Outsourcing

[dougr]

dougr:





You're just so bitter. AND RIGHT ON THE MONEY!

Not bitter, sad and skeptical. Am concerned for my kid's future..





Was asked during an interview last year how I felt about training Mexicans. Response was I'd do it but would rather be training Amercan kids then asked the Interviewer how he felt and he agreed...
Edited by: dougr

 

[design-engine]

As far as training persons we have to remember that our
economy is more global than ever in world history. It is more about
competition now than it ever! <i style="">Retraining
is so important as workers/persons have to learn fast and stay on top of their game.[/i] Management also needs to remain fast on their feet
and so often humans do what they always do. This might be one reason I am
pumped up about training and re-training seemingly more so than any other Pro/E
training provider. Alow me to rant. It takes leadership like manufactures
making it mandatory for 40+ hrs per month re-training.




All this which is why I make a decree to re-train persons on hi end techniques instead
of simply learning the tools. I aim
to teach technique as opposite to PTC training providers who teach tools and
menu clicks. Since training providers around the US States are complaining about
design engine taking their business

 

[Roger]

dougr;


I was being facetious, of course, mocking one of the other responders. It is sad, when a person forces a company to forgo it's own employees for a little extra profit. My youngest just purchased some door stops, made in China. They are made by machine, packaged by machine. Now, just where is the cost savings? A few cents per? And the quality? I have not installed them yet, however, I am concerned about thethread material. Oh, well.

 

[design-engine]

Keeping American workers competitive


Abridged: U.S. Newswire



CHICAGO, IL --
U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao recently alerted labor, business
and academic leaders attending the 13th National Labor-Management
Conference to the need for labor and management to work together to
keep America's workforce competitive in the worldwide economy.

"In
the 21st century workforce, it's more important than ever for labor and
management to work together," said Secretary Chao. "Our future
competitiveness rests on the strength and skills of our workforce. If
we fail to make the investments necessary to sustain a competitive
workforce, our nation's economic security will suffer."

Our
nation is part of an increasingly worldwide economy. Some
countries are in a race to the bottom, competing fiercely to secure the
lowest skilled, lowest paid jobs for their citizens. That is not where
our country's economic future lies. We want to attract and create the
highest skilled, highest paid jobs in the world for America's workers.
But to realize this goal, we must ensure that our nation's workers
remain among the most productive and skilled in the world. America is
transitioning to a knowledge-based economy, creating millions of new
jobs in industries that did not exist a generation ago and which demand
highly educated and skilled workers.

 

[bobbailey]

Everyone needs to read a book called "The World is Flat" by Thomas L Friedman. It changed the way I looked at outsourcing.





Bob in Sarasota

 

[dougr]

Everyone needs to read a book called "The World is Flat" by Thomas L Friedman. It changed the way I looked at outsourcing.





Bob in Sarasota

So why did it change your outlook ??

 

[bobbailey]

I was completely against out sourcing. I did not have an open mind when confronted with it. Now I believe that if you dont have an open mind with this you will be left behind. The E generation is borderless and really has to be. India and soon to be China are growing very fast. If you dont go with the flow you will be left behind. I still buy American and would rather someone in my country do the work I need done. Out sourcing only makes sense for some things. Take a look at our web sight. www.sunhydraulics.com It was created byIndianprogrammers but they were managed by an american company. The web sight is very complex. No data is stored when you look at product pages. It is built each time you look at a product page from engineering maintained database. The building of the web sight went smooth as we had an american project manager that dealt with the indian programmers. The american company went out of business and we soon found out how hard the language and time difference barrier was when we had to deal with it ourselves. This is the biggest thing to overcome.


Some things make sense to outsource and some things do not. I personally think that outsourcing will make us better at what we do in the states. Competition always does. We have been sitting back too much in the states. The world will pass us by if we dont pay attention.


The book is a good book to read as it tells you why the E generation is borderless. The world economy doing well is better for us than just our economy by itself.


Bob

 

[dougr]

Keeping American workers competitive
Abridged: U.S. Newswire


CHICAGO, IL -- U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao recently alerted labor, business and academic leaders attending the 13th National Labor-Management Conference to the need for labor and management to work together to keep America's workforce competitive in the worldwide economy.

"In the 21st century workforce, it's more important than ever for labor and management to work together," said Secretary Chao. "Our future competitiveness rests on the strength and skills of our workforce. If we fail to make the investments necessary to sustain a competitive workforce, our nation's economic security will suffer."

