Tank,
That was a very interesting take, where I work we are on the top of the food chain integrating a lot of parts and components from other companies. One thing that I seem to think may be taking place in this industry is there actually appears to be a massive inefficiency being brought on by the Harvard educated MBA.
What I have seen in many of the suppliers to my company and my company itself is that they all think you have to outsource and that some how no one can make any profit making anything these days
. It really is quite amazing when you think of it that an aircraft maker no longer thinks that they can make money making aircraft and the parts that go into it but such is the gospel that they preach in Harvard and the rest of the elite schools.
What gets me scratching my head is when these companies outsource what are often speaking relatively low volume parts they go to job shops who are low bidders and are making them on their own equipment. Unlike when you are making your own parts where you have the luxury of designing your parts around your machine, and your machinery, and production floor around your parts and your parts only it doesn't seem like the outsource vendors get such opportunity. I would think that this much less efficient.
Some how I doubt that the job shops that they are turning to will be optimizing their production lines around the customer's product not knowing if next year they will have the product line.
Maybe I am wrong but it seems like the level of outsourcing for the sake of outsourcing taking place in corporate America today is incredibly inefficient. Some of the stuff I see seems crazy. I look at simple components that 20yrs ago we would have designed and had done in house, they would have been perfect jobs to train a young engineers on. Back in they day they would probably have had a senior engineer (who also worked other projects) overseeing a younger guy or two who would design the part, tooling and put it into production.
Today that part is supplied by a top name vendor such as Goodrich, Parker, etc... it requires and army of purchasing people, and contract management people on both ends, and the same lead engineer and junior engineers at the vendor, plus on the other side of the fence the company having the thing designed needs its own engineers and purchasing department to supervise and fight additional costs due to changes. Then you look at this part only to find out that the vendor designing further outsources almost every part of the manufacturing themselves adding even more levels of complication. I wonder if the guy far down that food chain is really willing to invest as much in special equipment if he knows he can always later loose the job to another low bidder.
Maybe it is just me but it would seem as an industry we are outsourcing and spreading more wealth, knowledge and intellectual product then the MBA's ever realized. I am not sure how much of this trikles down to the guy running the machines but it sure as heck seems complicated, inefficient and crazy to me.
To see what I am talking of one really needs to look no further than Boeing's costly 787 experience.
Boeing 787 | 787 Dreamliner teaches Boeing costly lesson on outsourcing - Los Angeles Times
Adam
Cleveland has been on the down fall for a number of years and nothing seams to help here.
