that bites...
I work in product Engineering for a manufacturing company. In the last couple of years our shop has been dwindling due to outsourcing parts overseas. Our president did articles in the local paper, fortune, was on CNN etc...
It really is sad. One of our machines that we make was copied by the chinese. IT is an exact clone with interchangeable parts that now sells on the market for about 1/2 of what it costs us to EVEN
MAKE let alone sell and make a profit.
To combat costs, our manufacturing group has been outsourcing
certain parts that coincidentally are coming from, you guessed it,
china.
Example: a shaft that we machine in house (several 1000/year)
was coming out at a cost of ~$60 after labor/overhead were factored in. This same part coming in from overseas, 100% inspected and guaranteed is $1.
Cant compete with the disguting low labor rates abroad. Many
companies are "working the system" in order to put a made in USA label. Only a certain percentage of the work is required to be done in order to declare this. I have a friend who works in a plant that manufactures womens undergarments. They buy the materials ship them overseas where they are cut and sewn, flown back to his plant where they put a made in USA tag on them.
pretty depressing...Jay is right, I dont see the trend stopping anytime soon...
