Quote:
Originally posted by Adam D
That's understandable, but I can't remember a time when Nike looked at it's profits and said, "shit, if we don't move some plants to Malaysia, we're going to be broke" and then moved it's factories to Malaysia. They were turning significant profit long before they moved, so were all the other companies who have continued to move factories offshore. |
I'm not for sure, I haven't actually seen the books or the trend reports from Nike, corp. to make an accurate assessment as to the intentions of their change in ERP...
Manufacturing is going overseas, and yes, there's a few companies like Hondai and Kawasaki moving their manufacturing over here, but I think using manufacturing to make a point about domestic job loss is going to lose its foundation for the following reason.
With the continual increase in technological innovations in the manufacturing industry, I think we are going to see down the road a new trend in the reduction of manufacturing staff globally... I think this shift to foreign workers is a temporary effect... The other day, I was doing a small contract for a company who manufactures cheerleading uniforms... And I got to see the demonstration of a ribbon making machine... computerized. And I thought to myself... how many people would it have taken to make x amount of ribbon in 1920's era shop as opposed to one person literally pushing a couple of buttons and letting the software and the machine do the rest...
it's one small example... but eventually, plants will acquire or develop the techniques to automate the things that workers still have to do today... I believe that is an inevitable reality.
I also remember a few year's ago, we developed a website and an application backend, that would automate pre-press production items and send them directly to industrial digital printers... previously.. they accepted an order.. then a staff of 50 for this division would create the pre-print layouts and the cells then set them up on the printers for their clients... now they just need 10 people to just offload the production pieces and pack them for shipping...
another tiny example, but its examples like these, that are happening EVERYWHERE and in every industry...