<sigh> another customer goes to china

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2003-11-06 02:14pm

yet another one of our customers announced plans to move all production facilities to China and transfer to Chinese vendors. thats two in a month and 4 in the past year. Everyone else wants stuff cheaper and those goddamn "living wage" people won't shut up. Manufacturing sucks.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2003-11-06 02:17pm

What do you do?

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-11-06 02:18pm

It's funny. We have all these immigrants from Asia and Eastern Europe flocking to the Western nations for work and a better living, yet here we are, sending all the jobs to the places they flee.

Economics will always rule over national pride though, it's simply cheaper over there and the manufacturing industries of most Western nations are shrinking as work goes abroad. The UK's biggest industry for instance is logistics or services now.

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2003-11-06 02:29pm

Chardok wrote:What do you do?

I'm in Plastics... Injection molding. we make components for electronics and cars mostly. we do some novelty and marketing items and recently we have gotten into hardware/displays for retail stores. Up until recently we molded components for a few upscale pen makers......

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-11-06 02:30pm

Col. Crackpot wrote:
Chardok wrote:What do you do?
I'm in Plastics... Injection molding. we make components for electronics and cars mostly. we do some novelty and marketing items and recently we have gotten into hardware/displays for retail stores. Up until recently we molded components for a few upscale pen makers......

Ah, reminds me of my old technology class, we used injection moulders and vacuum formers and so on. Naturally, you use something a little bit better I imagine.

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2003-11-06 02:35pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:
Col. Crackpot wrote:
Chardok wrote:What do you do?
I'm in Plastics... Injection molding. we make components for electronics and cars mostly. we do some novelty and marketing items and recently we have gotten into hardware/displays for retail stores. Up until recently we molded components for a few upscale pen makers......
Ah, reminds me of my old technology class, we used injection moulders and vacuum formers and so on. Naturally, you use something a little bit better I imagine.

quite a bit. heres a shot of two presses from our shop.

we've got 16 now. we usually keep a good 10-12 running at a time. which isn't too bad.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2003-11-06 02:48pm

I used to be a machinist, I know how tough manufacturing is, I sincerely hope things pick up for you guys... always sucks to lose customers to overseas producers.. We didn't have TOO much of that, as we made parts for the Big 3 mostly. dodge pulled out after a bit, but we snagged Lear (Made seatframes for their jets) so it made up for it. we were constantly worried....

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2003-11-06 02:50pm

Col. Crackpot wrote: <snippity pics>
we've got 16 now. we usually keep a good 10-12 running at a time. which isn't too bad.

HEY! Those look like our olf Mazak FF-510's! Man, those were good machines....accurate and reliable! (Except when you get a chip up in the spindle....fucking chips...

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2003-11-06 02:57pm

Chardok wrote:
Col. Crackpot wrote: <snippity pics>
we've got 16 now. we usually keep a good 10-12 running at a time. which isn't too bad.
HEY! Those look like our olf Mazak FF-510's! Man, those were good machines....accurate and reliable! (Except when you get a chip up in the spindle....fucking chips...

Mazak FF-510's?? CNC Milling center? I've seen new CNC milling setups in action. impressive. Our tool shop is fairly simple, a few high speed lathes, some milling machines (Bridgeports) with DRO's, surface grinders etc. But we do have 3 EDM's, one of which is a brand new Sharp with an orbiter and a 3DR.... nice machine.

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2003-11-06 10:40pm

Tech in California is suffering the same fleeing of jobs. Housing is too expensive, traffic sucks, and there is a lot of regulation. So jobs that dont require high levels of education and such are leaving. They have been for 20 years, but the dot com boom and its huge impact on real estate have accelerated the rate of job loss in manufacturing and some white collar tech.
Sucks to hear your comanpy is losing customers.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-11-06 11:21pm

Col. Crackpot wrote:Mazak FF-510's?? CNC Milling center? I've seen new CNC milling setups in action. impressive. Our tool shop is fairly simple, a few high speed lathes, some milling machines (Bridgeports) with DRO's, surface grinders etc. But we do have 3 EDM's, one of which is a brand new Sharp with an orbiter and a 3DR.... nice machine.

My favourites are the CNC milling machines which are so big you can walk around inside them. In terms of plastics-related equipment, the only hardware I like more is the big multi-station 1500-ton injection moulding press machines. You've got to love a machine which exerts so much force that large-bore steel shafting noticeably stretches during use.

Trytostaydead · Post by **Trytostaydead** » 2003-11-06 11:51pm

TrailerParkJawa wrote:Tech in California is suffering the same fleeing of jobs. Housing is too expensive, traffic sucks, and there is a lot of regulation. So jobs that dont require high levels of education and such are leaving. They have been for 20 years, but the dot com boom and its huge impact on real estate have accelerated the rate of job loss in manufacturing and some white collar tech.
Sucks to hear your comanpy is losing customers.

Dude, I totally hear you. Everything is regulated up the wazoo. Lawsuits are flying everywhere because people can sue for anything. Insurance rates are ATROCIOUS. Disasters are frequent. Too many people competing for fewer and fewer spots. Soon now we're going to even have a damn water crisis.

Damn, hopefully Schwarzaneggar(sp) or at least his staff will help put us on the right track again. If not, then democracy sucks and we need to go facist. =)

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2003-11-06 11:57pm

Trytostaydead wrote: Dude, I totally hear you. Everything is regulated up the wazoo. Lawsuits are flying everywhere because people can sue for anything. Insurance rates are ATROCIOUS. Disasters are frequent. Too many people competing for fewer and fewer spots. Soon now we're going to even have a damn water crisis.

Damn, hopefully Schwarzaneggar(sp) or at least his staff will help put us on the right track again. If not, then democracy sucks and we need to go facist. =)

I doubt he can do too much, try getting anyone to actually agree that California is too crowded. You will be branded a racist or a tree hugger. At least in a lot of a papers people are openly discussing the reality that the wildfires are a part of life and we need to rethink where the houses go and how they are built. Not to mention forest management. We will see, our economy has tradtionally been Boom then Bust, been that way since 1849.