American Manufacturing Again

There is a good letter in the current version of the online edition of Modern Plastics magazine, in the section called ''As I see It''. You can find it online, titled 'Shortage? What Shortage?' . Go and read it, it's a story I've heard many times, in many places, from many people. I've been there myself. Individuals with excellent track records of accomplishment and value-add, part of the 'collateral damage' of the hollowing out of American manufacturing. Unable to get a job. In some cases, unable to get ANY job, at ANY level. Too qualified for some, or in some cases being experienced in the ''wrong'' CAD package, or something relatively trivial. For being unemployed - the folklore that it's easier to get a job when you already have one is true. Stupid, but true. Even, and this is true, for having a bad credit file. Being unemployed, particularly extended unemployment, is not conducive to a good financial picture. Keeping someone unemployed because of that is beyond asinine, it's something only an HR type or a beancounter could invent. But it happens daily, truly it does. And the type of attitude and business culture it reveals is part of the rot that is part of the real damage to the nation's industrial base - more than finances, quality, or regulatory environment, it's a terrible lack of leadership with a defensible moral philosophy. Part of the overtaking of industry by lawyers, accountants, and other leeches.

Anyway, I came across the letter this afternoon as I was trying to make some calls and navigating through the labyrinth of some of these devil-inspired voice mail systems. I was making the calls trying to get a recommendation for a repair facility for a worn/damaged injection mold. Many of the people I once dealt with are out of business, and the craftsmen they employed are gone to the winds. Let me give you one observer's recollection.

Back in the 1990's, I worked for a now-bought-out major maker of consumer goods. Most of our products were made of rubber and plastics. At one time, so I was told, we operated American-made injection presses, processing American-made polymers through molds made at American tool shops, some near-by. Along the line, someone with a cut-price MBA decided that the molds, the more pedestrian ones, could be made more ''competitively'' off-shore. In Portugal, in fact. So there was less business for the US tool shops, and the trade, the craft, the respect and pay due a tool & die maker, suffered a bit. By the way, so did the profession of the tool engineer. Later, some one with a ''world-class quality'' chant on his lips, decided that we needed to try out some alternative presses, from Japan. Less work of course for the makers of injection presses and all their components, and of course for those who design them. Then it was decided that it was ''too expensive'' to operate these presses in the US, so some of the work was shifted to Mexico, and some to China. Then more and more to China. Then it was decided that it was silly to arrange a product in the US, make the tool in Portugal, and then ship it to China. So the tool build was also contracted into China. Of course, that meant Chinese tool & die makers, using Chinese machine tools to work on Chinese-made steel, made molds to go into Japanese (and then Chinese) injection presses to make consumer goods for American customers. Having work done by slave labor is cheap, but I thought we were better people than that.

Does this give a lower-priced toy at the big-box retailer? Probably. And this is not a bad thing, it may even be a good thing. Is that the only thing that matters?

Meanwhile, now I have trouble finding someone who can reliably repair the collapsing core of a low-volume injection mold. The shop in Ohio that repaired another mold for me two weeks ago is now deemed to be ''too expensive''. But while I could once find a dozen such within a few hours' drive most of those I once knew have been boarded up.

Those who periodically sign up for big government programs that want to up the numbers of students going into the so-called STEM majors (Science, Technical, Engineering, Math) seem blissfully unaware that the history I just recounted is going on all over the country. Finance majors, beancounters, and lawyers seem to be doing just fine. The engineering types, and the honest craftsmen that work with us, see their livelihood and sometimes their designs, heading to China, Mexico, and the like.

This is good for the retailers. And it lets us have more ''stuff''. Is it good for the country? Does it send a good message to our children as they consider their own futures?