On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 16:59:38 -0500, "Tom Gardner"
wrote:

After following some of the links showing job loss and productivity gains,
it's quite depressing, I've come to the conclusion that one of my main goals
has been to eliminate employees' jobs. In the past year I have eliminated 3
people and outsourced semi-finished goods from other American companies at
least. But guess what? Boxes of parts don't have mood swings, PMS,
holidays, don't have to be heated or cooled, and NO SCRAP! They come in at
a set cost with out the variables. Kind of sad that I can no longer devote
the HR to barely breaking even ...on good days. But, specialized suppliers
can do so much better due to their economy of scale than I can.

You're a lot luckier than Lockheed-Martin has been with outsourcing.
We've done a lot of it, and have discovered that our suppliers have
all the same quality problems we do, and in return for lower costs, we
get reduced ability to correct any little problems that arise.

Since little problems can result in 40 ton missiles landing in your
backyard, this is something of an issue for me...

Al Moore