Engineer will be waving to you tomorrow....

[Engineer]

On my way to Mexico in the morning to move more jobs to Mexico and to automate them out of the ones they are getting! :Q

Staying in Mission, TX for the next two weeks...waves to all the Texan's in the house!

Edit: I was told it was 90 degrees there last Thursday...so going from the coldness to the hotness! :Q

 

[eplebnista]

Have a nice safe trip! :thumbsup: <- hit the wrong emoticon

 

[MichaelD]

I fully understand "doing what it takes to feed your family and/or pay the bills."

But just curious: How do you feel about what you do? You work for a company that takes jobs out of the USA. Your current assignment has you taking those jobs to our best friend/biggest liability, Mexico.

I know full well the value of immigrant labor; I lived in San Antonio for 10 years. That city would collapse w/o the illegal immigrants that work there.

But seriously; what's your opinion on your job?

 

[iversonyin]

Originally posted by: Engineer

Edit: I was told it was 90 degrees there last Thursday...so going from the coldness to the hotness! :Q

I'm in New York, I would switch life with you in a heart beat!

 

[RichUK]

Originally posted by: eplebnista
Have a nice safe trip! :beer:

!

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
I fully understand "doing what it takes to feed your family and/or pay the bills."

But just curious: How do you feel about what you do? You work for a company that takes jobs out of the USA. Your current assignment has you taking those jobs to our best friend/biggest liability, Mexico.

I know full well the value of immigrant labor; I lived in San Antonio for 10 years. That city would collapse w/o the illegal immigrants that work there.

But seriously; what's your opinion on your job?

My opinion? It's a difficult one. See, I work for an internal toolshop (no outside work, just for our own company). Before Mexican plants were built (in the last 6 years), it was difficult as I felt like I was taking jobs from US people as I automated them. Now, it's a mixed thing. While taking jobs away from US people (and Mexicans too for that mater), I'm actually helping keep plants open in the US by the very same automation. Without it, the plants would be closed up and moved to Mexico completely. It's a double edged sword, but one that I don't have control over.

I would rather keep a plant full of engineers, plant managers, quality personel, a few operators, etc. open in the US with full automation if possible. With our product, that can be difficult but 10 years ago, I thought it was impossible.

That being said, I have little control over what goes where. If we do a very poor job automating jobs, the automation will be frowned upon and the jobs will be bid to Mexico to start. It's just strange seeing the same automation that kills jobs in the US and keeps plants open here also kills jobs in Mexico.

A side note: Cheaper automation (cheap robots, etc) are also impacting the tooling side as robots are replacing many hard built tools/machines and are much cheaper and more flexible. That's part of the reason automation is replacing Mexican labor also as it's replacing the labor AND the machine tool.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Engineer

Originally posted by: MichaelD
I fully understand "doing what it takes to feed your family and/or pay the bills."

But just curious: How do you feel about what you do? You work for a company that takes jobs out of the USA. Your current assignment has you taking those jobs to our best friend/biggest liability, Mexico.

I know full well the value of immigrant labor; I lived in San Antonio for 10 years. That city would collapse w/o the illegal immigrants that work there.

But seriously; what's your opinion on your job?

My opinion? It's a difficult one. See, I work for an internal toolshop (no outside work, just for our own company). Before Mexican plants were built (in the last 6 years), it was difficult as I felt like I was taking jobs from US people as I automated them. Now, it's a mixed thing. While taking jobs away from US people (and Mexicans too for that mater), I'm actually helping keep plants open in the US by the very same automation. Without it, the plants would be closed up and moved to Mexico completely. It's a double edged sword, but one that I don't have control over.

I would rather keep a plant full of engineers, plant managers, quality personel, a few operators, etc. open in the US with full automation if possible. With our product, that can be difficult but 10 years ago, I thought it was impossible.

That being said, I have little control over what goes where. If we do a very poor job automating jobs, the automation will be frowned upon and the jobs will be bid to Mexico to start. It's just strange seeing the same automation that kills jobs in the US and keeps plants open here also kills jobs in Mexico.

A side note: Cheaper automation (cheap robots, etc) are also impacting the tooling side as robots are replacing many hard built tools/machines and are much cheaper and more flexible. That's part of the reason automation is replacing Mexican labor also as it's replacing the labor AND the machine tool.

Thank you for an honest, well-worded answer. I wasn't trolling; far from it. I know full well the duality that you can be faced with these days when you're a skilled manager.

Too bad they can't build robot that can build houses in San Antonio in August. 100 degrees in the shade can be a bit daunting for our mechanical friends.

Good luck to you; hope the trip is short, successful and productive.

 

[redgtxdi]

It's also a double-edged sword in how it "looks".

An American company subbing all of its work into Mexico.

Or a foreign company pushing more & more of its work into the states.

No...........I don't like us pushing work into Mexico, but I also have dealt with as many foreign companies as domestic in the last few years noticing the many foreign companies are making better on their shares of stock than the domestics.

