Posted on 09/09/2015 11:37:35 AM PDT by thackney
Ride-on lawn mower manufacturer Cox Industries might only employ 60 people today from 160 a decade ago, and has suffered three break-even years because it hasn’t rained enough, but co-owner Ken McColl says the Australian economy still can’t afford businesses like his to disappear.
“We have 400 separate suppliers, almost all of them local small businesses,” McColl tells BRW from Cox’s 20,000 sqm factory headquarters at Acacia Ridge, Queensland.
“From the makers of a specialist washer, to the electricians and plumbers and maintenance people here at the factory. I’m not even counting our bank, insurer or sandwich shop around the corner. People need to think about that when they’re comparing a Cox mower to an import.”
Founded in 1954 by inventor Owen Cox, the mower brand might have “cleared half of Australia” but it’s outsold here now by American-made imports, with John Deere, Husqvarna and MTD considered by McColl his three main competitors.
“We’re at a disadvantage of scale. They’re all mass-produced where a solid year for us is selling 5000 units,” says McColl.
However retaining manufacturing in Australia allows Cox, whose 20-odd models are each updated every five years, to test and build to local conditions.
“We’re going to be $500 to $800 more expensive than an import of comparable size and horsepower, so someone moving on to their lifestyle acreage for the first time might not look at us,” McColl says.
“What we rely on is them coming back to the dealer two years later, realising they need something that can cut those tough native grasses, that isn’t worried by rocks and stones and tree stumps, and will last forever. Our spare parts business still gets calls from people wanting replacement parts for our 1970s models.”
That Cox is still vaguely competitive on price is down to a decision by McColl in 2005 to invest in robotics.
“We used to have 60 manual welders in here, blokes with the mask on and the welding torch. Today we’ve got one, who welds on our experimental stuff and does odd jobs.”
The reason is that McColl progressively imported three robotic welders, costing around $150,000 each.
“There’s added costs like the jig, where you assemble all the component parts for the robot to come along and weld. One where we do chassies might be $60,000. But on our roboticised applications we now need one person for every nine that we used to, so they paid for themselves very quickly.”
Rapid prototyping enabled by the latest CAD machines and 3D printers at Cox’s engineering department have also boosted efficiency.
Another factor that’s brightened the outlook for Cox, which turned over $15 million in 2014/15, is the Australian dollar’s rapid fall.
“No engines get made in Australia, so we have to import Briggs & Strattons from the US and $1.10 was good for that. But what 70 cents does to our competition’s retail price helps us a lot more,” McColl says.
That’s because even a structurally lower currency is unlikely to turn Cox into an exporter.
“You can only fit 12 mowers into a shipping container, and to get that to the northern hemisphere out of an Australian port you’re looking at $2000-$3000,” he says.
“Proportionally it’s a huge cost. The importers seem to be able to do it a lot more efficiently in to an Australian port, of course.”
Another cause for optimism is increased rainfall across Australia, after three relatively dry seasons. McColl reports ride-on mower sales always spike after extended periods of rainfall, and the company’s marketing trumpets its mowers’ ability to “cut long wet grass at a single pass”.
Don’t confuse people that want to live on the dole with no jobs available.
Time to kill the tech job-killing myth
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/219224-time-to-kill-the-tech-job-killing-myth
Stop Saying Robots Are Destroying Jobs—They Aren’t
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/519016/stop-saying-robots-are-destroying-jobs-they-arent/
Myth busting: why automation software will create, not replace, human jobshttp://www.information-age.com/industry/software/123460004/myth-busting-why-automation-software-will-create-not-replace-human-jobs
briggs engines? lol
Written by people whose jobs will not be automated. Hmm.
Next they will say that Indians actually write good software.
My side of our industry, engineering and design, has been heavily automated. Calculations and Drawings that took a hundred or so hours reduced by an order of magnitude or more.
The net result is not less people doing work, but more work being done. Greater speed in project, few reworks in construction, etc.
Same with the automobile industry, and all types of manufacturing. The end result isn’t buggy whip makers starving, it is a growing economy and higher standard of living.
How many decades do you need to see increased automation resulting in higher productivity, more products and people still working?
Keep in mind your point of view agrees with Obama.
The automation myth
http://www.vox.com/2015/7/27/9038829/automation-myth
Robots aren’t taking your jobs— and that’s the problem
President Obama has warned that ATMs and airport check-in kiosks are contributing to high unemployment....
