Interesting article in in-sourcing in the US

[MikeDunn]

Have a read : http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-insourcing-boom/309166/?single_page=true

For those who can't be bothered ... here are the high-lights :

• General Electric have started bringing manufacturing back into the US fom China
• GE realised that they can make various items cheaper in the US, given increases in items like oil
• Looking at how to make the items again, they realised they hadn't a clue !
• They re-designed the items with fewer parts, making them cheaper to make, easier to make (resulting in an 80% decrease in time), and therefore cheaper to the market
• More companies are doing this ...
• Not all out-sourcing will come back, however

I must admit, when I read this I wondered if model rail manufacturing would start coming back ...  After all, manufacturing slots in China are getting harder to obtain, and the raw cost of making the items is increasing (cost of the workforce, cost of materials, cost of transportation).  Maybe the cost of making some aspects &/or final assembly here will be close to the overall cost of doing it abroad ?  Not to mention being able to change plans at very little notice ...  And, for Hornby as for GE, it's not as if they have to find somewhere to do it - the Margate site is mainly an empty shell used for little but storage, I believe (the same as GE had).

Now ...given Bachmann are a Chinese company, I can't see them doing this - unless GraFar becomes the target of a management buy-out (did they sell off the old Poole base ?) ?  And I can't comment on what Dapol may have left (total lack of info).

Mike

[EtchedPixels]

Bachmann's bigger long term problem IMHO is they are owned by a plastics company. That's going to be fun if 3D print starts to replace plastics. Dapol were doing some moulding and finishing work in the UK. I belive from the recent magazine article that is still the case for certain things. Moving stuff back should also cut errors and dramatically improve turn around times.

Chunks of it will come back as Chinese wages are rising sharply too. But I don't expect many new jobs here. The situation now is

   Chinese cheaper than UK Robots cheaper than Brits

it's about to become

   UK Robots cheaper than Chinese cheaper than Brits

The business about skills I've seen first hand. There are lots of things you just cannot get done in the UK any more, or which have pretty much had to be re-invented by sending people overseas to learn the skills back again (I hear a rumour they are  trying this for football  )

Alan

[MikeDunn]

The business about skills I've seen first hand. There are lots of things you just cannot get done in the UK any more, or which have pretty much had to be re-invented by sending people overseas to learn the skills back again

That is exactly what GE found ... but have reskilled their people ...

[Agrippa]

Perhaps we should send half the numpties who deal
with the public to the far east to learn manners ,
punctuality and efficient service.

[EtchedPixels]

Perhaps we should send half the numpties who deal
with the public to the far east to learn manners ,
punctuality and efficient service.

I actually find a lot of the service in the UK these days is better than many countries I've been.  Didn't use to be the case but it has much improved over the past 20 years.

They say the hotel from hell has German waiters (and an English cook) 

[Agrippa]

The staff at Wetherspoon's pub in Paisley wouldn't be sent for
retraining- they would be sent to the firing squad ......