Posted on 01/09/2014 7:31:06 AM PST by bigbob
A bit more good news for American manufacturing as Whirlpool announced it would move its commercial washing-machine production from Mexico to the United States.
According to a press release, Whirlpool will shift production of its commercial front-load machines from Monterrey, Mexico to Clyde, Ohio. At 2.4 million square feet, the Clyde plant is the largest washing-machine factory in the world. Operations are due to begin in April, 2014. The Wall Street Journal first reported the story.
Whirlpool said the relocation will make the company more efficient, since 90% of the commercial machines are sold in the U.S. (the rest are sold in Europe, Latin America and Asia). Manufacturing them in Ohio will allow the company to tie more directly into U.S. logistics, and avoid having to ship the units across the border.
About 80-100 jobs will be created in Ohio, the company said. It currently employs 15,000 U.S. manufacturing workers and says it is committed to spending $1 billion from 2010-2014 to expand its manufacturing facilities in the U.S.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I refer those wishing to understand the reasons behind these sourcing decisions to the excellent white papers that have been published over the past 18 months by Boston Consulting Group. Whirlpools move is right out the playbook that BCG has outlined, and more will follow. Read the BCG report to understand which industries and which regions of the US will benefit most.
Ohio bump
And they are moving the workers too
Was it the Boston Consulting Group the primary consultant group responsible for advising corporations to offshore.
I recall someone posted somewhere that some consulting agency back in the 1980’s-1990’s was principally responsible for the leading the corporate charge overseas.
but I don’t recall the name.
the consulting agency was also charged with being hopelessly stupid and wrong headed in every way.
But, we need clean clothes HERE in the USA.
It says 80-100 jobs will be created in Ohio. But I’ll bet most of those jobs require specialized skills.
Whirlpool is among a number of U.S. companies who have been shifting their overseas manufacturing operations back to America in recent years for a number of reasons, including a sharp decline in energy prices, advanced factory techniques being pioneered here and an economic recovery that, while tepid, is still outstripping other parts of the world. As James Hagerty wrote in the WSJ:
Since the beginning of 2010, companies have created more than 80,000 manufacturing jobs by moving production to the U.S. from foreign countries, estimated Harry Moser, president of the Reshoring Initiative, a nonprofit that advocates such shifts. The U.S. continues to lose other manufacturing jobs to offshore plants, but those losses now are being offset by inflows, he said, adding: “We’ve stopped the bleeding.”
I don’t know for sure what consulting group, but it sounds like it might be McKenzie. They’ve done a lot of “consulting”.
Whirlpool bought Maytag & shut down the facilities in Iowa.
Now-—they get lauded for bringing jobs BACK to America?
The Emperor’s New Clothes syndrome!!!
I’m sure most business consultants drank the off-shore kool-aid at one time or another. But things change, and BCG has been way out in front with their work on the return of manufacturing to the US, and they’ve caught a lot of flack from other companies for being “deniers” of what many felt was the inevitable loss of US jobs.
No one can predict the future, so I give most credit to those who keep their eyes open instead of clinging to previous claims out of fear they’ll be proven fallible. The “global warming” hoax is a perfect example, as are most politicians...
We’re even repatriating some jobs from China:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304202204579256120230694210
To assemble commercial washing machines? I doubt it, but you’d want to ask posteer #3 who claims they’ll all be moved to Ohio from Mexico, lol!
This translates to robotics.
This will not mean lots of blue collar jobs in the traditional sense of the term. Those jobs are going bye-bye across the world. They're just disappearing first in high-wage countries, for obvious reasons.
“And they are moving the workers too”
They’re sneaking over as we speak. I wonder if “coyote” transportation fees will be reimbursable?
First, fracking is providing low cost energy and raw materials for industry.
Second, our Governments reckless and irresponsible fiscal policies are soon going depress the value of the dollar to an extent that the price of imported goods is going to skyrocket.
OK, let’s talk about “Maytag Town”, aka Newton IA where over 4,000 people once worked for Maytag, which was shut down by Whirlpool after guying the company. How sustainable was a one-company town in the first place? But then let’s talk about Springboard Engineering which was started by a group of 40 en-Whirlpool/Maytage employees and has added new jobs and since has been acquired by national testing agency Underwriters Laboratories. How about new, sustainable small industries that are slowly filling the old Maytag buildings, causing Newton Iowa to be called “Iowa’s Turnaround Town”?
Here’s the deal: Iowa will share in the return of US jobs because it’s a right-to-work state and has a competitive manufacturing cost structure.
Business 101.
I’m not sure your 2nd trend rises to the level of “major” but it’s a factor. A bigger factor is the unpinning of the RMB to the USD and the end, or at least the “tapering” of currency manipulation by the ChiCom government. We have our own challenges, but China has much bigger ones, in trying to find replacements for the massive US exports and/or create domestic markets to maintain the employment levels they experienced in the last decade. Fact is, capitalism as practiced in China has succeeded wildly where decades of central planning has failed miserably.
Logistics costs, everything from the fast-rising cost of shipment of products from China to the challenges of having a supply chain that extends halfway around the world is also cites ad a major factor.
I think most of the jobs will be blue collar; just a lot fewer of them due to robotics and improved manufaturing techniques.
This is huge. My sense, after living in OH for a few years, is that a large segment of the population is tempermentally suited to manufacturing jobs. Many people seem to like the time clock and the structure. It’s the environment in which their parents and grandparents thrived.
Some washing machines have become pretty sophisticated. But I’m thinking that the manufacturing technology used to assemble the machines may require specialized skills. Manufacturing methods are changing that require less workers and more skills.
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