What happened to the US machine tool industry?
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What happened to the US machine tool industry?
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Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?
#2Right, it seems the U.S. economy is trying to say, "making elementary machine tools is beneath us." The important bit is at the end: the U.S. is still a top buyer of machine tools (made elsewhere).
Is the same thing to happen with software?
When it becomes worth the time of the U.S. economy to produce basic machine tools again, they'll get to create new machine tools factories using all the latest technology: so it is probably good thing the "old way" is not still around hanging on by a thread.
The market naturally is culling technical debt.
Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?
#3People who understand this industry can answer in a single word.
Fanuc.
And when Fanuc realized that only GE was capable of competing with it in the computer controls needed to run machine tools (and wasn’t doing shit, another Welchism), it cleverly bought off GE by giving it the U.S. franchise for Fanuc, at least until the GE stink began to be undesirable.
Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?
#4[flagged]
Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?
#5I was binge watching TechFreeze[1] on youtube just yesterday!
Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?
#6https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU6nsfoNWDI for a trip down memory lane (and coincidentally, an apt example of how far we've fallen).
Can you think of a single modern US-based industry/association which produces educational, instructional, and/or historical videos like this one anymore?
Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?
#7People who understand this industry can answer in a single word. Fanuc. And when Fanuc realized that only GE was capable of competing with it in the computer controls needed to run machine tools (and wasn’t doing shit, another Welchism), it cleverly bought off GE by giving it the U.S. franchise for Fanuc, at least until the GE stink began to be undesirable.
Yes, no surprise that a standard won the battle, over several competing choices. That seems to happen a lot.
Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?
#8[flagged]
Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?
#9> Consider a company that manufactures its product on lathes. Assume that it has ten lathes that can just meet production requirements. Assume also that each lathe wears out in ten years and that the company has its investment plans so well organized that one lathe is replaced every year. Now consider what will happen if there is a 10 percent increase in demand for the product. The plant will need eleven lathes to meet production requirements. It will have to buy two lathes: one as a replacement for the worn-out lathe and a second to increase capacity. Thus a 10 percent increase in the demand for the product has produced a 100 percent increase in the demand for lathes.
The 100% increase doesn't seem to make sense in this example.
Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?
#10> Consider a company that manufactures its product on lathes. Assume that it has ten lathes that can just meet production requirements. Assume also that each lathe wears out in ten years and that the company has its investment plans so well organized that one lathe is replaced every year. Now consider what will happen if there is a 10 percent increase in demand for the product. The plant will need eleven lathes to me…
It's a 100% increase (i.e. double) relative to what the ordinary demand for lathes would have been.