5 ms·

And what stops Chinese from making those machines?

steve-howard 14y ago
The reason China beats us on cost is that their labor is cheap. If there is no labor, there's no way for them to beat us. Further, importation from China is not free.
- DanBC 14y ago
  There's no direct labour. But there's still labour. People have to program the machines, and then keep the machines stocked and running, and service the machines. At the moment that's skilled work and a small number of US workers will gain at the cost of a bunch of low-paid workers in poor countries. But it won't be long before that work becomes semi-skilled (see also sub-contract electronic engineering) and is done in Poland / China / where ever, for less than it can be done in the US. Importation from China is not free, but I can still buy a human-made t-shirt imported from China for a couple of dollars.
  - adventureful 14y ago
    Intel is a perfectly good example of how robotic manufacturing works very well and scales. If we can use robotics to mass assemble something as complex as a couple nanometer billion transistor chip, we can most definitely bring that to garments with some effort and scale it. Intel can pump out a billion processors with probably a fraction of the employee count they have now (they have 100k total, but they're not all needed to just produce processors). That's intense efficiency. Obviously the Intel example is a fairly ideal robotic manufacturing scenario. But the point is, that kind of ability will expand outward to all aspects of manufacturing as robotics leaps forward.
    - makomk 14y ago
      Actually, last I heard Intel had outsourced the actual assembly of their chips to places like Malaysia with low labour costs because that's still not entirely automated. The only thing that they do in high-labour-cost countries is patterning and doping the wafers to create the silicon die inside the chips. That's both a lot easier to automate than sewing (no moving parts) and a lot more important to automate because, due to the small scale, they need to keep out contamination by dust which is a lot easier if few humans are involved.
fraserharris 14y ago
Initially, proprietary technology. In the longer run everyone will be competing on manufacturing flexibility and time to market. Garments are still largely ordered months in advance based on predicted sales of items (fashion buyers [1]). There is only marginal flexibility in supply (hence the rise of secondary distribution channels like Winners, Rue La La, etc). There is a point in just-in-time manufacturing where the physical distance becomes important. It still takes around 3 weeks for a physical good to leave a Chinese factory and arrive at a US distribution center. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buyer_(fashion) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buyer_(fashion)
adventureful 14y ago
Nothing, but they have everything to lose from them and the US (and other nations) has everything to gain, because the US has already completely lost the garment industry. China already has a massive supply of human labor, which is primarily why their labor costs are so low. If you were to automate their labor, it would cause substantial unemployment and or reductions in pay. I'd argue their society couldn't withstand that shock at this point. In the extremely near future, China's huge supply of labor is going to rupture their economy rather than being a net benefit. The robot productivity wave in manufacturing over the next quarter century will be extremely painful for them. Whereas if the US re-acquires 50,000 jobs from robotics related to making garments (commodities & materials (farming, cotton), shipping, R&D, assembly of robots, maintenance of robots, etc etc) it's a massive win. Also, it would mean keeping wealth / capital in the US market, rather than sending it to another nation to the benefit of their future and labor pool. Then instead of buying a shirt made in China from Walmart, you buy the same shirt at Walmart and all the money stays domestically. There's no winning scenario for China from robotic manufacturing.
- warmwaffles 14y ago
  > There's no winning scenario for China from robotic manufacturing. This is a good point. Although I would argue that yes America would reacquire the garment industry some what, however the parts that make the machine up will still be manufactured by overseas competitors. I think they are on the right track but the problem still lies in manufacturing chips and metal pieces cost substantially less overseas.
  - adventureful 14y ago
    I agree. It's not a scenario in which the US is magically going to re-dominate 55% of global manufacturing like it's 1964 all over again. But it is plausible the US can retake a portion of manufacturing.
    - icebraining 14y ago
      Uh, the US has increased their manufacturing output since 1980 by 218%, and it's still head-to-head with China: http://business.time.com/2011/03/10/can-china-compete-with-american-manufacturing/ http://business.time.com/2011/03/10/can-china-compete-with-a...

