By Lloyd Graff After a devastating year which saw sales drop 70 percent for major world machine tool builders, well capitalized firms like Mori Seiki and DMG are contemplating building machines in the United States. According to the Japanese press Mori and its partner in America, DMG, are expecting to start building machines in a jointly operated factory by 2011. Since both are headquartered in the Chicago suburbs, that appears to be the likely site, though Davis, California, near Sacramento is also in contention. In other news, Industrias Romi S.A., the Brazilian machine tool builder, has made an unsolicited offer…
Author: apalmes
By Noah Graff The Atlantic Monthly recently posted a vlog by San Diego State University professor Jean Twenge in which she discusses her theories about the inflated self-esteem of today’s young people in America. According to Twenge, young people today have had it reinforced to them, that they’re “special” and they have higher expectations than previous generations. In the last 10 years, an average of 50 percent of high school students said they expect to get a graduate degree. That is twice the percentage of students with that expectation in the 70s. While in reality only around 10 percent actually…
By Lloyd Graff Hans Peters needs some help. He recently bought a machining business with several late model Citizen CNC Swiss-type lathes. He has business, but his key setup and programming guy was the previous owner who temporarily stayed on to ease his path into the operation. But now he’s moving on shortly to run another company he owns, which leaves Hans in big need of a sophisticated CNC person to join his firm, M&M Specialties, in the small town of Greeneville, Tennessee, located between Knoxville and Nashville. It’s not an area like the Twin Cities, or even Memphis or…
By Lloyd Graff They say tough times are the best ones to start a business, and Zach Peterson hopes to build his new machining company, Sodak Machining Inc., near Rapid City, South Dakota, out of the ashes of the recession. Zach is 28, with 13 years of being around machine shops. He grew up in Gillette, Wyoming, where his father mines coal. He took high school shop classes, did a two-year tech college stint, and has worked on lathes and mills all along the way. He started up in a pole barn outside of Rapid City, about the same time…
By Noah Graff Sunday night, after the Super Bowl, I watched the premier of the new CBS reality show “Undercover Boss.” I have to say I was quite moved by the end of the episode. For those of you out there who haven’t seen it, it’s a reality show in which heads of large corporations go “undercover” with a film crew to work amongst the company’s average employees. In the first episode the COO of Waste Management, Larry O’Donnell, works as a litter collector, Porta Potty cleaner, garbage man, along with several other menial jobs. The employees he works alongside…
By Lloyd Graff The cross currents of job growth, environmental protection, energy and raw material security for the United States make for a public policy jumble. The Obama administration is showering incentives to build alternative energy facilities using wind and solar under the “green jobs” theme and some Republicans have joined in the chorus. The sad fact is that the subsidies usually benefit foreign manufacturing more than domestic. Bloomberg recently ran an informative piece talking about a $2.1 million subsidy for Suntech Manufacturing to build a poly-silicon solar panel plant in Goodyear, Arizona. It will employ 70 workers to assemble…
By Lloyd Graff Sunday’s Super Bowl hinged on the recovery of a surprise onside kick by the New Orleans Saints at the beginning of the second half. Saints coach Sean Payton gambled that his team could recover the ball and change the momentum of the game. It worked. The Saints then outscored Indianapolis 25 to 17 in the second half to upset the Colts. I laud Payton for the gamble. Most pro coaches are extremely conservative in mapping a game, but Payton was willing to gamble, as he had done late in the first half by shunning a sure field…
By Lloyd Graff The bi-annual IMTS gripefest will be upon us in half a year. An article in the February 5th Chicago Tribune documents why people hate McCormick Place. Stupid work rules, $66 per hour laborers, and overpriced food—that’s my town. Today’s dramatic cuts in the number of Chicago Transit Authority routes will also make the city even more alluring. The Trib. article compares Chicago, Las Vegas and Orlando—the three biggies for huge conventions. Orlando maybe cheap, Vegas has craps tables, but there’s no place like Chi-town for pizza and hot dogs. Question: Will you be going to IMTS this…
By Lloyd Graff Is paying overtime rather than bringing in new employees lean manufacturing practice? For adherents to lean concepts, the question of how to handle a “bullwhip” effect where companies need to rebuild inventories is a challenge for suppliers. (All this “bullwhip” talk is making me hum the theme song from “Rawhide.” See clip below.) People who were laid off may be unavailable for a call back or may be happily pruned. Overtime is expensive, and eventually core workers get burned out working six or seven days a week or 12 hour shifts. Temps are often an imperfect answer because they require…
For EMC Precision Machining in Elyria, Ohio, it was just another day at the office last Friday—except for President Obama stopping by for a walkthrough and photo op. For Jeff and Brad Ohlemacher, the owners, it was a chance to show off the plant to, who knows, maybe a big new customer. The video on their Web site shows the Ohlemacher brothers introducing the President to family members including Jack, Brad’s young son and several engineers in the plant. Obama came to Elyria and Lorain, Ohio, to connect with small business people who are the key to new hiring in…