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It still wouldn't help. It's cheaper to manufacture electronics in China even if the labor costs are the same. The logistics are vastly better over there. If yo

It still wouldn't help. It's cheaper to manufacture electronics in China even if the labor costs are the same. The logistics are vastly better over there. If you need PCBs or components, you can have them direct from the factory on the same day. If you have a production problem, you can get a specialist engineer the same day. If you need a new production line with 200 extra staff, you can have it up and running in two weeks. An established EMS company like Jabil has huge economies of scale and tremendous in-house resources. They have long relationships with suppliers and consultants. A startup can't possibly compete with that.

melling 11y ago
In other news, the driverless truck is going to automate a few million people jobs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11568699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11568699 Perhaps it's worth the effort to have some manufacturing and expertise in the US?
- unchocked 11y ago
  The US manufacturing sector is huge, however it's concentrated in high value industrial goods that are generally invisible to the consumer. So what you're proposing, yeah pretty much doing that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_States#Size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_St...
xt00 11y ago
Yea I've spent tons of time in China, and worked with a number of these ODM type companies and smaller factories, and the kinds of things they can get done in short times for small amounts of money is pretty amazing.. Basically why its so hard not to manufacture in china is because of the "factory engineering plus" kind of model. Basically you get low cost engineering work done by the factory to modify your plastic tool, tweak your PCB design, build test fixtures, setup test station software, etc.. Basically one person who knows what they are doing can essentially give a detailed list of instructions to a factory in china and they will just "make it happen" for a really good price.. Since there are so few factories in the US anymore, there are no engineers that work for the factories, so there are very few companies that offer engineering work for low cost, whereas in China the actual factory work pays for the salaries of the engineers. So, its hard to compete with that..
bernardlunn 11y ago
This is what Andy Grove was warning about in 2010 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-07-01/andy-grove-how-america-can-create-jobs http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-07-01/andy-grove...

melling 11y ago

In other news, the driverless truck is going to automate a few million people jobs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11568699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11568699 Perhaps it's worth the effort to have some manufacturing and expertise in the US?

unchocked 11y ago
The US manufacturing sector is huge, however it's concentrated in high value industrial goods that are generally invisible to the consumer. So what you're proposing, yeah pretty much doing that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_States#Size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_St...

xt00 11y ago

Yea I've spent tons of time in China, and worked with a number of these ODM type companies and smaller factories, and the kinds of things they can get done in short times for small amounts of money is pretty amazing.. Basically why its so hard not to manufacture in china is because of the "factory engineering plus" kind of model. Basically you get low cost engineering work done by the factory to modify your plastic tool, tweak your PCB design, build test fixtures, setup test station software, etc.. Basically one person who knows what they are doing can essentially give a detailed list of instructions to a factory in china and they will just "make it happen" for a really good price.. Since there are so few factories in the US anymore, there are no engineers that work for the factories, so there are very few companies that offer engineering work for low cost, whereas in China the actual factory work pays for the salaries of the engineers. So, its hard to compete with that..

bernardlunn 11y ago

This is what Andy Grove was warning about in 2010 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-07-01/andy-grove-how-america-can-create-jobs http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2010-07-01/andy-grove...