Steve: It could be right here in the USA as we move toward 3rd would status with the help of Washington DC! Just open up a plant in a right to work state. And make sure you offer a FULL medical plan with contraceptives, we would not want so woman being denied her ‘rights’!
Paul
“I’m starting to wonder just where the next Japan/S. Korea/China will be? Viet-Nam? N. Korea?”
Steve;
At least for some clothing it is Viet-Nam. Got a nice pair of cargo pocket shorts that were made there last summer. They even had a watch pocket. Of course, I checked the crotch for punji stakes before I ever put them on. :lol:
Yours,
David Meashey
Steve Featherkile said:
I've heard it said that if model railroad manufacturing was to be brought back the the USA, it would require a 20% increase in price. I don't know if that is the real figure, but for the sake of argument, let's stipulate that it is.I would be willing to pay that surcharge, just to get a reliable product, manufactured here, with good QC, and not have to put up with the crap imported from China.
What say you?
I long for the days of reliable American manufacture, products that actually work, first rate customer service and satisfaction, and the old rules of business that just about everyone used to play by. It’s been so long since I’ve seen them in practice; I do hope I can get them right… Let’ see…
Yeah, that was it. 
Well lets just say someone starts manufacturing trains in the US, Just the shipping alone wold be a savings.
Not just in cost, but time and carbon foot print.
That’s well worth the change. Oh, I for got the jobs and keeping our money in the US.
Steve Featherkile said:India is the only country with the necessary manufacturing and skilled labor base I can think of, maybe Mexico. But both are going to mean a increase in costs as they dont manipulate both their currency and their workers wages and labor rights to the extent the PRC currently does. LGB moved to Hungary, maybe some Eastern European countries which have both the labor and the tech base, Hungary, Czecoslivakia maybe, but places like Ukraine and Georgia are likely to continue to be bullied by Russia if not attacked outright, so that area to me is still iffy. Vietnam and most of S/E asia are still too technologicly underdeveloped or politically volatile. But if you have increases going to india, are the increased shipping/labor/mfg costs that much better that going back to the US. The US looks a little better every year.Victor Smith said:I'm starting to wonder just where the next Japan/S. Korea/China will be? Viet-Nam? N. Korea?
The question I have is what % of the profit margin on PRC made product gets eaten up with repairs replacement and shipping? It seams to me there has to be a point when the PRC production advantages vs repair costs cancel each other out. I think moving production back to the US begins to make business sense as things get more expensive and politically iffy as the chinese realized they are being shortchanged by their own government.
N Korea would only work if you considered a few blocks of wood tied together with string to be a fine scale model 
Vic, I was being just a bit ironic. I really don’t think that there is any place left. It is time to bring it back home. All of it.
Manufacturing will only return to the States if the manufacturers are given tax breaks, financial incentives, etc. There is no patriotism involved when it comes to corporations. They build where the profits are maximised. Honda, BMW and other European/Asian manufacturers produce in the States to get import credits to offset their foreign made product. Corporations see no ‘advantage’ to manufacturing in the States.
Locally, we have a movement to make our industries more competitive to offset foreign imports. Manufacturers say that local workers are not productive enough to compete with foreign workers. Strange that the term ‘productive’ equates directly to wage levels. Local manufacturers want to reduce local wages and conditions to compete with foreign companies. The only outcome is offshore manufacturing and maximised profits for companies. In times where unemployment levels are high, the manufacturer sees no future in staff loyalty. Workers are simply ‘aids to production’ to be employed and fired as production demand dictates.
As regards the next country of choice for manufacturers then, as I stated many years ago on the Aristo forum, Vietnam is the only option. India will be simply too expensive. Car and computer component manufacturers have currently chosen Thailand but as recent flooding has shown, it may have not been a wise choice.
American industry has lost sight of the fact that loyalty and profitability of labor go hand in hand. If you look at American business, we lost our competitive edge 40 years ago when the dollar margin became more important than the people who made the dollar. And until business comes to understand that, we will continue to falter in the competitive marketplace.
Just my thoughts.
Bob C.
Bob I agree with you 100%
Most generally the BIG corp’s have stockholders to answer to and generally the all mighty dollar is what they want the most. Usually when a company is own by a single person or a small group, they take care of their employes better and watch the bottom line a whole lot better.
Bob Cope said:
American industry has lost sight of the fact that loyalty and profitability of labor go hand in hand. If you look at American business, we lost our competitive edge 40 years ago when the dollar margin became more important than the people who made the dollar. And until business comes to understand that, we will continue to falter in the competitive marketplace.Just my thoughts.
Bob C.
John Le Forestier said:
1. The customer's always right. 2. When the customer's wrong, see rule one.Yeah, that was it.
It seems to me that the big corps never get the concept that their greatest asset is the people who make up the company. The ‘beans’ the counters pay so much attention to are not the ones sacrificing to keep the company afloat when times get hard. The last company I worked for, managed to keep everyone working after 9/11, even when the economy and our business got real lean. Yeah, we took some cuts too, but we all still had a paycheck to pay our bills. Later when things got too much better (if that is possible), some of us worked long and hard to stay on top of the work load. Give and take.
