5 ms·

Agree, in that if the cheapest way to do process is automated and the capital cost of the automation is reasonable there is no advantage to offshoring that proc

by femto 3y ago

Agree, in that if the cheapest way to do process is automated and the capital cost of the automation is reasonable there is no advantage to offshoring that process. An example is pick and place assembly of circuit boards. For large quantities, meaning the loading of the feeders is not a big part of the cost, a local company can match or undercut the price of an offshore company. A counterexample is chip fabrication, where the capital cost dominates (and even if it didn't wafers are often manually handled).

hedora 3y ago
The percentage unit cost and environmental impact of shipping electronics from China (or between any two points on earth near a major harbor) on a cargo vessel is zero. If the labor in China is cheaper than the robot + the person that operates the robot, then it is cheaper to build it there. Building it locally only makes economic sense if the design is changing frequently (e.g., using local pick and place for prototyping), or if it is built to order, so the time it spends on the boat actually matters. As an extreme example, giant Italian windows cost about the same, delivered, in the US as inferior domestic ones do. The main downside is the lead time. In particular, thanks to a drought, traffic through the panama canal is all screwed up these days, so getting them to the west coast is hard. If the economics tilt this way for shipping giant panes of glass, they certainly also do for tiny, high priced electronic devices. Of course, externalities (e.g., environmental impact of Chinese manufacturing, human rights, national security and xenophobia) could change the tradeoffs.
- bmitc 3y ago
  > environmental impact of shipping electronics from China (or between any two points on earth near a major harbor) on a cargo vessel is zero How does that work? Or are you just referring to electronic components only and it being zero relatively speaking?
  - NhanH 3y ago
    Modern container cargo ships are huge. Even though in aggregate the absolute pollution is a big numbers, when you amortize over the volume, shipping an item has about a very close to zero impact on environment. And this is not some hand-waving explanation either, since other factors dominates the environmental impact (for example, shipping from Newegg to your office is probably a magnitude more polluted), it doesn't matter if the factory is in China or the US. This applies to a lot more things, even lower value stuffs like fruit. Which is why local produce might have more environmental impact than imported mass produce fruits, though I don't have a citation for this on hand.
    - TJSomething 3y ago
      I would add that the numbers are possible to compare, but container shipping is pretty efficient. One container from Shenzhen to Oakland (~10,000 km) is going to be the CO₂ equivalent of burning 60 gallons of gasoline.
    - diydsp 3y ago
      "According to Irene Blooming, a spokeswoman for the European environmental coalition Seas at Risk, the fuel used in oil tankers and container ships is high in sulfur and cheaper to buy compared to the fuel used for domestic land use. "A ship lets out around 50 times more sulfur than a lorry per tonne of cargo carried."[1] "Of total global air emissions, marine shipping accounts for 18 to 30 percent of the nitrogen oxides and 9% of the sulfur oxides."[1] "One source of environmental stresses on maritime vessels recently has come from states and localities, as they assess the contribution of commercial marine vessels to regional air quality problems when ships are docked at port.[33] For instance, large marine diesel engines are believed to contribute 7 percent of mobile source nitrogen oxide emissions in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana. Ships can also have a significant impact in areas without large commercial ports: they contribute about 37 percent of total area nitrogen oxide emissions in the Santa Barbara, California area, and that percentage is expected to increase to 61 percent by 2015."[1] " Maritime transport accounts for 3.5% to 4% of all greenhouse gas emissions, primarily carbon dioxide.[1][27] According to the World Bank, in 2022, the shipping industry's 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions make it "the sixth largest greenhouse gas emitter worldwide, ranking between Japan and Germany."[1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_effects_of_shipping https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_effects_of_shi...

by femto 3y ago

hedora 3y ago

The percentage unit cost and environmental impact of shipping electronics from China (or between any two points on earth near a major harbor) on a cargo vessel is zero. If the labor in China is cheaper than the robot + the person that operates the robot, then it is cheaper to build it there. Building it locally only makes economic sense if the design is changing frequently (e.g., using local pick and place for prototyping), or if it is built to order, so the time it spends on the boat actually matters. As an extreme example, giant Italian windows cost about the same, delivered, in the US as inferior domestic ones do. The main downside is the lead time. In particular, thanks to a drought, traffic through the panama canal is all screwed up these days, so getting them to the west coast is hard. If the economics tilt this way for shipping giant panes of glass, they certainly also do for tiny, high priced electronic devices. Of course, externalities (e.g., environmental impact of Chinese manufacturing, human rights, national security and xenophobia) could change the tradeoffs.

bmitc 3y ago
> environmental impact of shipping electronics from China (or between any two points on earth near a major harbor) on a cargo vessel is zero How does that work? Or are you just referring to electronic components only and it being zero relatively speaking?
- NhanH 3y ago
  Modern container cargo ships are huge. Even though in aggregate the absolute pollution is a big numbers, when you amortize over the volume, shipping an item has about a very close to zero impact on environment. And this is not some hand-waving explanation either, since other factors dominates the environmental impact (for example, shipping from Newegg to your office is probably a magnitude more polluted), it doesn't matter if the factory is in China or the US. This applies to a lot more things, even lower value stuffs like fruit. Which is why local produce might have more environmental impact than imported mass produce fruits, though I don't have a citation for this on hand.
  - TJSomething 3y ago
    I would add that the numbers are possible to compare, but container shipping is pretty efficient. One container from Shenzhen to Oakland (~10,000 km) is going to be the CO₂ equivalent of burning 60 gallons of gasoline.
  - diydsp 3y ago
    "According to Irene Blooming, a spokeswoman for the European environmental coalition Seas at Risk, the fuel used in oil tankers and container ships is high in sulfur and cheaper to buy compared to the fuel used for domestic land use. "A ship lets out around 50 times more sulfur than a lorry per tonne of cargo carried."[1] "Of total global air emissions, marine shipping accounts for 18 to 30 percent of the nitrogen oxides and 9% of the sulfur oxides."[1] "One source of environmental stresses on maritime vessels recently has come from states and localities, as they assess the contribution of commercial marine vessels to regional air quality problems when ships are docked at port.[33] For instance, large marine diesel engines are believed to contribute 7 percent of mobile source nitrogen oxide emissions in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana. Ships can also have a significant impact in areas without large commercial ports: they contribute about 37 percent of total area nitrogen oxide emissions in the Santa Barbara, California area, and that percentage is expected to increase to 61 percent by 2015."[1] " Maritime transport accounts for 3.5% to 4% of all greenhouse gas emissions, primarily carbon dioxide.[1][27] According to the World Bank, in 2022, the shipping industry's 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions make it "the sixth largest greenhouse gas emitter worldwide, ranking between Japan and Germany."[1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_effects_of_shipping https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_effects_of_shi...