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A challenge ti America.

juergenwt

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Today Chancellor Merkel met Pres. Trump. Part of her discussion with the President was about the training of qualified
people for the American Industry. She promoted the two tier system used in German education as a model for the American system. If you want more foreign investment in the US, than you have to provide the qualified workforce to staff those facilities. Pres.Trump seemed to agree. We are now at a point where many manufacturing companies willing to invest in the US are having a big problem finding qualified people. In order to produce a high quality product you need highly trained people. Not just someone who fumbled his way into it. So before anybody can open a manufacturing plant in the US (other than making brooms and such) they will have to train a lot of people to bring them up to the standards of training in Europe. Otherwise the product they produce here will be mostly inferior and these companies will not take a chance on having their reputation ruined. Now - if they spend years and millions on training people they do not want someone else to raid their workforce.
So what is the answer?
All this big talk about making America great again is nothing but a balloon full of hot air. We just don't have the people anymore to do the job. Period.
It will take nothing less than another "Manhattan Project" to bring America back to where it is competitive in manufacturing. Unfortunately we are fast running out of people who could be the teachers.
We may be able to school or import a lot of people to work in Silicon Valley and as such we may produce a lot of computer programs. However we will have nobody to convert those programs into a product. Unless we farm it out, and that bypasses the manufacturing part.
So good luck Mr. President. You don't have the slightest idea of what you are talking about when you talk about bringing jobs back to the US.
In the old days we had a steady stream of trained people from Europe entering the manufacturing industry in the US.
Now we have a wave of untrained people that know how to sell in 7-11 stores etc. and people that by tradition know how to operate a business by knowing every way possible of getting around paying taxes.
The IRS is having a hard time to break into this since all this is conducted by family members in different countries. Money transfers are made on a so called honor system and no paper trail is available. Getting around paying taxes is a sport in many of these countries and if caught - an honorable thing that went wrong. But may be that is what our new President admires and everybody else is just plain stupid.
Ps.: Pls excuse the typo: A challenge to America.
 
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Today Chancellor Merkel met Pres. Trump. Part of her discussion with the President was about the training of qualified
people for the American Industry. She promoted the two tier system used in German education as a model for the American system. If you want more foreign investment in the US, than you have to provide the qualified workforce to staff those facilities. Pres.Trump seemed to agree. We are now at a point where many manufacturing companies willing to invest in the US are having a big problem finding qualified people. In order to produce a high quality product you need highly trained people. Not just someone who fumbled his way into it. So before anybody can open a manufacturing plant in the US (other than making brooms and such) they will have to train a lot of people to bring them up to the standards of training in Europe. Otherwise the product they produce here will be mostly inferior and these companies will not take a chance on having their reputation ruined. Now - if they spend years and millions on training people they do not want someone else to raid their workforce.
So what is the answer?

This could have the potential of becoming both an interesting and informative post.

No two European countries have identical education systems but the one thing most have in common is that education probably receives more funding than I think US gives to schools. Here education (technical, college, university), after normal school, is regarded as free in that it is state funded.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I don't know of any college or university in Europe where being a good "sportsperson" is a qualification.

From what I read there just seems to simply be too much pressure on shops and companies to "educate" their employees with general training, health care etc. etc. These factors are government controlled (in one way or another)in Europe.

My apologies for my next observation but I don't think Trump knows anything about what is needed to get US industry back to where it was. He's never been in a situation where it was necessary for him to learn anything about it. This is the time when listening to advisors with experience would really help him. When he was sitting next to Merkel I got the impression he was thinking more about what he was going to say next more than listening (and understanding) what Merkel said. In fact he just looked bored. I guess she'll have to wait until he tweets to find out what he really thinks.