Our nation is part of an increasingly worldwide economy. Some countries are in a race to the bottom, competing fiercely to secure the lowest skilled, lowest paid jobs for their citizens. That is not where our country's economic future lies. We want to attract and create the highest skilled, highest paid jobs in the world for America's workers. But to realize this goal, we must ensure that our nation's workers remain among the most productive and skilled in the world. America is transitioning to a knowledge-based economy, creating millions of new jobs in industries that did not exist a generation ago and which demand highly educated and skilled workers.

So we're not going to have a need for trash collectors, carpenters, steelworkers, McDonalds' clerks, truck drivers, janitors, laborers, construction workers, car mechanics ??


Try outsourcing these jobs overseas...


Like it or not these "the lowest skilled, lowest paid jobs" are and always will be a part of our future.


Imagine someone in this position making statements like this??One real problem we're facing are the "ninnies" at the top like this..


What is a "knowledge-based" economy anyway?? Aren't all economies grounded in some kind of technology (industrial, agricultural, transportation, medical, military, manufacturingetc, etc, etc) which requires some kind of "knowledge-base".

 

[bobbailey]

I completely agree with the article. The type of jobs you are talking about is threatoned by a different thing than outsourcing. Illegal alien's.


Like I said, not everything is a good thing to out source.





Bob in Sarasota

 

[dougr]

I completely agree with the article. The type of jobs you are talking about is threatoned by a different thing than outsourcing. Illegal alien's.


Like I said, not everything is a good thing to out source.





Bob in Sarasota

Illegal Aliens (sorry "undocumented immigrants") at the bottom and Outsourcing at the top - what's left ?? Is there a middle ??


Believe it or not I'm not completely against outsourcing either and cost is definitely the main driver.


Theproblem I have is that a lot of these decisions are made based on "partial costs" and they neglect small, minoritems like the cost of quality (scrap rates, MRB, Engineeringsupportetc), additional transportation costs,the cost of export, longer leadtimes - the real world stuff that academics don't seem to know about and glory hunters turn a blind eye to..


And what about the erosion of our tax base ??Undocumenteds generally don't pay taxes and employees overseas aren't subject to US State or Federal taxes (as far as I know..).


Doug in California
Edited by: dougr

 

[design-engine]

TRUTH:

You get what you pay for. + No matter what you do. Buy a corporate
identity or a college education or a car. Most engineers know that with out saying.



CON:

it takes more effort on a managers part.

I personally will not outsource our programming -business
unit ... deepinteractive.com FYI. I would rather pay 75 USD per hour
for programming than pay 25 USD per hour in <st1:country-regi on="" w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">India</st1lace></st1:country-regi> not because I cant micro
manage. I need someone to read between the lines and can do some things that I
did not tell them. Like make the navigation of a website user friendly.
I spend money changing things and I would rather make the client happy
fast and not make revisions.



PRO:

I like the time difference since I work 24 hrs per day anyways. I
can get things done over seas while everyone else on the team sleeps.

No hard feelings INDIA friends. If we had someone in our
office who could manage the projects it might be different but I am too
busy to have to think about all the details that can be so easy to
miss. And that is what most clients pay for those details.
One of the girls in our office speaks 5 india launguages and she can't
manage that stuff.





Edited by: design-engine

 

[cmiwb]

I had to deal with a "Technical Design Center" in India. The lanquage problem was a bit of an issue, especially as the person I was dealing with preferred to use the phonerather thanemail. What surprised me was when this person asked me for the density of steel... then questioned me on the units... then asked for E...


When all was said and done I'd spent 3X the amount of time on the phone as it would've taken me to do the work myself. Iwould care butit doesn't count asI get paid by the hour and this work wasrequested by higher-ups who are told to utilize this "Technical Design Center". I'm sure this place does some valuable work and it can't all be of the same quality/efficiency as I experienced.

 

[Roger]

dougr:


You are, again, right on.


The main factor here that is being ignored is simple greed. Please, don't tell me that we cannot make a dress shirt here in the U.S.A., sell it for $50-$60, and not make a REASONABLE profit. Give me a break!


I'm currently designing a new table saw, to be built here in the U.S.A. Craftsman tables saws made inChina!All I need now is funding for the prototype and beta versions. Anyone out there that would like to invest in this, that do not need 50% return on their money?


Last point;


When they finish sending all the manufacturing and engineeringjobs overseas, what will the Americans do for a living that will provide enough money to buy these products? Slight exaggeration, for sure, but legitimate, never the less.