In the World of Big Stuff, the US Still Rules

westlake writes "From Peoria, the WSJ a look at the giant trucks manufactured by Komatsu and Caterpillar. 'In certain areas — notably aircraft, industrial engines, excavators and railway and mining equipment — the U.S. exports far more than it imports. These industries produce relatively small numbers of very expensive goods, requiring specialized technology and labor. Their competitive advantage rests partly on expertise built by U.S. companies in making durable, high-tech weaponry and other equipment for the military — frequently applicable to other products.' It may surprise you to learn that Komatsu doesn't employee a single industrial robot. The quality of workmanship simply isn't there where it is needed."

Comments

surely, you're joking

[ThorGod]

Look, we're still in the days of "It's best if it says Made in USA" on it. I've witnessed it, anecdotally *all the way*, first-hand. I've got two thermal temperature probes. One clearly says "Made in the USA" on it and works like a DREAM. Even has a ton of memory and sensor options. Then there's the cheapo version I got for way less, DOESN'T say "Made in the USA" on it - and it's CRAP. Sure, the non-US version works...after you let the LCD "warm up" for 2 minutes! There's also no such thing as memory on it nor sensor options...You get what you pay for and to get merch from the US still requires you pay top dollar.

Don't confuse cheap for quality. Plenty of things are better made, here, in the US. You just have to not be a cheapo.

Re:surely, you're joking

[Anonymous Coward]

For the rest of the world 'Made in the USA' means 'Heavy, will break down, and none of your tools will fit'.

May sound harsh, but that is my experience of industrial equipment and the feelings of those who work with it.

Re:surely, you're joking

[pz]

Same thing happened with Made in Japan: decades ago, you were better off saving your pennies for good old American stuff because the Japanese equivalents were horrible. Nissan's first imports to the US (when they were known as Datsun) were a joke. So were Honda's. But now, the Japanese imported goods are top-notch and deserving of hard-earned respect. Korean goods followed the same path. Taiwanese, to a certain extent, although they don't seem to have fully realized their potential, yet. Chinese goods are just starting to get better as they, as a country, learn manufacturing. Given that they have vast resources to throw at the problem, I fully expect Made in China to, within a decade or so, mean something is quality goods, and we'll be looking to Made in Viet Nam, Made in Thailand, Made in North Korea, or Made in Kazahkstan with derision.

Re:surely, you're joking

[Buminatrain]

Yeah I'm gonna have to disagree with this. I tend to think your friend is just more fond of his profit margins with Chinese goods. I have a "fallback" job with a construction company and mainly do plumbing when working there. In general we use Chinese materials but on government/military jobs we have to use US materials. I'll tell you now the difference is night and day in terms of quality, on top of prevailing wage it's a joy working these jobs just due to how much better the quality of the US stuff is.

Re:Except Komatsu is a Japanese company.

[Desler]

Neither the submission nor the article says otherwise. This doesn't change the fact that the products being referred to are manufactured in a US-base plant.

Thank Goodness

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank goodness there's no possible way for this thread to degenerate into a hodgepodge of anecdotes disguised as fact. I'm certain the Slashdot audience will rise above the low hanging fruit.

Re:Thank Goodness

[iONiUM]

I don't know, my friend read this Slashdot story once that had no anecdotes in it at all. So, it does happen.

Re:Super Value Goods

[mrbcs]

I worked as a welder-fitter at Komatsu Dresser in Cambridge Ontario a number of years ago. The "quality" issue is a red herring.

Robots haven't been invented that can fit a gusset plate made of 3/4" steel that doesn't quite fit right because a guy hand made it in a 500 ton press brake. The plates would have to be clamped, heated and hammered with a 10lb sledge hammer to fit properly.

We had about 20 - 35 ton trucks on the assembly line at any given time. There is simply no cost effective way to make a robot do the tasks that these guys were doing.

Insignificant on economy

[dutchwhizzman]

The USA has resorted to buy everything imported, since their consumers would rather whine about quality than pay for it. The thousands of billions spent on clothing, electronics, food, cars and building materials to name a few industries don't weigh up to the few that come in by exporting planes or mining equipment and such.

Also, quite a lot of these products are assembled from imported materials or half-products, the owners or shareholders are often foreign so apart from providing actual manufacturing and producing jobs to the USA, a lot of the profit is often not staying in the USA.

The Netherlands used to have a very prosperous ship building industry. That died out, competition from lower wage countries with good sea access made the cheaper, worse quality ships still a good investment. Then the competitors got better at building ships with the experience they gained and even the high quality ships could be purchased from lower wage countries. By now, these countries have lost most of their ship building industry to the far east, where they build ships in assembly lines by the dozens per year, on dozens of assembly lines. Imagine an iPhone 5 manual assembly line, building 1000 yards and larger ships. Now imagine 20 of those lines in a shipyard. This is reality now. If mining excavators, planes trains or any other product named in this list ever gets produced in numbers big enough to warrant mass production sites, cheap labour countries will start producing. We may laugh at India or China's plans to produce their own aerospace or commercial flight equipment, but in 10 years, Boeing and Airbus will most likely be buying 90% of their parts prefabricated from those very countries and in 20 years, they will probably be reduced to a manufacturing and assembly location for them.