Trump and Merkel Meet in the Oval Office - YouTube
President Donald Trump hosts Angela Merkel at White House - YouTube

Technical Education in Western Europe on JSTOR

JITE v4�n3 - A Comparative Study of the Trends In Career and Technical Education Among European Countries, The United States, and the Republic of China
 
well when you wipe out industries you wipe out the people who are in it now, the teachers who teach it to future people and any drive to be in it for the person undertaking the training.
Sure there is a few hurdles to overcome to get it back running, people, capital, and equipment.

What has Trump manufactured himself is also a issue. However these things have taken some time to get to this point and it will take you the some time plus to get it back.
Its a funny thing but Trump won't bring it back, he may facilitate some things but it will be the American People who will do the work to get it back, they need some structure in place to allow this.

As for the metric thing, a design done in Imperial using imperial parts can be a good item, so can a design completed with metric units and parts, why cannot we have fully conversant standards they allow for either. a Apple that is 50.8 mm in diameter is still a apple.
 
well when you wipe out industries you wipe out the people who are in it now, the teachers who teach it to future people and any drive to be in it for the person undertaking the training.
Sure there is a few hurdles to overcome to get it back running, people, capital, and equipment.

What has Trump manufactured himself is also a issue. However these things have taken some time to get to this point and it will take you the some time plus to get it back.
Its a funny thing but Trump won't bring it back, he may facilitate some things but it will be the American People who will do the work to get it back, they need some structure in place to allow this.

As for the metric thing, a design done in Imperial using imperial parts can be a good item, so can a design completed with metric units and parts, why cannot we have fully conversant standards they allow for either. a Apple that is 50.8 mm in diameter is still a apple.

I don't disagree with what you write except to ask "Is a 2" apple an apple"? Sounds more like a large cherry :cheers:
 
He he he could be a big cherry...well if you can get one that big or a small stewing apple.

One more thing to facilitate people getting things back they may need to look at what can we do to make things efficient? Who gets the cut of the pie and how much.
Just a hunch but it looks like some bankers are getting a cut larger than their productive input to a business, ditto to insurance types.

Also What demand will there be for certain items what are the inputs and what can be done to make inputs efficiently managed. i.e. someone may require sheet steel in 5' width can someone produce a run for that business so wastage is minimised. What would be the minimum required? Can we seed finance the step? what are the returns? Who gets the return? how is the return divided. Sounds more japanese in thinking, which i like.

I think the chinese Gov targets industries and focuses effort of a range of people to make a project work to their countries benefit. More organised like in a time of war, well in western time of war is the only case this happens the rest is free market thinking. But if initial demand is not high enough the step can be missed at the expense of long term gain.

I suppose its more like the german method of financing used after the WW2 to fund business.
 
As for the metric thing, a design done in Imperial using imperial parts can be a good item, so can a design completed with metric units and parts, why cannot we have fully conversant standards they allow for either. a Apple that is 50.8 mm in diameter is still a apple.

That's true but if I have a choice between a 50mm apple that uses metric sized fasteners to hold it together versus a 50.8mm one that uses UNC/UNF, I'm buying the metric one. I don't want to deal with interchange issues nor carry 2 sets of fasteners, wrenches etc etc.

You guys are so damn parochial it isn't funny. The rest of the planet has gone metric and you think you can tell us we need to accept what you want to build simply because you're too lazy/indifferent/incompetent/arrogant to build to SI dimensions?

Forget it. Build to metric and label it in inches or whatever for domestic consumption instead. You aren't the sole source of anything any more except maybe high tech weapons systems.

PDW
 
If only we had gone metric cold turkey....

Just how did this metric thing start again? If you want to talk about how superior the imperial/metric system is and why it should be used everywhere - than
start a new thread. Nowhere in my thread do I talk about metric.
 
Just how did this metric thing start again? If you want to talk about how superior the imperial/metric system is and why it should be used everywhere - than
start a new thread. Nowhere in my thread do I talk about metric.

Advice? Reply to a remark like that and you start the ball rolling ;)

A measurement is a measurement but metric is easier to learn assuming you do have all 10 fingers.
 
