{"id":1970,"date":"2004-03-05T02:37:30","date_gmt":"2004-03-05T02:37:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.soulhuntre.com\/items\/date\/2004\/03\/05\/fear-and-loathing-on-the-factory-floor\/"},"modified":"2004-03-05T02:37:30","modified_gmt":"2004-03-05T02:37:30","slug":"fear-and-loathing-on-the-factory-floor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/2004\/03\/05\/fear-and-loathing-on-the-factory-floor\/","title":{"rendered":"Fear and loathing on the factory floor…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Still more on the outsourcing thread<\/a>…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Re: Outsourcing by soulhuntre<\/a> on 3\/4\/04 17:41<\/h1>\n
\n

“Soul, I’m going to poke a few holes”<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That’s OK…cause they aren’t holes. <\/p>\n

“jobs were changed, yes, but normally to requiring a higher level of skill from the people that actually DID the work”<\/p>\n

Sorry, this is untrue. For instance way back when the mass production of firearms started the skills needed dropped from extremely skilled craftsman making a one off item to a skilled (but no longer as skilled) worker running the machines. <\/p>\n

Automation always does one of two things or both.<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Makes possible things that were impossible before (production speed or items that humans are physically impossible to produce by human hands as in microchip fabrication)\n
  • “baked” skills into the machinery so that less skilled workers could do a job that previously took workers with less common skills. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    That’s it, that’s what it does. While form your POV a production line needed skilled workers to run it, from the point of view of others the production line lost a lot of jobs they considered skilled. Buggy whip manufacturers wrote things that sounded a lot like these sorts of posts when cars became common.<\/p>\n

    \n

    “Not that the china and taiwan products are the same quality, they are not, and it reflects in the price.”<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Then if it turns out quality is a important factor then you can<\/b><\/i> compete \ud83d\ude42 If it turns out quality isn’t an issue in this case then you were doomed and obsolete anyway.<\/p>\n

    \n

    “Many years ago, Lionel moved production of their HO scale locos to mexico, five years later they moved it back, but too late.”<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Again, it would seem that the US worker can<\/i> compete. By your own example we see that companies in a market where quality matters will consider factors other than pure price. As this experience spreads companies like Lionel will learn not to make the mistake in the first place.<\/p>\n

    Basically, what you are arguing against is automation and the loss of skilled workers. That’s OK, its a common enough thing to argue against in history – but it isn’t a solution, it’s just a concern. Technology moves on, new things are created and teh market and the workers adjust.<\/p>\n

    Then I think of all the companies that simply couldn’t exist without the use of the high end computer controlled milling machines and I am please for the jobs they are creating and the small firms that are now contributing to the economy. Where some people saw it as a tragedy for the worker someone else realized they could (for instance) mill custom car wheels from a design 4 at a time in a day or less at a price that made it worth doing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Still more on the outsourcing thread…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":53128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[278],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/legacyiamsenseiken.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}