I'm not trying to be impolite, but I read many of the posts (not all)
about this issue recently, but I never got "the answer". I was born
and raised in Rockford Illinois, once the "machine tool capital of the
world", so I'd be interested in the current answer to the question.
BTW almost all the big names are gone from there now. Ingersoll
Milling Machine has recently re-opened with foreign (Italian, I think)
ownership. There's still stuff going on around there, but not like it
used to be.
Who DOES make the big transfer lines now?

Pete Stanaitis

They dont have big transfer lines now- single use, dedicated machine
tools are on the way out, replaced by CNC machines that can do
anything.
I recently toured the Ducati motorcycle factory in Bologna, and they
have their engine blocks die cast to near net- they come into the
factory already painted on the outside, and they slap em into a Chiron
VMC, and do the fine machining in 10 minutes, then assemble em. No
giant transfer lines, instead a CNC mill that could be reprogramed to
do something else at the push of a button.
Ingersoll still makes huge building size milling machines for
aerospace, cutting 50 foot wing spars and the like.
But the new Boeing plane is being made from wound carbon fiber- it will
have much less machine work as a result. This sort of thing is the
trend.

This is not to say some huge machine tools are not still being made-
but you can get so much more efficiency from a modern cnc mill that
many fewer machines are needed to do the same work. Many of the really
big machines- Planers, Vertical boring mills, and the like, in the US,
are retrofitted old iron.

Another factory I was in in Italy had several room sized milling
machines- all german made, and less than 10 years old. The stuff is
available if you need it.

Most shops however, use japanese or european or Haas VMC's, and can
make just about anything with them.

There once was a man named Dr. Deming. He had some radical new ideas
about how to manufacture things after WWII. The US was selling
everything it could make no matter how crappy so they didn't bother
with Dr. Deming.

Japan had just had their manufacturing base severely damaged or
destroyed and needed something new. MacArthur got Dr. Deming over
there and the Japanese listened.

First the Japanese made little crappy stuff and the US laughed. Then
the Japanese made better and better stuff for less and less money.

Machine tools are the heart of manufacturing so it was one of the very
early areas of focus for them. The Japanese look at the whole thing
including the way tools are made and used and the people who use them.


Now the Chinese are doing the same thing and the Japanese are going to
be in trouble.

Here's how it works in real life.

I used my last $500 to start a business brazing carbide 25 years ago.
I worked my ass off and put whatever I could into R&D. Six years a go
we figured out how to braze ceramics so you could use them for saw
blades. We were told it was impossible for several reasons. We had
some demo blades built to prove that they do work and that they are a
real bargain. We tried to find a US company to work with us and no
one was interested. We went to Atlanta and exhibited and still no
interest. Several told us it was impossible. Some tried to do it and
said it couldn't be done. Some made saw blades and they didn't
work well.

Now we have a company in China making really good ceramic tipped saw
blades. The saw blades are in tests at Sears, and many other similar.


The Chinese are listening to us and are brazing and grinding the way we
tell them. They are painstakingly careful in what they do and they are
willing to do new things. That's why the Chinese are going to make
saw blades for Sears.

There simply wasn't an American company that wanted to try and that
was good enough to do it.

Tom

While modern America learns about the "important stuff"...you know
"Political Correctness", "Gay Rights", and how important it is that everyone
"feel" like a winner no matter how crappy a job they do, the rest of the
world works.

My favorite saying of late has been that "In order for the work to get done,
someone actually has to do the work!" Seems like a simple idea, but it is
amazing that so few people, committees, focus groups, and other modern "feel
good" forms of thought seem to not understand this.

In short, if you have a class of people who won't work, or rather who won't
work for less than what it takes to own a $200,000 house, a $50,000 car, and
trips to Europe once a year, then you have a product that can not be made
affordably.

In the case of Japan, as the other post pointed out about Deming, we blew up
Japan, rebuilt it better than what we had even here in America, and they
grew from there..eventually, they have many of the same problems we have
with an excessive standard of living.

With China, they will go through the same pains, with the short term
advantage that they just shoot the people over there who rise up and demand
things. That won't work forever....you can abuse, maim, and kill a few
100,000 without much notice when you've got a billion or so to beat upon,
but as it gets worse for the workers, things will have to change. That will
happen, but....we will all be dead by then, and our grand children won't
know what "Made In China" means...everything they touch and feel will say
"Made In insert remaining third world country here"




"spaco" wrote in message
...
I'm not trying to be impolite, but I read many of the posts (not all)
about this issue recently, but I never got "the answer". I was born and
raised in Rockford Illinois, once the "machine tool capital of the world",
so I'd be interested in the current answer to the question.
BTW almost all the big names are gone from there now. Ingersoll Milling
Machine has recently re-opened with foreign (Italian, I think) ownership.
There's still stuff going on around there, but not like it used to be.
Who DOES make the big transfer lines now?

Pete Stanaitis