...(other than making brooms and such).....

Not so, broom making is highly competitive with automated machinery.

We used to have an excellent apprenticeship system that turnout tool and mold makers. A lot of manufacturing is outsourcing tool and mold work to outside shops that to be competitive do not have apprenticeships.

Tom
 
Advice? Reply to a remark like that and you start the ball rolling ;)

A measurement is a measurement but metric is easier to learn assuming you do have all 10 fingers.

I have been teaching Machine shop and related courses in a Wisconsin Technical college for 30 years starting in 1968. Shortly after I began teaching the push was for teaching in metric measurement rather than inch measurement. You should have seen the rube Goldberg attachments to lathe dials to allow increments in mm rather than inches. They didn't last long. I have been using pc based cad/cam systems since 1985, and the conversion factor to go from mm to inches is to multiply mm by .03937; and to go from inches to mm multiply inches by 25.4. That solves the problem.

It is easier to set up a lathe for cutting threads in the inch system, cutting metric threads on a lathe is a process that is not easy, due to the fact that the thread cutting dial tells you when to engage the split nuts when cutting inch threads, this doesn't work when cutting metric threads. When cutting metric threads you cannot disengage the split nuts. You must run the spindle backward to get to the start of the thread. Of course cutting threads on a cnc lathe does not make any difference between inch threads and metric threads.

The inch system is still the main system used in American machine shops, and will be in the future.
 
Good Subject juergenwt,
I don't like stepping into political theory, but you got my attention. President Trump who I personally was never a fan of has a great opportunity before him, and I hope he succeeds. The true question that should be asked is, can he create demand for our goods? Our manufacturing sector is steady right now, but I do want it to continue to expand.
What I dislike most is how politicians from both sides use the phrase "Rust Belt". I'm on the west coast and I do business in the "Stupid Belt", there is nothing rusty going on in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois. Manufacturing is expanding well in this region, they are re-tooling at a rate that I have never seen.
A message to Mr. President Trump; don't ever use the phrase "Rust Belt" again.
otrlt
 
The inch system is still the main system used in American machine shops, and will be in the future.

Yeah and that's your problem, except you don't actually understand that it *is* a problem.

I don't care but you're really vulnerable to countries setting up non-tariff barriers on anything made outside the metric system. Given nearly all the world is metric, you'd have a real hard time complaining about it.

You've already kissed goodbye to a big chunk of your manufactured exports. How much more can you afford to lose? Do you think a market of 330 million people is enough?

PDW
 
I don't disagree with what you write except to ask "Is a 2" apple an apple"? Sounds more like a large cherry :cheers:

There are wild versions of apples here in the Midwest that are 2in. in dia. We usually refer to them as crab apples. Very bitter and not much good. Even the deer avoid eating them unless they are really hungry.

And yes, they are still considered apples.
 
Yeah and that's your problem, except you don't actually understand that it *is* a problem.

I don't care but you're really vulnerable to countries setting up non-tariff barriers on anything made outside the metric system. Given nearly all the world is metric, you'd have a real hard time complaining about it.

You've already kissed goodbye to a big chunk of your manufactured exports. How much more can you afford to lose? Do you think a market of 330 million people is enough?

PDW

Well, for a lot of things we make here, the domestic market is more than enough. It's certainly large enough to teach an entrepreneur about mass production. Just to use the automotive performance aftermarket as an example--the units of measure are irrelevant--the Australian market is so tiny that most US manufacturers consider right-hand-drive product variants not to be worth the tooling cost. I regret having to put it so bluntly, but that is an example of just why we don't consider it a "problem."

Full disclosure: As a matter of policy my company has offered all its products mirror-image since 2000. If a down-under sale of one of these products isn't made, it's never because the potential customer cares whether an internal part is one inch instead of 25mm, it's that he can't afford it. Part of that is your high import duties, which the customer finds extremely frustrating but which I just don't have time to care about. Again, I am sorry if you interpret this as rude or condescending but I know of no other way to say it.
 
