Dark Future of Industrial Automation in USA

I am really concerned about future of Industrial Automation in USA.
Nowdays i see most of the products in the US market are "Made in China"so i came to the conclusion that manufacturing Industry is dieing a slow death in USA.By 2010 i think only Utility industries such as Power,Water,oil and gas will be left in United States which means dark future for Industrial Automation in USA.
Also i would like to know your views about the very few job opportunities that are left in this field .Do you think your job is safe or are you considering a career change and try some different field ?

God Bless and Save America !!

Fer derned near 50 years I has been hearin' thet one thing or another will soon be the death of US jobs or US industry or the US economy. In the '50s we all knew the bomb doomed mankind. In the '60s smart fellers figgered computers and science would end the need fer people to work at all. In the 70's the wise old men figgered thet automation would spell the end of manufacturin' jobs. In the eighties it was mega corporations and comglomerates what would end small companies and be the death of innovation. In the 90's it was NAFTA and the internet that would eliminate most folk's jobs.

I'd a gotten real panicked about all thet if'n I didn't know thet in the 1700's it was the spinning jenny whut would make all men starve to death, and in the late 1800's the reaper would wreak havoc on agriculture, and .........

My daddy only finished fifth grade, and he was "just" an old sodbuster, but he was a purty smart feller. Two things he used t' say apply here. First, he always told me "Get an education - they can't take that away from you." The second thing was "Job security is between your ears."

Now, on occasion you have to be nimble to dodge the pendulum as it swings back and forth, and sometimes you have to change the way you look at your career. But the USA is still a fortunate place. Our economy is hurtin again, and it will recover again, and a feller or gal whut has ambition and brains and is willing to work hard kin still do just fine.

Manufacturing is going offshore, but that is as much because we want it that way as not. Most Americans don't really want to sew jeans together for a living, and a sign of how good we have it is that we don't have to. A lot of Americans don't want to stuff circuit boards, and we have been blessed so we don't have to. History has shown that if we decide we want to do something we by gum get it done, and that isn't changing as far as I can see.

guns and butter

Its called competitive advantage.

Take a Macro Economics course, and stop worrying.

i think you should read some more

I have read several articles in various magazines such as isa's intech and control engineering magazine, about the massive shortage that is going to come upon the automation field in the next 5 to 7 years. From what I gather from the articles the reason for the massive shortages is due to the fact that alot of the guys in the automation field are nearing retirement age. While i was at my past employer at least 75% of the guys i worked with were elgible for retirement within the next 5 years. The articles talked about the lack of people with 5-15 years experience. The field is full of guys with over 15-20 years experience and 0-5 years experience. In the next five years there are suppose to be over 200k job openings due to retirement in the state of texas alone! and thats due to retirement only! I know no one can predict the future but both of these magazines are pretty respectable. With all of these shortages that can only mean one thing for automation workers more money. thats my 2 cents
I will try to locate the articles online and paste some links to them
cya
Dallas

I would like to add a little something to that. I remember in college when I was going through an "IT" type program, and we would have class sizes of 30+ students. When I graduated from that I took another course in Automation and we were lucky to muster class sizes of 10 people (most of them 25 yrs old +).

I see my future as being bright in the automation field not only for the reasons eastkodakguy stated, but because kids coming out of high dont say "I want to go into automation", they say "I want to go into IT and make heaps of money like everyone talks about".
Unfortunately I know to many people who grauated from the IT course and got jobs working in call centers barely making ends meet.

why worry????

theres so much things ta build from combat robots to robot farmers that dont run over kids.....

I personally feel secure in my job. Being an oem of industrial heat treating equipment, I have little overseas competition. Im also heartened by the fact that the VAST majority of IT people coming out of college have no interest in PLCs or automation, and just want to work on web sites or get some other generic IT related work. I seem to find myself being a rarity in IT, and not a commoner. Ive worked on all kinds of systems, heat treat systems, atmosphere generators, forging, chemical processing plants, beer breweries. There is alot of work to be had, you just need to go find it. The concept that all the machines are moving overseas is complete bunk.

