"Lean Manufacturing"

Just came back from a trip to Mexico (business, not pleasure).

A huge plant, newly-built, clean, well-lit, nice office area.
There are workbenches, workbenches, workbenches... Behind those are girls, girls, girls - probably more than a thousand per shift.

And they all do manual labor: assembly, inspection, packing. There is almost no automation (two or three small machines, each one looking like a micro-PLC is enough to control it). There is of course no data collection or SCADA-type systems: all that needed is entered into the production database by typing.

Re-tooling the process simply means moving the benches and the girls around.

Well, this scares me a bit. Seems like my experience (whatever it is) may start to fail to interest those money-making production people anymore. They don't need no damn' automation. There are too many people around just eager to do dumb repeated work for peanuts.

Should I consider a career in cab business?

LadderLogic;

My personal opinion is NO! Sooner or later, the good old
human nature is going to catch up down there.

I took a trip to Mx in 1984. The Peso was valued 2400 to
one US dollar. That same Peso is now worth, what, 7 to 1.
We can thank NAFTA for that.

Just as we did in the 1700-1800's, MX is transitioning
from a Industrial/labor based society to more of a monetary
one.

Greed and laziness will sooner or later catch up there!

The question is WHEN!

Greed and laziness will sooner or later catch up there!

Click to expand...

And then those thousand girls will be out of work; its a tough society we live in.

I just recently did a very small control panel to automatically reverse a conveyor.
There was this man who’s sole job was to fill two hoppers with material with a hand shovel.
They then fitted a conveyor over the hoppers so that the material fell onto it and then my panel filled the 2 hoppers depending on demand.
He watched me with great interest all through the installation - asking questions about it and being very friendly. All along I knew that when I had finished - he was getting the sack.

Most of us here exist to eliminate jobs.

We are about to get a big order in which the justification is the consolidation of six operators to one. In the process, about 15 good paying jobs (ours) are preserved for 6-9 months. In addition, our customer will be able to produce their product for less and give the rest of the jobs in the factory a chance to survive long term.

Unfortunately, the only way to compete against cheap labor is to go to no labor.

Seems like my experience (whatever it is) may start to fail to interest those money-making production people anymore.

Click to expand...

No it's not like this all the point is that in many places around the world the labor cost less than automation with the weekness of the economic status and the incerase in population it's very hard to automate every thing . bawling
In the other hand in europe and US the financial fituation is good and also there is a derease in population specially in europe this makes the automation is a must
This is also beside that in Europe And USA ther is a great concern to Quality More than those countries with ill economic.

As several have said - this is strictly a cost analysis. If it is less expensive to put ten, twenty, or a hundred low paid workers on an assembly line than to automate the process, the "manual" process will win every time . . .

. . . unless quality and repeatability drive cost. Since a human can't match a properly designed automation system for speed, accuracy, and repeatability, the automation wins every time.

The next concern that you should have is when the professional staff in Mexico (China, Singapore, etc) start taking a crack at the automation projects. The manual assembly line works because labor is cheap - professional labor is also inexpensive compared with the same labor rate in more industrialized countries.

Marc

Dont get discouraged!

I do a quite a bit of business in Mexico. All of my customers have come to the realization that in order to compete with the rest of the world (especially China) that not only do they have to improve the "bottom line" but also the quality of their products.

Many Mexican companies are realizing that the best way to do this is to automate thier process'. Many of the American based companies have realized this but, the Mexican companies are comming around.

Another factor that is beginning to push these companies towards automating is the fact that there are companies actually leaving Mexico to go to China. This has forced them to wake-up.

As far as taking away jobs from the manual labor, this is true but we also create jobs for technicians, maintainance, and engineers. We just have to make sure our children go to college!!

Regards,
Chris

I was down in Mexico starting up a coil
steel processing line. The line can do
10-14 coils an 8 hour shift. The workers
there only did 2-3 coils a shift. We
asked them WHY? They told us when they
start getting paid more like the U.S.
workers then they will produce more.
NAFTA fallout will slowly come to a
crawl in the future. The jobs may be
coming back across the border in a
couple of years.

LadderLogic,

I would want you to be consoled... but I'm afraid all of us over there only can finish you off !!

Just notice that you're not alone with such concerns. 15 years ago I provoked my first strike (a whole glass/bottles plant) by selling smart sensors... which were intended to replace around 30 persons. I guess it's not by best achievement !

About SAK-CO TECH's post :

Working along with japanese products I receive sometimes emails showing the way manufacturing companies (will continue to) move. The following text comes from a high-tech japanese company :

---------------<Japanese Engineers Who Move to China>

More and more engineers, whose plants in Japan have undergone
restructuring, are being employed by Chinese companies. While most of
them are on short-term contracts in which they apparently have to
fulfill specific goals, the number of top-class, middle-aged Japanese
engineers working in China seems to be rapidly increasing.

China, which takes in these engineers, is experiencing rapid economic
development and has become the factory of the world. I have been to
China more than ten times. Seeing the young people at work in the
factories I was able feel the possibility of quick growth, but I had
no idea China would develop as rapidly as it actually did. Thirty- and
forty-year-olds give the leading Chinese companies their speed.
For those who experienced the agony of restructuring in Japanese
companies they had trusted, this provides a second chance to work at
something that feels worthwhile.
...
Although technological skill in the manufacturing sector is important
for developing new technology, the technological power to take that
and turn it into products that can contribute to the bottom line are
of utmost importance. This ability is rapidly declining in the
Japanese corporation. With top-class personnel being drained off to
China, this situation, it seems, will get much worse.
...
------------------------------

Now you see LadderLogic, even japanese manufacturers and companies don't know how to manage this trend !!

Anyway be positive ! If you're scared by those issues, you can find out many kinds of automation projects in non-manufacturing fields. Think about electricity production and distribution, environment and water (many many fields there), TV, automatic distributors, machineries in service fields, ... in fact all fields with many clients and wide service networks.

No limit to your imagination... and so many niches that you'll never meet any competitor, since they all focus on manufacturing fields !

Ideas gently provided on request, according to the so-called "Tom Jenkins' Method" : you ask your question on a 20$ bill... ond so on. One request per 20$ banknote !

Good luck.

Laurent