If only we had gone metric cold turkey....

That would have been and is a total impossibility.

Japan and Europe both had a huge advantage by the destruction of WWII as it had left most of their manufacturing base in shambles. It was the perfect time to embrace new standards if you are starting over from rubble.

The US, had a huge manufacturing buildup from WWII that only reinforced our commitment to the Imperial system even more. We had all of the fairly new tooling of the war effort available for immediate use to manufacture consumer goods.

It wasn't until the 70's that we even entertained the idea of going Metric. Meanwhile everyone else used it as a way to protect their own fledgling manufacturing base from the US. Standards are standards. The Imperial system is far from perfect but the Metric system has its own issues with defining things such as pressure fittings. Ironically some things like piping standards still favors the Imperial system due to thread standards (NPT and BSPT).

The problem in the US is that there is a tremendous amount of support required for just to maintaining the existing Imperial standards infra-structure. To go cold turkey would have been incredibly expensive then and even more now.

The gradual adoption is most cost effective and in reality, the proliferation of computer technology has made dimensioning in either system a rather moot point.

The real issue is of fasteners and thread definitions, which of themselves are not Metric centric but just a matter of definition and adoption. Some things are just not available in a "Metric format", such as many electronic chips. The original format was defined in Imperial units and that has become the standard.

As time progresses, we will eventually become more and more metric but I seriously doubt if the whole world will go completely truly Metric since there will always be standards that are legacy standards.

Sort of like hours, minutes, and seconds as a time unit. Ancient standard that we have carried forward yet we have defined the second as a unit in Imperial and Metric terms, very likely to never change either.
 
Today Chancellor Merkel met Pres. Trump. Part of her discussion with the President was about the training of qualified
people for the American Industry. She promoted the two tier system used in German education as a model for the American system. If you want more foreign investment in the US, than you have to provide the qualified workforce to staff those facilities. Pres.Trump seemed to agree. We are now at a point where many manufacturing companies willing to invest in the US are having a big problem finding qualified people. In order to produce a high quality product you need highly trained people. Not just someone who fumbled his way into it. So before anybody can open a manufacturing plant in the US (other than making brooms and such) they will have to train a lot of people to bring them up to the standards of training in Europe. Otherwise the product they produce here will be mostly inferior and these companies will not take a chance on having their reputation ruined. Now - if they spend years and millions on training people they do not want someone else to raid their workforce.
So what is the answer?
All this big talk about making America great again is nothing but a balloon full of hot air. We just don't have the people anymore to do the job. Period.
It will take nothing less than another "Manhattan Project" to bring America back to where it is competitive in manufacturing. Unfortunately we are fast running out of people who could be the teachers.
We may be able to school or import a lot of people to work in Silicon Valley and as such we may produce a lot of computer programs. However we will have nobody to convert those programs into a product. Unless we farm it out, and that bypasses the manufacturing part.
So good luck Mr. President. You don't have the slightest idea of what you are talking about when you talk about bringing jobs back to the US.
In the old days we had a steady stream of trained people from Europe entering the manufacturing industry in the US.
Now we have a wave of untrained people that know how to sell in 7-11 stores etc. and people that by tradition know how to operate a business by knowing every way possible of getting around paying taxes.
The IRS is having a hard time to break into this since all this is conducted by family members in different countries. Money transfers are made on a so called honor system and no paper trail is available. Getting around paying taxes is a sport in many of these countries and if caught - an honorable thing that went wrong. But may be that is what our new President admires and everybody else is just plain stupid.
Ps.: Pls excuse the typo: A challenge to America.

The world has a bigger problem than it realizes.

Merckel in particular, though she is promoting a two tiered approach to education, will have a huge problem on her hands with the recent immigrant population. They are from a foreign culture that has not been schooled in the German education system. This will be a huge challenge to the German social structure and all of Europe, as they attempt to assimilate the new arrivals. Germany will need at least 10yrs. before they once again are at equilibrium as far as training goes. The problem is that they do not realize what is happening.

