Googorola now shipping 100,000 Moto X phones a week... from TEXAS Motorola is now shipping 100,000 of its flagship Moto X phones a week from its factory near Dallas, Texas. Chief exec Dennis Woodside said in an interview that the Texas manufacturing facility, operated by contractor Flextronics, was capable of producing tens of millions of phones a year, but expansion would depend on demand …
they won't be paying any tax - Google bought Motorola largely for the purposes of getting their hands on a £8Bn tax "loss" and also to rack up tax credits for the acquisition and subsequent restructuring costs - it could easily be 20 years before Google pay a single cent on profit arising from handset sales.
It would be great to see the actual costs with a full accounting, especially when I have always known that the so called disadvantages of US manufacturing were a big lie to take power from unions. A small premium for US content is expected and if someone can prove the real difference it would be great news.
When Xerox moved all manufacturing to Mexico, EVERY copier they made down there ended up coming back to Rochester before being shipped as the Mexican labor force could not handle the complexity AND maintain any quality. Now they build in the East to get quality but transport costs are quite high.
Kodak had much the same problem with overseas film production, they could not keep product consistent and that film did not develop repeatably which is bad when the process is supposed to be automated.
The fact remains, you frequently get exactly what you DON'T pay for.
I think you're missing something. Manufacturing != jobs. Most jobs "lost" to outsourcing aren't coming back and will eventually be lost completely as automation takes over these jobs. Repetitive manual labor isn't competing with cheap labor sources in other countries, it is competing with machines that don't need bio-breaks, training or overtime and, if machines aren't already, they will be cheaper, faster and more accurate.
Actually I think you'll find the biggest drain to union power came from a combination of sources from labor laws to a good economy. When folks can pretty much get a good deal by default there isn't much point paying $1 in union dues for a benefit bump worth 80 cents. Notice that it's only now when the economy is poor there a bunch of talk about strikes and unions with the current focus on fast food which will only hasten the rise of the machines.
"Most jobs "lost" to outsourcing aren't coming back and will eventually be lost completely as automation takes over these jobs. "
Not soon, though. The sorts of manufacturing jobs we employ people for are, for the most part, suitable for state of the art automation, but the costs of automating are not economic by serveral orders of magnitude. For example, you could use a car welding type of robot to assemble burgers in a fast food outlet. But the cost wouldn't stack up. Likewise, most human work in manufacturing production is capable of being done by robots, but not at a cost the market will pay. Automation costs are dropping, and new technologies like 3D printing are coming along, but you're talking a long time before automation can replace ten-twenty dollar an hour production jobs in the US (or twenty dollar a month jobs in China).
So for the forseeable future the equation is about exchange rates, relative labour costs, transport costs and time to market. Where automation has had an impact is through the integration of previously discrete IC's onto the main processor, as SoC. And that's simplified the manufacture, and perversely made it possible to assemble in Western locations.
The cost of a fully automated factory here versus 3rd world is not that far apart to prevent profitability. They're not coming back due primarily to shortsighted tightfisted slaveowners not businessmen.
In the US you do not have a language barrier, more people are educated, and in this economy are willing to work for less than in the past. Treat them right, and they will outperform workers in many countries.
Henry Ford practically invented "automation" (or at least the production line). Why? So his employees could afford to become customers and his base of business expanded exponentially. So did all the support businesses.
Production of goods need to happen in all countries. There cannot be a country of consumers and one of producers.
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