Machines have been replacing humans for hundreds of years. And when it happens to you, it stinks. It stank for small business owners whose photo development shops were driven out of business by digital cameras. It stank for analog graphic designers like my mother who were disemployed by desktop publishing software in the late 1980s. It stank for stevedores who were put out of work by container ships. It stank for weavers put out of work by the spinning jenny. It stank for railroad engineers put out of work by the automobile.
But for society as a whole, these were huge leaps forward. Specific individuals did in fact lose jobs and oftentimes ended up with lower wages. But on average, job growth continued and living standards rose.
I am not talking about ATMs and kiosks etc... I am talking about down the road when robots come with some AI and they take the jobs of car salesman, mechanics, airline pilots, cab drivers, police and firemen, delivery drivers, healthcare entry level types, retail sales, and low level office admin jobs: you name it. You know the ones that employ about 60% of the workforce outside of menial and repetitive labor.
That day is coming and 60% cannot become software writers and bosses.
Car Salesman, well on the way. I bought my last pickup online. Only actually talked to a person the day I picked it up and presented payment. Most of the work of that transaction was automated.
Many of these others are becoming far more automated each year. The point you are missing is the job market, economy, lifestyle, etc are not static. As automation does more, we demand more. As products become cheaper, we buy more. As more automation allows greater safety in industrial process, we do way more measurement and control, and we save more lives and have less injuries.
“As automation does more, we demand more”
Okay another ancillary topic, how much do we waste making more instead of making better? Example, what is the number of new cars made every year that go unsold and sit in lots indefinitely. I have seen pictures of acres upon acres of them. More is not always better. Extrapolate that to clothing, dry good, housewares etc... We waste more than we gain as opposed to when we were a demand market and did not mass produce junk only to sell 30-40% of the items, but we make it so cheap nobody cares.
In 1900 40% of the labor force worked on farms.
Now we have less than 2% of the labor force making a LOT more food with the aid of 5 million tractors and other capital goods. Without the availability of labor from these farms we wouldn't have had the labor to make all the other goods and services we enjoy that didn't exist 100 years ago.
What I would do is get rid of the regulations and wage floors that make their employment uneconomical. There is no end to the things I want done around my house, most of which require just basic manual labor. My only issue is the price. As productivity continues to rise output rises and prices fall. Thus even basic manual labor will be able in 100 years to afford luxuries that even Trump would balk at today.
Consider for a moment how even the poorest among us who work have access to amenities that kings didn't dream of 200 years ago.
I'm much more worried about politicians pricing people out of jobs than robots.
More is not better. I would argue that the country was better off back then when people worked harder as compared to today. Yes I am a dinosaur that does not like the modern world per se. My kids tell me I am retro.
I see this view every day. It is likely a picture of an import or export lot. The cars get sold. Do you really believe manufactures continue to make products no one buys and just piles them up? Especially products that cost tens of thousands of dollars?
More is not always better. Extrapolate that to clothing, dry good, housewares etc...
It really seems you are getting off topic here. Maybe it isn't what you want, but reality is jobs change and people need to advance with it. If I tried to do my job, the way it was done when I first started, I would be unemployed. I would fall way behind and be fired. Automation has given me the ability to do the work of what 10 or so would do back then.
And the end result? We do more. Now the calculations and design I produce take in to account much more data and information and is produced in less time. My firm can do more work, our clients can afford to hire us for more work. Their production grows at a faster rate as well. The produce more at lower prices. Their buyers can produce products at lower prices, consumers get access to more products at lower prices, or more features.
I just don't understand people that expects technology to stop and never grow.
But if everyone was still stuck on the farm you wouldn't have this marvel at your fingertips with which to kvetch at the world. ;)
In 1900, the average lifespan was 47 years.
How old are you? Still think it would be better life?
Reeks and Wrecks.
We are called dinosaurs or in my case old time cowboy born 100 years too late. You want to hear funny, software engineer for over 25 years, go figure.
And to point I do believe we make more than we sell that is why a new Tahoe costs $60K instead on $30K. They have taken the defense contractor process of overcharging to the private sector.
True
I am over that number and am not excited about the future. I am one that will not fight it when the time comes.
Still a different topic, but I see no coloration to price to the claim a multitude are produced and not sold. Where are they?
I am over that number as well. But I live for the future, not spend the present wishing for the past.
God Bless.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.