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Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

bloomberg.com

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Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#111

Post by shimman »

SanjayMehta wrote: post #86
stingraycharles wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The later form was part of the design from the beginning: relying on imports for something this critical in times of an epidemic was a supply chain risk. It was never intended to compete in terms of pricing. It baffles me that this wasn’t made more explicit? That seems to be the root cause of the failure.

Once the epidemic was over, stakeholders forgot about the original motives.

Good thing the country isn't run by shareholders.

Note that a federal jobs program has something like 60-80% support by voters across all political spectrums in the USA.

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#113

Post by shimman »

whatever1 wrote: post #110
delusional wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would the "AI" figure out what the process is? That's non-sense.

Because of the slack complaints?

Friend, you need to seriously get out of your tech bubble and talk to real workers in person.

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#114

Post by FrankyHollywood »

Illniyar wrote: post #48

The article headline makes it seem like the factories couldn't make the gloves. But further down it says that the cost was double and factories couldn't get buyers. These are very different failure modes, and speak to very different solutions.

Exactly, the article also mentions "Only about 1% of those used in the US are made domestically".

It's already being done so it seems more a cost related issue than lack of knowledge.

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#115

Post by petra »

dmix wrote: post #44

The article mentions access to NBR latex being an issue, but doesn’t explain that this is less commonly produced in America because they produces much more shale gas these days which doesn’t result in enough butadiene needed. So the most important supply chain to build the product is mostly coming out of Asian and European crackers. Giving an advantage to the Malaysian factories on top of the other lower costs of bus…

In cases of emergency, like COVID, is butadiene supply limited or for the right price the US, and in general, the world, could get enough butadiene ?

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#116

Post by petra »

maxglute wrote: post #14
karakoram wrote: post #3

A very important question to ask. Should the US make medical gloves?

Someone already decided US should. The important question is whether 1B should have gotten the job done, and if not... is it matter of throwing good $$$ after bad $$$... or is it just bad sign 1B wasn't enough.

I wonder if they can at least create a small scale NBR factory.

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#117

Post by manarth »

skybrian wrote: post #89
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These things expire you know, for latex gloves it's only 3 years.

You could rotate the inventory. Normally companies try to minimize inventory, but someone could pay them to keep six month’s or a year’s supply as a buffer.

It depends on the rationale. If the intent is self-reliance in the event of a trade war (or worse) with China, then even a year's buffer isn't enough to bootstrap home manufacturing from scratch.

It needs to be in-service and available before any serious conflict.

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#118

Post by petra »

jongjong wrote: post #38
orphereus wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't free market reward companies that go the other way and where people don't "fail upwards"? It is kind of demoralising to think otherwise, but it seems it is true. We see it everywhere. Bad companies making bad decisions keep surviving, and actually the vast majority of companies are like this. One implication is that MBAs in suits that make bad decisions are actually right and their decisions are not bad. Th…

I agree, a free market would work that way... Yet 'fail upwards' and zombie companies seem to be the default. Personally I don't believe that what we have in the west is a free market. I think these days, it's probably less free than the one in China. The market here is completely smothered by regulations. For example, about a month ago, I saw a video about people farming frogs in China... To collect secretions for m…

There are plenty of businesses that could be built under current regulations.

It might be a bit Harder, but business is difficult.

Re: Why it's so difficult to produce American-made medical gloves

#120

Post by NetMageSCW »

kaashif wrote: post #7
karakoram wrote: post #3

A very important question to ask. Should the US make medical gloves?

Asking this question only a handful of years after a global pandemic... If the next pandemic is 50% deadly, not being able to make gloves is surely the canary in the coal mine proving we wouldn't be able to make any other PPE. And no country can rely on another if it's do or die. Other blocs will keep to themselves.

As pointed out earlier, there is also rotation of a stockpile of gloves instead of manufacturing which reduces costs and solves the same issues.

Even things made in America were in short supply during the pandemic because workers were hard to come by as well. A factory isn’t any good if half the people to run it are sick, but it doesn’t take special training to hand out boxes of gloves.

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