tschus pyotr

p.s. Yes, I am remembering the bit in a post-ww3 novel, where one group of SEALS basically pulled an unused train up to their base and loaded everything onto it that wasn't nailed down, they pried up everything else. "Never know, It could be useful someday..." "We're not pack-rats. We are 'Rodents of extreme acquisition and retention'."

- pyotr filipivich We will drink no whiskey before its nine. It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!

========= While governmental/community attitude may be a part of the problem, from what I can tell from the auction listings, a much larger problem is the prevalence of obsolete/obsolescent machinery which are most likely not worth the money to move for a high volume commercial operation. Even if the equipment is in pristine condition, if it is a generation (or more) old, quite likely it is not worth moving to a new commercial location.

When a shop is filled with obsolete and/or "clapped out" equipment, the odds are very high that the front office is similarly "equipped," e.g. no CRM [customer relations management software], no production scheduling software, no P/M software, no A/R-A/P (accounts payable-accounts receivable software), no job costing/tracking software, no or minimal CNC/cad software, minimal tool crib controls, slow or no internet connections, no web page, etc.

It may be possible to cherry pick from several shops and assemble a decent commercial operation, but there is a reason that the bankrupt shops went bankrupt.

Unka George (George McDuffee) .............................. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author. The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).

One of my clients (

) recently won a contract to manufacture equipment that had been built in China. In the high-tech world, engineering skill, quality and reliability trumps a few bucks in price.

In my experience there is much more engineering work this year than last.

On Thu, 1 Apr 2010 22:36:43 +0200, the infamous "Steve Lusardi" scrawled the following:

said "Made in the USA"? There is virtually no

this and in point of fact, without seeing US

them. The same thing is happening in Europe and Japan.

remain competitive in the world market. Don't

Steve, I dare you to spend an hour in Walmart and NOT find at least a hundred "Made in the USA" stickers on items. Manufacturing is still alive and well here, but the mass production has gone entirely overseas. Other companies are having things produced elsewhere and assembled here, with our labor.

Virtually ALL of the small, custom items are still made here. Much low-volume/high-technology stuff is made here, etc.

Don't write us off entirely.

Hell, my glare guards are made here in Oregon...by me, using as many domestic products as possible.

Volume? We won't discuss that.

-- It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. -- Charles Darwin

That's good to hear. Sometimes I wonder if there's ever a WWIII, will the USA be able to stand on our own manufacturing ability, or will we need to be supplied by those we are at war with?

RogerN

Do your glare guards make a TV screen viewable outdoors? I'm wondering because one of my hobby projects is first person view R/C, mounting a camera in a R/C model and operating it by viewing the picture on a TV/Monitor. They have video goggles but they are running over $300 for the better resolution (640 X 480) ones last time I looked.

RogerN

said "Made in the USA"? There is virtually no

this and in point of fact, without seeing US

them. The same thing is happening in Europe and Japan.

remain competitive in the world market. Don't

I work in the manufacturing sector. I was pretty thrilled the other day when a stud we use that was purchased off shore was replaced by a USA made item. USA was able to make the spec and do it for a competitive price.

I purchase a lot of things from McMaster-Carr, I've noticed over time, that a huge amount of what they sell is produced in the USA. When it isn't, it is from nations like France, Germany, and Japan. I seldom recieve Chineese products from that firm.

Manufacturing isn't dead yet, we just have a lot of competition that didn't exist not so long ago. It is sorting itself out.

Wes

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

I wish you success in the job hunt. Back during 2001/02 I got a taste of going from wanted and needed to needing to be wanted. It wasn't a pleasant experience though I think I've grown from it.

Only time will tell on our leadership and then the view be subject to the distortion of one's ideology.

Wes

Only another anecdote, but my situation is similar. I design and build automation, tooling, and misc manufacturing equipment. I ran out of work for the first time in 25 years around the end of 2008. There's been enough to keep busy since, but no backlog. More recently demand has increased to the point that I've started refusing work again.

On the other hand, employment at my largest customer is still way down, and the folks that are there are working harder than ever. In other words, they're spending on capital projects, but seem to be waiting as long as possible to rehire production workers.

I believe that the US us able to make weapons, and such, but it lost the ability to make networking components. Even the US government buys China made Cisco equipment.

i

Take a look at the detailed US manufacturing data (and the trade data, which is another story) and you may be in for a shock, Steve. What you're seeing on shelves is consumer products. They're the bottom end of manufacturing. The US is doing very well in industrial and commercial products, and the overall dollar figures of output keep climbing year after year. Of course, during a recession, everything drops. But go back two years and look at the decades-long trend.

I'll pull together some links if you have any trouble finding it.