On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 09:20:24 -0800, Jim Stewart
wrote:

ben carter wrote:
I recently was shopping around to have a product of mine manufactured.
Reality check:

To have it made in China with semi-skilled labor was $1.60 per hour.

The exact same job here was $21.00 per hour. You do the 2nd grade math...

The point was made to me if I like being able to afford the things I own
then they have to be made elsewhere. Period. No US manufacturer can
touch that. Most everything you own was made this way. Tough luck if
it's substandard.

First of all, I suspect this is a troll. *Everyone*
knows that virtually all of our small consumer goods
have been made in 3rd world countries for at least the
last 20 years. Now most of the large durable goods
and a fair amount of the parts that go into our cars
are being made there. It's a done deal and there
is no use whining about it.

Try building a VCR for $50. Try building a VCR for
$1000. The only company in the US that even tried
was Cartravision, but that's another story.

So there should be no surprise that your part would
cost 1/10 to make in China. What you left out is that
if you make it in China, you'll have a ton of issues to
deal with such as tooling, quality, shipping, customs
documents, design theft, minmum quantities, letters of
credit, etc, etc. So if you're doing 100 pieces, that
$21.00/hr starts to look pretty cheap. And if you're doing
100k pieces, you wouldn't be posting on this newsgroup.

If you're going to build something to sell, don't waste
your time on a mass market. It's not worth it. Build
something that will save a few people time and money.
Or build something so well that people will happily pay
a premium for it.

There's still plenty of opportunity for manufacturing
things in the US. But it's all in specialty work, not
commodity.
What Jim says is right on the money. Labor costs are so cheap in other
parts of the world that large production runs made in the USA are
rare. As to precision, these people in third world countries are just
as talented and smart as anyone in the USA. If they are making cruddy
parts most the time it's because that's what was ordered. Hard drives
and microchips (for example) are produced in China and these items are
very precise and require all sorts of precision in the process. My
shop does small runs of stuff that can't be made cheap enough and fast
enough if not produced locally. I also make scuba stuff that is
non-life supporting that sells all over the USA and Canada. But the
quantities are too small and the quality too high for someone to copy
and sell. So far. I will keep trying to come up with more products to
sell to niche markets that are too small for foriegn competition. My
biggest worry about industries moving away from the USA is military.
Too much of our military is supplied by single source overseas
companies. This puts us at risk if these companies are prevented, or
decide, to stop supplying us. A case in point: I just bought a used
USA Army surplus backpack. It is known as an "Alice" pack. It has
definitely seen plenty of use. But it's well made and still in pretty
good condition. And some of the parts have tags with the part number
and "MADE IN INDIA" printed on them. I think this is a bad idea. What
else do we have made in countries that may decide to be hostile to us?
China supplies lots of computers to the USA. Do any of these wind up
at your local Army base?
ERS