Are you happy about the price of gas falling below $2 per gallon? You probably should not be. You should feel angry and scared, unless you drive 150,000 miles a year or make mostly automotive gear. If you live in the rest of the machining world a sinking feeling should accompany the sinking price of petrol and natural gas. We are in a severe commodities recession now and may be headed toward a deflating commodities depression. The price drop has been caused by several factors and currently shows little sign of reversing. The biggest reason is China’s slowdown in manufacturing.…
Author: Lloyd Graff
On Thanksgiving our family goes around the table and each one of us tells what we’re happy about and thankful for in our lives. What’s fascinating about humans is how one person can feel miserable by a certain set of circumstances, while a different person feels happy and thankful about the same scenario. National Public Radio’s “This American Life” ran a story earlier this year chronicling a group of girl scouts held captive in a Chinese concentration camp during World War II. In 1941 a group of mostly British and American children, who were attending a boarding school in the…
Donald Trump’s brand is his outrageousness, but mixed in with his narcissism and insults are some occasionally thought provoking statements. After the Paris attacks he said that if people had been armed, the loss of life would have been minimized in Paris. I actually think he is right about that, though it may not be a winning argument for everybody on the street packing a firearm. Military, paramilitary or martial arts training is a plus for civilians who will not be passive victims. The three Americans who disarmed the terrorist recently on the Brussels to Paris train are a case…
Scott Livingston is an entrepreneurial, extremely energetic guy who has spent his life in the machining world. He also knows when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em. Nine years ago he opened a satellite facility in Guyamas, Mexico, five hours south of Tucson, to augment his successful aerospace components operation in Hartford, Connecticut. Scott wanted to take advantage of the comparatively low labor rates in Mexico. He studied the issues he knew he would face as a small business owner starting from scratch in a country with a different language and work style. The area had a technical…
I am one of thousands of small court judges whose work in the justice system is at the retail level. I move streams of low level offenses through a system that provides little insulation from the jagged shards of life. There are few silk stocking lawyers in my court, and the arguments I hear are hardly esoteric. The largely unsuccessful war on drugs and the ill advised release of the mentally ill have added greatly to my case load, but mostly my Court is about watching life’s bad decisions and bad luck play out for people who already live on…
I spent last weekend in Berlin, Germany, for a little vacation after a business trip in Europe. When I told my dad I was going to Berlin and asked him his thoughts, he told me the same thing he said before I went to Munich, all that comes to his mind is one thing—Nazis. It’s not like I don’t think about Nazis and the Holocaust as I walk the streets of Germany, but I’m generally able to compartmentalize those visions in order to appreciate the many good German people I’ve met and the enjoyable cultural experiences of the country. The…
Since I discovered Universal Robots I have been fascinated by the product and its potential to improve productivity for companies doing manufacturing. The firm is based in Odense, Denmark. It started up on a shoestring in 2005, with just a handful of people with an idea for a compact, portable interactive arm that would be cheap enough to be useful for even tiny companies, and small enough to put in the trunk of a car. The company struck the sweet spot of a growing market. In May, Universal Robots sold out to Teradyne, a Boston based company specializing in test…
Patek Philippe makes very expensive time pieces, mainly watches. It is a Swiss manufacturer of beautiful pieces of mechanical jewelry that start at $10,000 per instrument and escalate from there. The company has a loyal following in America and a thriving business. What they do not have is enough watch repair people. There are interesting similarities with the machine tool world which sells beautiful, complicated expensive things that occasionally break down. Patek Philippe is making a determined effort to solve their repair problem. They are training their own talent. They advertised widely looking for candidates to learn the watch repair…
I was talking to a client recently about his company’s business strategy. I loved his transparency and clarity about his approach. He said that he and his management team had chosen to be an automotive supplier. He was only interested in quoting on long run, high volume work in which his company could add real value. He did not want to run a little of this and a little of that. He did not want to really diversify to even out the shifting sands of automotive demand. He would take his chances with market swings. He is riding high now…
My Chicago Cubs have been berry berry good to me. I know many of you are not baseball fans, but bear with me for awhile as I write about my baseball season rooting for the Chicago Cubs and how I feel today after my team was swept in four games by the New York Mets on Wednesday. I have loved baseball since I was 5 years old. My Mom was a fan. She grew up near Wrigley Field and could easily walk to games, though I think she seldom went even though her father was an avid follower of the…