The reason China beats us on cost is that their labor is cheap. If there is no labor, there's no way for them to beat us. Further, importation from China is not free.

DanBC 14y ago
There's no direct labour. But there's still labour. People have to program the machines, and then keep the machines stocked and running, and service the machines. At the moment that's skilled work and a small number of US workers will gain at the cost of a bunch of low-paid workers in poor countries. But it won't be long before that work becomes semi-skilled (see also sub-contract electronic engineering) and is done in Poland / China / where ever, for less than it can be done in the US. Importation from China is not free, but I can still buy a human-made t-shirt imported from China for a couple of dollars.
- adventureful 14y ago
  Intel is a perfectly good example of how robotic manufacturing works very well and scales. If we can use robotics to mass assemble something as complex as a couple nanometer billion transistor chip, we can most definitely bring that to garments with some effort and scale it. Intel can pump out a billion processors with probably a fraction of the employee count they have now (they have 100k total, but they're not all needed to just produce processors). That's intense efficiency. Obviously the Intel example is a fairly ideal robotic manufacturing scenario. But the point is, that kind of ability will expand outward to all aspects of manufacturing as robotics leaps forward.
  - makomk 14y ago
    Actually, last I heard Intel had outsourced the actual assembly of their chips to places like Malaysia with low labour costs because that's still not entirely automated. The only thing that they do in high-labour-cost countries is patterning and doping the wafers to create the silicon die inside the chips. That's both a lot easier to automate than sewing (no moving parts) and a lot more important to automate because, due to the small scale, they need to keep out contamination by dust which is a lot easier if few humans are involved.

fraserharris 14y ago

Initially, proprietary technology. In the longer run everyone will be competing on manufacturing flexibility and time to market. Garments are still largely ordered months in advance based on predicted sales of items (fashion buyers [1]). There is only marginal flexibility in supply (hence the rise of secondary distribution channels like Winners, Rue La La, etc). There is a point in just-in-time manufacturing where the physical distance becomes important. It still takes around 3 weeks for a physical good to leave a Chinese factory and arrive at a US distribution center. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buyer_(fashion) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buyer_(fashion)

adventureful 14y ago

Nothing, but they have everything to lose from them and the US (and other nations) has everything to gain, because the US has already completely lost the garment industry. China already has a massive supply of human labor, which is primarily why their labor costs are so low. If you were to automate their labor, it would cause substantial unemployment and or reductions in pay. I'd argue their society couldn't withstand that shock at this point. In the extremely near future, China's huge supply of labor is going to rupture their economy rather than being a net benefit. The robot productivity wave in manufacturing over the next quarter century will be extremely painful for them. Whereas if the US re-acquires 50,000 jobs from robotics related to making garments (commodities & materials (farming, cotton), shipping, R&D, assembly of robots, maintenance of robots, etc etc) it's a massive win. Also, it would mean keeping wealth / capital in the US market, rather than sending it to another nation to the benefit of their future and labor pool. Then instead of buying a shirt made in China from Walmart, you buy the same shirt at Walmart and all the money stays domestically. There's no winning scenario for China from robotic manufacturing.

warmwaffles 14y ago
> There's no winning scenario for China from robotic manufacturing. This is a good point. Although I would argue that yes America would reacquire the garment industry some what, however the parts that make the machine up will still be manufactured by overseas competitors. I think they are on the right track but the problem still lies in manufacturing chips and metal pieces cost substantially less overseas.
- adventureful 14y ago
  I agree. It's not a scenario in which the US is magically going to re-dominate 55% of global manufacturing like it's 1964 all over again. But it is plausible the US can retake a portion of manufacturing.
  - icebraining 14y ago
    Uh, the US has increased their manufacturing output since 1980 by 218%, and it's still head-to-head with China: http://business.time.com/2011/03/10/can-china-compete-with-american-manufacturing/ http://business.time.com/2011/03/10/can-china-compete-with-a...