What are Ford/GM doing as companies vs. Toyota/Hyundai?? (Hint: Hyundai can't wait to build more plants here in the states!)

Kennametal vs. Iscar (IMC) is one I deal with every day. Kennametal's killing domestic opporunity while Iscar is bringing it more & more every year.

Which is better/worse?

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: redgtxdi
It's also a double-edged sword in how it "looks".

An American company subbing all of its work into Mexico.

Or an imported company pushing more & more of its work into the states.

No...........I don't like us pushing work into Mexico, but I also have dealt with as many foreign companies as domestic in the last few years noticing the many foreign companies are making better on their shares of stock than the domestics.

What are Ford/GM doing as companies vs. Toyota/Hyundai?? (Hint: Hyundai can't wait to build more plants here in the states!)

Kennametal vs. Iscar (IMC) is one I deal with every day. Kennametal's killing domestic opporunity while Iscar is bringing it more & more every year.

Which is better/worse?

My company is agressively trying to get contracts from those that are moving into the country. We have wrapped up the Hyundai Santa Fe and have, IIRC, also got the Sonata. We purchased a Korean company a few years ago and with that outside presence, it has given us the inside track into companies like Hyundai and Kia (being built in Georgia). We have also picked up Honda. Nissan is difficult to work with and has little to no profit. Toyota is difficult to pick up in the US. We do provide them with parts in Canada though.

 

[MichaelD]

You don't work for Delphi by any chance, do you?

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
You don't work for Delphi by any chance, do you?

No, but we are trying to pick up a multi-million part package with them for side airbag components. That project could keep me busy for 6 months (or more) alone (4 cells with multiple pieces of machinery and 8 robots).

Here is what I'm setting up in Mexico (2 of these)..

If any of you think the above is easy, the tube is being placed onto a mandrel that is 0.010" smaller than the inside diameter (ID) of the tube. Robot has to be "dead on" to do it right without hanging up! :Q

And yes, all that just to punch holes, place flats, and bend tubes ($500,000 worth of tooling). Gives you a little taste of how much it costs in machine tools alone for EVERY car built!

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Waves back at Engineer!

If you get a chance I highly recommend taking a trip over to Port Isabel on the southern most tip of south padre island, should be really nice this time of year.

And good luck, that video is very cool!

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Engineer

Originally posted by: MichaelD
You don't work for Delphi by any chance, do you?

No, but we are trying to pick up a multi-million part package with them for side airbag components. That project could keep me busy for 6 months (or more) alone (4 cells with multiple pieces of machinery and 8 robots).

Here is what I'm setting up in Mexico (2 of these)..

If any of you think the above is easy, the tube is being placed onto a mandrel that is 0.010" smaller than the inside diameter (ID) of the tube. Robot has to be "dead on" to do it right without hanging up! :Q

And yes, all that just to punch holes, place flats, and bend tubes ($500,000 worth of tooling). Gives you a little taste of how much it costs in machine tools alone for EVERY car built!

That's cool! I really dig the automation. Quite frankly, it's way ahead of human work; not that you don't know that already. Are those brake lines it's building? The tubing is too skinny to be anything but...or maybe a fuel rail? It's got a bend and some holes...yeah, a fuel rail.

I find CNC milling machine videos fascinating.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: MichaelD

Originally posted by: Engineer

Originally posted by: MichaelD
You don't work for Delphi by any chance, do you?

No, but we are trying to pick up a multi-million part package with them for side airbag components. That project could keep me busy for 6 months (or more) alone (4 cells with multiple pieces of machinery and 8 robots).

Here is what I'm setting up in Mexico (2 of these)..

If any of you think the above is easy, the tube is being placed onto a mandrel that is 0.010" smaller than the inside diameter (ID) of the tube. Robot has to be "dead on" to do it right without hanging up! :Q

And yes, all that just to punch holes, place flats, and bend tubes ($500,000 worth of tooling). Gives you a little taste of how much it costs in machine tools alone for EVERY car built!

That's cool! I really dig the automation. Quite frankly, it's way ahead of human work; not that you don't know that already. Are those brake lines it's building? The tubing is too skinny to be anything but...or maybe a fuel rail? It's got a bend and some holes...yeah, a fuel rail.

I find CNC milling machine videos fascinating.

Much bigger than brake lines (3/16" tubing is for brake lines). This is for side impact air bags (they take the shape of the roofline of the car). We expect to get quit a bit of this business as companies start adding side impact airbags to all of their models.

By the way, we make brake lines, fuel lines, fuel rails, gas tanks, gas tank filler pipes, fuel pumps, AC tubes and components, transmission tubes, pushrods (over 100 million per year of the pushrod for GM), etc.

And lastly, the benders that you see in the video (the final machine that the tube is placed into) have mostly been replaced by...you guessed it...CNC robot bending machines. The robot machines are too slow and weak for this kind of process though. The cylinders on the power bender (in video) are hydraulic and have about 800 to 1600 pounds of force behind them (800 psi on the hydraulic pump). The bends are very tight and close and require quite a bit of power to bend without distorting.