Re: A Bully Mentality


"Islander" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Jerry Okamura wrote:

"Islander" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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I don't understand why we cannot excel at manufacturing. There are many
products where manufacturing is heavily automated, especially in
electronics. So, this cannot be just an unskilled, low cost labor issue.
Yet, the Japanese beat the pants off us in auto manufacturing and
basically anything that has an engine in it. Small Honda engines are now
the best in the world. They did it with automation. I visited
semiconductor plants in Japan and Korea before I retired and they were
heavily investing in automation. I thought that we were supposed to be
the world experts in software! Likewise for assembly of miniaturized
electronic devices like laptops, PDAs, cameras, cell phones and IPODs.
All automated assembly and done abroad. Why?


That is a good question. I suspect there is more than one reason why
that is. One would be the cost of labor, I would think. Even highly
automated plants need people.... If there are two manufacturing plants,
both with the same level of automation, both paying the same for the
materials needed to produce the product, then I would think it then boils
down to the cost of labor, and the cost of doing business, I would think.
There are probably other factors, but those are the two that come to
mind.

I suspect that it is because US corporations consider manufacturing to be
secondary to product design. Modern manufacturing requires skilled
employees, usually requiring a college degree and US corporations refuse
to pay comparable wages to that paid to a design engineer. As a result,
the Asian countries are investing in trained engineers for manufacturing
jobs and are eating our lunch.


Doesn't that also depend on what the "comparable" wages are for that
skilled worker in say Japan vs. the United States? Is the "comparable"
wage for an educated design engineer in Japan, the same as the
"comparable" wage for an educated design eningeer in the United States?
I think that it is more an issue that workers in manufacturing are not
valued as highly in the US as they are in other countries. In my former
life, I helped to organize a graduate program in semiconductor
manufacturing and recruited a number of highly qualified students. It was
a shock to realize that seeking a career in manufacturing damaged their
careers. The US companies were not willing to pay wages comparable to
design engineers. Too bad. Other countries (including Japan, Korea, and
Taiwan) place a higher value on manufacturing.

I am not sure I understand what you just said. Are you saying that
coutnries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan hire and pay graduate students who have
majored in semiconductor manufacturing more, then in the United States, and
that they use graduate students in this specialty more there than here in
the United States?


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: A Bully Mentality
    ... So, this cannot be just an unskilled, low cost labor issue. ... the Japanese beat the pants off us in auto manufacturing and basically anything that has an engine in it. ... I visited semiconductor plants in Japan and Korea before I retired and they were heavily investing in automation. ... usually requiring a college degree and US corporations refuse to pay comparable wages to that paid to a design engineer. ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Re: A Bully Mentality
    ... the Japanese beat the pants off us in auto manufacturing ... They did it with automation. ... One would be the cost of labor, ... refuse to pay comparable wages to that paid to a design engineer. ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Re: A Bully Mentality
    ... So, this cannot be just an unskilled, low cost labor issue. ... the Japanese beat the pants off us in auto manufacturing and ... They did it with automation. ... Doesn't that also depend on what the "comparable" wages are for that skilled ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Re: A Bully Mentality
    ... So, this cannot be just an unskilled, low cost labor issue. ... the Japanese beat the pants off us in auto manufacturing and basically anything that has an engine in it. ... I visited semiconductor plants in Japan and Korea before I retired and they were heavily investing in automation. ... usually requiring a college degree and US corporations refuse to pay comparable wages to that paid to a design engineer. ...
    (soc.retirement)
  • Re: OT: Re: Trek TCT vs OCLV?
    ... shipping manufacturing overseas is unbelievably retarded. ... The US has achieved a very high degree of automation in the one area where it really makes economic sense -- agriculture. ... Let the Chinese have the smoke stack economy, let them build their Gary's and Flint's, their Love Canals and burning Cuyahoga's, been there, done that. ... The crucial technology to industrial automation is software, but that's not the leading problem facing the world today. ...
    (rec.bicycles.tech)