With the general European negative population growth, aging demographics, and the new immigrant population, it is very likely that even Germany's current system will be radically changed in the next 5yrs. unless they depart from their current path. I do not think Merkel realizes what they are in for culturally and economically.

I think the US problem is not one of education as much as what we value as a society. I remember in the late 60's and 70's when everyone bought into the idea that white collar jobs were more valuable than blue collar jobs. The educational system reinforced this and basically assumed that losers would do blue collar and winners would do white collar jobs.

The problem with this is that neither type of job is more valuable to society. Both are needed and necessary.

I also feel that Germany's two tiered approach will be inadequate in the near future. Today's work place requires workers that are much more rounded in their core knowledge base than ever before. Many of these skills can not be transferred to the next generation through a traditional apprentice type program or even traditional classroom teaching. The problem is that traditional methods of teaching in the past is too slow for today's needs. The rate of change of new technologies is making the old ways of teaching antiquated, especially traditional higher education.

The key core skills that everyone seems to miss are such things as simple and complex problem solving, spatial relational skills, and a good sense of common sense. Most of these skills are learned at a very early age through play. Toys and activities such as blocks, Legos, Lincoln Logs, Erector Set, Chemistry Set, etc. All of these aid in developing crucial skills that carry forward into the work place. Unfortunately, playing video games does not necessarily aid in developing these core skills. They are excellent for developing hand-eye coordination and assisting in developing a remedial level of computer literacy but it mainly ends there today with the current games environment.

Until the recent present, the US did benefit from a skilled new immigrant population but it also had a foundational educational system that encouraged and valued personal education. i.e. the one room school house. It should be remembered that we produced a significant number of Nobel Prize winners and Industrialists from this system.

When Albert Einstein came to the US in the late 30's the one thing that he saw that made the US so much different from Europe was that the Europeans referred to I will do this and I will do that. The general population in the US made comments that we will do this or that. At that time period we still had a sense of national identity. This was a key value that enabled us to win WWII.

At some point we, the US embraced complacency and mediocrity and especially in the mass manufacturing sector.

In 1961, President John Kennedy challenged the US to put a man on the moon in 10yrs. We did it in 8yrs. We went from being No. 2 behind the Russians to being No.1. We did not have the technology, training, or need. We did not like being No.2 and we had the will to succeed. The fear of the Cold War also helped immensely. And we did this with slide rules.

I do not wish to see the US approach this through arrogance but we do need the will to be really good at what we do. No matter if it is sweeping the floor or engineering.

By the way, making a really good broom does take a lot of skill. A very simple device but requires significant core knowledge to make a really good one.

What we are in short supply of is the will to excel. That requires motivation and leadership. Not sure if Trump is the right guy but he is the first politician to even mention it in years.
 
PDW needs to take a break from the standards comments this thread is about how to approach a problem and what each poster thinks could be a possible way to tackle it.
Maybe one of Trumps staff will search it and take on some ideas or at least use critical thinking on each point.

The effort to change something has to lead to a measurable improvement in production or allocation of effort exerted. If resources applied leads to little gain the American Peoples standard of living will not increase.

the above post raises some very good points to think about, social attitudes being one.
 
Maybe one of Trumps staff will search it and take on some ideas or at least use critical thinking on each point.

Maybe Hell will freeze over.

If only what you wrote was possible. So far Trump only seems to listen to what he wants to hear and certainly doesn't take kindly to what he regards as criticism..
 
........... most US manufacturers consider right-hand-drive product variants not to be worth the tooling cost. I regret having to put it so bluntly, but that is an example of just why we don't consider it a "problem."

You probably don't realise just how many countries have LHD and their populations.

List of countries with left-hand traffic - Wikipedia

I'm sure non US car manufacturers appreciate it if there are many that think like you.
 








 
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