Matt

Adam Smith was right

Dear Indian_American (and everyone else),

So long as we can make the product in country for less cost the manufacturing stays here. To make the product for the least cost in most cases involves automating the process and shifting from a lobor intensive process to a skills intensive one.

I would not say that lower labor cost contries lack the skills to automate manufacturing, rather that this country has a splendid array of material and intellectual resources as well as the largest free market economy.

I would speculate that, in the USA, automation skills will continue to be in demand for the forseeable future.

Secure in my SKILLS

I am very secure in my skills, the job however is negotiable. I am here at this job to make money and find satisfaction in what I do. Making money (now that we know WHAT I am, let's discuss my price.), I could move to one of the large cities and make a whole bunch more dollars, BUT my cost of living there would increase just as much if not MORE. Job satisfaction is currently very HIGH now, with a plus of working with some very TALENTED folks. Worst case, it all shuts down and I have to move, no BIG deal. I KNOW that I CAN GET A JOB THAT PAYS, just will I ENJOY it as much. "THEY CALL IT WORK BECAUSE ALL THE OTHER 4 LETTER WORDS WERE TAKEN"

Indian-American???

Hi,
First of all how u r naming urself an indian-american???! R u intrested in discouraging indians going to US or became crazy? US is the only land which has numerous oppur.to educated/experienced indians.It seems your judgement comes from poor experience and u r experience comes from poor judement!Then u stay there wher u feel nomore chances.

Being an indian,educated/experienced in india as a sys.integrator,I am very happy with US.Please discuss something which is useful to all in this forum not your failures!

Re: guns and butter

jdbrandt said:

Its called competitive advantage.

Take a Macro Economics course, and stop worrying.

Click to expand...

Sir,

Sorry to ask this...maybe I am stupid or something...

What does this "macro economics" means? How does it will help the economy of certain country like mine?

Thanks...

about the topic

We can say that most of ours or what they predicts might been coming true. Although I am not americans but I am still do believe that USA can stand alone no matter what happen specially in automation. What thing I respect most in class "A" countries like yours, is their principles. They believe in their people by having a full support in Research and Development, most importantly is the quality of the products. Which we all know is far from the concern of chinese, they are most concern on mass production rather than good quality. USA government still full support on the education system, which is the main foundation of our human lives. As one of our colegues here said, "Everything can get it from you, but the knowledge will be yours forever". As a dark era for automation? I don't think so, although Chinese get or copy the technology of USA or other countries, they cannot still get the main idea of that technology...they always behind in a modern technologies.

Re: Indian-American???

SPRAY said:

Hi,
First of all how u r naming urself an indian-american???! R u intrested in discouraging indians going to US or became crazy? US is the only land which has numerous oppur.to educated/experienced indians.It seems your judgement comes from poor experience and u r experience comes from poor judement!Then u stay there wher u feel nomore chances.

Being an indian,educated/experienced in india as a sys.integrator,I am very happy with US.Please discuss something which is useful to all in this forum not your failures!

Click to expand...

I think he is just only concern on what will be happening in our future. Maybe this will be happen to your country or mine too...so rather having a reaction on this, why we will not change our paradigm to more positive things. As my opinions, we should be prepared all the times, no one can predict our future but GOD alone. Destiny is not a matter of chance but a matter of choice.

SPRAY

I guess Indian Americans thats what they call to Indian community here in USA. Yeah i am discouraging Indians to work in USA in Industrial Automation field.They are always welcome to work in IT field in USA but unfortunately nowdays situation is awful in IT field too !!
If you login to www.monster.com and search for PLC,DCS,SCADA related jobs in USA,You will see very few jobs being posted everyweek and most of them are for Maintainence Technicians and not for Engineers.If any Engineer with 10 years of experience (Like me) dont mind working as a Maintainence Technician (ITI/Diploma holder in India)then he is always welcome to USA.It depends wheather you are interested in climbing new heights in your career or just interested in making some money by doing any type of work in USA.I am definately more interested in my career and i dont see many good opportunities here.Tell me why so many American Engineers are worried about loss of job opprtunities because of outsourcing to India ?? I also read about 94000 US Engineers are unemployed nowdays. I guess USA was a land of opportunities but not anymore for Indian Engineers !!

SPRAY, it was me who replied your post.