Bob C.
The big corporation philosophy explained:
(http://freightsheds.largescalecentral.com/users/thejoat/_forumfiles/CarbonPaper.gif)
Steve Featherkile said:
I've heard it said that if model railroad manufacturing was to be brought back the the USA, it would require a 20% increase in price. I don't know if that is the real figure, but for the sake of argument, let's stipulate that it is.I would be willing to pay that surcharge, just to get a reliable product, manufactured here, with good QC, and not have to put up with the crap imported from China.
What say you?
*Injection molds, stamping, painting, graphics.
Would you make your own electronics or buy from a source in the USA?
Wind your own motors?
And so on…
John Bouck said:Steve Featherkile said:
I've heard it said that if model railroad manufacturing was to be brought back the the USA, it would require a 20% increase in price. I don't know if that is the real figure, but for the sake of argument, let's stipulate that it is.I would be willing to pay that surcharge, just to get a reliable product, manufactured here, with good QC, and not have to put up with the crap imported from China.
What say you?
20%? I don’t think so.
Even if you moved the *tooling back to the US, with today’s minimum wage, benefits, overhead, profit margins, etc.
If you wanted to start up with new tooling–No one could afford your products, at least the average Joe.*Injection molds, stamping, painting, graphics.
Would you make your own electronics or buy from a source in the USA?
Wind your own motors?
And so on…
Steve Featherkile said:John Bouck said:Steve Featherkile said:
I've heard it said that if model railroad manufacturing was to be brought back the the USA, it would require a 20% increase in price. I don't know if that is the real figure, but for the sake of argument, let's stipulate that it is.I would be willing to pay that surcharge, just to get a reliable product, manufactured here, with good QC, and not have to put up with the crap imported from China.
What say you?
20%? I don’t think so.
Even if you moved the *tooling back to the US, with today’s minimum wage, benefits, overhead, profit margins, etc.
If you wanted to start up with new tooling–No one could afford your products, at least the average Joe.*Injection molds, stamping, painting, graphics.
Would you make your own electronics or buy from a source in the USA?
Wind your own motors?
And so on…
That info came from Mike Wolf of MTH Trains, but I will bow to your superior wisdom…
You can only market “stuff” at low prices if you make and sell enough of them to take advantage of the lower costs of volume turnover.
Then the Large Scale market is shrinking so the volume is just not there. So the prices have to go up and add to that the costs of production are also rising. The consumer is going to be squeezed such the Large Scale market could disappear completely and we will all be back to good old LGB.
And/or. China no longer has any real competition and are putting their prices up because they can.
Agreed Tony,
But I would argue that China doesnt have a competition now. However, there will always be someone out there to compete. When i used to play basketball there was a saying I always had in my mind, “Someone somewhere out there is practicing. When you meet him in head to head competition, he’ll beat you.”
I think that can apply to anything. There will always be competition. I think China is going through the twilight of their industrial revolution. The government can no longer keep the average Chinese citizen down because they all now have some money in their pockets and they will demand more rights.
As for “made in the USA” I would also pay 20% more for a model but I would also expect a minimum of 20% better quality.
<That info came from Mike Wolf of MTH Trains, but I will bow to your superior wisdom…>
Not much wisdom, Steve.
Just almost 30 years in the manufacturing field, from a starting tool room clerk up to a purchasing agent.
As a purchaser I was given the task of “outshopping” most of our components to outside vendors, because we couldn’t
afford to do our in-house production. We slowly shut down machinists, sheet metal workers, etc.
Finally our machine shops went quiet and all we basically had was assemblers.
I know that is sad, because many good people had to relocate, but if we didn’t we would have closed.
As it turns out a few years after I left, the place closed anyway and outshopped everything to Mexico.
At first they moved to Georgia, where a small town with high unemployment offered lower taxes, cheap property, etc.
They sent me there to set up the purchasing. They even went out of business as well after a short time.
And all this was 15 years ago. The economy hasn’t gotten any better since then.
Steve Featherkile said:
I've heard it said that if model railroad manufacturing was to be brought back the the USA, it would require a 20% increase in price. I don't know if that is the real figure, but for the sake of argument, let's stipulate that it is.I would be willing to pay that surcharge, just to get a reliable product, manufactured here, with good QC, and not have to put up with the crap imported from China.
What say you?
Never mind are we willing, are we ‘able’, to pay the premium that will allow American/Western workers a middle class way of life. I’m referring to machine operators, fork lift drivers, assemblers, shipping clerks, production foremen, etc ? Add to that the cost of retooling American manufacturing companies to start domestic production and I think you have a much larger cost differential than 20%. I think that the boats of off-shore blue collar workers are going to have to rise a lot higher before American manufacturing can become a reality. But, I leave that discussion to the other great minds on this forum.
