Enlighten us as to your manufacturing experience and knowledge that would lead you to say that. I'm a 25 year veteran, and I haven't seen it this bad, well, ever.
If you mean by "decentralized" that it went overseas in search of squat labor, then yeah, that happened. But it ain't a good thing.
While manufacturing has largely decentralized and de-urbanized (the latter due to dumb environmental laws and parasitic politicians), it's very much still there Enlighten us as to your manufacturing experience and knowledge that would lead you to say that. I'm a 25 year veteran, and I haven't seen it this bad, well, ever.Nearly twenty years here and one of the projects I was working on was the plant I worked at getting moved to Mexico. The corporation probably lost money on that deal. They were hand assembling parts that we made on machines (one operator versus eleven) because they couldn't keep the machines running. I pointed out to a corporate guy that his labor costs were higher than the ones at our plant. He scoffed...until I ran the numbers for him.If you mean by "decentralized" that it went overseas in search of squat labor, then yeah, that happened. But it ain't a good thing.
American manufacturing has definite advantages over the rest of the world, though our educational system appears to be interested in diminishing them. One of the big ones is the independent minded nature of American workers. They come up with "sideways" solutions to problems foreign workers don't. This has been the experience of both the Japanese and European automakers with US plants.
By "decentralization" I meant smaller operations less likely to be in major cities. That's due to CERCLA, due to union "radius rules" where if you move a certain distance or less you have to retain the union, and due to the nature of many big city (Democratic) governments. Rural workers will also work a little cheaper than their city counterparts, but are less attuned to modern manufacturing priorities. Another tradeoff.
The whole idea of moving plants around is a function of corporations being run by lawyers and accountants. It's quite easy to move an office or a call center or even a store. Not so a manufacturing facility, as anyone with a production, engineering, or maintenance background knows. I've seen tremendous efficiency losses hit several companies who were going after the "economy of consolidation" that exists in theory but is elusive in real life. As these stories pile up, the lesson will be learned by prudent managers. Also watch companies that are run by engineers....ISG locally is a good example. By all current logic, LTV Cleveland East should never have restarted. They are up and running now, and expanding, and word has it doing quite well.
-Eric