[flagged]
> The new owners’ focus on profits meant...
Pretty much the answer in one sentence.
What happened to the US machine tool industry?
11–20 of 226 posts
Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?
#12Right, 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 i…
Right. The US economy was well poised to tackle the massive task of computerizing humanity and, being a nascent technology stack with green field opportunities abounding, it was more profitable than continuing to produce machine tools. Meanwhile the Pax Americana has eliminated the risk premium to manufacturing overseas, so our entire economy has reconfigured itself around this task and opportunity of computerizing humanity. To our massive benefit, I think. IMO this is the main driver between diverging American incomes compared to the rest of the developed world.
Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?
#13What was considered high-end precision machining a few decades ago is now standard and easily reproducible in cheap labor markets. For example, guitars made in SKorea used to be a bad joke. Their machining tolerances were too big and too inconsistent. Much like storage and bandwidth what used to be exotic cost-prohibitive is now cheap.
Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?
#14If you're into machining, the American Precision Museum[0] in Windsor, VT is highly worth a visit.
I had the good fortune to tour the Starrett factory some years back. They were still running pre-NC screw machines to make parts. It really is true that old machines, well cared for, will last just about forever. Apparently it's something of an axiom in the machining industry that tools that are no longer economically viable for large scale production end up in job shops where the capability is needed but there isn't a need to pump out volume.
The Springfield Armory[1] is also a neat visit. For hopefully obvious reasons, their machining exhibits are focused on the production of weapons. The American Precision Museum is actually housed in a historic privately-owned gun factory. It turns out a lot of the progress in machining is driving by the need to make weapons.
Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?
#15[flagged]
Book recommendation: "Trade Wars are Class Wars" by Michael Pettis.
If you don't buy the apologetics that permeate the popular economics sphere but still want an expert to walk you through the details, this is your book.
Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?
#16So it is the story of losing because of market competition? Doesn’t feel that surprising of an outcome
Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?
#17[flagged]
Book recommendation: "Trade Wars are Class Wars" by Michael Pettis. If you don't buy the apologetics that permeate the popular economics sphere but still want an expert to walk you through the details, this is your book.
Sounds like commie gobbledygook.
(RIP Norm MacDonald, the thinking mans comedian!)
Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?
#18People 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.
Sort of a tautology, right? The winner of the competition becomes the standard.
Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?
#19Right, 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 i…
> Is the same thing to happen with software?
Offshoring in software development has been around for a very long time. Most large US companies have a mix of onshore and offshore devs. The more mundane the software, and the tighter the financial macro-environment, the more the ratio shifts toward offshoring. This is the way the offshoring cycle has worked for a long time.
However, unlike hardware, software is about information and communication, and cultural context is very important. I have seen firsthand that non-US teams building software for US consumers often don't quite understand the reasoning behind the requirements and may lack polish around basic things like English. (The same is true, of course, in reverse, if US teams build for non-US audiences.) So I think it should be a little bit stickier.
You also cannot copy software design in the same way that you can copy, say, the design of a lathe. A lathe is a lathe, and as long as you've got the tools and materials, a lathe made in the US should not in theory be any different than one built in China. The same is not true of software.
Re: What happened to the US machine tool industry?
#20> 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.
The universe isn’t quite that binary.
Suppose those lathes ware out 0.1% faster than expected lasting ~3 days less than 10 years, now eventually you replace 2 of them in the same year thus doubling demand in that year… Except the manufacture wouldn’t notice a spike from occasionally sending out a few days earlier even if it’s crossing a calendar year.