Rob,

You name it, mainly for the motorcycle and auto industry. Everything from cnc machined aluminum parts to injection-molded plastic, rubber, aluminum castings, pressure castings, screw-machined products and actual "nuts and bolts". I'm even making a part or two for Rick Hesel now---gotta love writing off my S2K for work!

I'm now working with a couple of friends (Motorola and Intel engineers) to make a diagnostic/data acquisition onboard computer for motorcycles and trucks. I'll be designing and making everything from the outer housing to the wiring harness to the SMT (surface mount) boards overseas. HOWEVER, the design and brain-power for this ambitious product is all-American and Canadian.

Check out my one patented product at www.ReadyRamp.com. I'm very proud to have five patents active for this product, and just landed Checker / Shuck's / Kragen auto as a customer this year.

 

Damn I love entrepeneurs

fltsfshr

 

Cordy

The reason I asked is because in a previous post you said that you manufacture 95% of your products overseas but the price advantage is not large. I couldn't imagine what kind of manufactured products could be manufactured domestically at about the same cost as overseas.

Like flts, I too love the entreprenural spirit. Good luck with development of the onboard computer. I hope it does very well.

I took a look at the ReadyRamp and must admit that it is a very good idea, and a very good execution of a very good idea.

My experience in the manufacturing business parallels yours in some ways, and was completely different in someways. I spent 30 years in the menswear manufacturing business. Like you, the brainpower came from over here. All of the design work was done here as was the distribution and sales. For the first twenty five years, all of my manufacturing was done here as well. In the last five years, we had to do some of our manufacturing overseas. Not because we wanted to, but because the price differential was so great that to manufacture here would have made me unable to compete.

Finding good help here was always a problem, but no greater a problem than working with the cutting and sewing shops overseas. For me, the whole issue was cost/price.

You are one of the very few manufacturers that I've talked to where the price differential between manufacturing domestically and overseas wasn't the prime reason for manufacturing overseas.

 

Rob,

It's true. I've lost some business in the past couple of years because my import price was higher than local shops. My benefits come from having and keeping a long-term business relationship (15 years), having manufacturers whom I trust, and who trust me enough to extend six-figure credit. I also receive goods that are finished, packaged with instructions, and include bar-coded part numbers. This type of service on top of manufacturing allows me to keep my operations "lean" here. Packaging, bar coding, part numbering, and all the other "little stuff" suddenly becomes BIG when you have to do it yourself!

BTW, the best service I ever received regarding clothing was in Hong Kong last year. I went to a tailor recommended by my friend and ordered about eight shirts and a pair of slacks. The owner's wife delivered them to my hotel room less than 12 hours later--the fit was perfect, and the materials much better than what I'm used to buying (not saying much).

I too love the idea of the entrepreneurial spirit--as Americans, I think we often feel surprised when those that have the "spirit" aren't from America. I applaud all those who hang it out there for the dream. On another thread, it might be called the "Cowboy spirit"

Thank you for the kind words.

 

I'd suggest that one reason why machined parts aren't that much cheaper coming from overseas is that the labor input isn't that high. The U.S. isn't so much losing manufacturing jobs to places like China as it is losing manufacturing jobs to robots. A statistic that illustrates this is that China lost more net manufacturing jobs in 2001-2003 than the U.S. did. Labor is cheaper in China than in the U.S., but robots cost the same.

The garment industry involves a lot more hand work. As such, productions costs are much more sensitive to labor costs than are the costs of manufactured goods.

 

Warren,

You can talk about robots, labor costs, infrastructure, government intervention, shipping costs, and lump it in with everything else related to manufacturing costs. The basic conversation is--do you allow companies to react with the fluidity of the market, or does the hand of government and labor arrest the alternatives that are available?

...Back to the topic at hand--I'm going to break out an old Reaganism here, just to tweak some teats That is, a rising tide lifts all boats. Sure, some of the boats are yachts, but it brings us back to the argument that many in the poor "class" own homes and tv's and cell phones.

Anyone who feels the red mist of class envy is getting "played" by the Leftist Labor set.

Was that subtle enough?

 

Cordy,

I won't take your bait in the second paragraph. That's already been discussed to death, we won't change each other's minds, and anyway, I'm not in the mood for a fight tonight. Suffice it to say I don't agree.

I do want to ask about the first paragraph. I don't remember that this conversation was about allowing business to move with the market or the hand of government and labor "arresting the alternatives that are available".

I thought that this thread was about the widening gap between the upper class and middle class, and especially when it comes to disposable income. Granted, the conversation meandered (as conversations tend to do in Vintage) to the loss of domestic jobs and the rise in offshore manufacturing, but I don't recall anything about government intervention. Unless of course you are referring to the references to the EPA and the costs of construction.

Did I miss something?

 

Rob,

You didn't miss a thing--I was meandering along with the conversation. My "meander" relates to the cost of goods (robots, labor, shipping, whatever), and "government" is definitely a factor, for better or worse.

I did try to steer it back on course though, didn't I?

 

we have a regime change in my company 4 years ago where we were bought out by a VC group. they

 

I had an experience similar to Bass's. I worked for a company for 17years, repairing product that failed, in or out of warranty. Over the last 5 years, we received a total of about 3% in raises; we began to pay for health insurance that was previously wholely paid by the company; we lost three holidays/year; then, just before the plant was open for 20 years, they changed the vacation policy so that the employees no longer got 4 weeks vacation after 4 years.

It was obvious that the employees were going to wind up on the wrong side of the divide that's been mentioned here. I quit, finished my college degree, and started over. Not everyone had that option.

I don't know that the middle class is disappearing, but financial security for the relatively unskilled is a thing of the past. There was a time when any high school graduate could get a job, and if they did the work they could live well, help their kids go to college, and expect a decent retirement. No more.

We've already shipped our manufacturing jobs overseas. We're in the process of shipping our IT jobs overseas. Next will be accounting, financial analysis, credit scoring, etc. (What do you think an MBA makes in Bangladore?) From what I understand, a lot of medical test analysis is done overseas. There's certainly no shortage of Indian or Chinese engineers ready to take over the design phase of the process.

I left a blue-collar job for an IT job when I finished college. I fully expect that I'm going to have to prepare for another career. The world is just different than it used to be.