Awesome Daily Kos Diary: "I helped bring mfg jobs back from china "

[Pirate Smile]

I helped bring mfg jobs back from china

by rockyn

I helped bring mfg jobs back from china Fri May 14, 2010 at 08:16:57 PM PDT
After over 20 yrs of board meeting, soap boxing, I finally prevailed.

This is my story of following my Grandfathers advice to live my convictions. This may be an awkward read for I will not profess the gift of litary talent for unfortunately, it seems having the gift for gab doesn't equate to the gift of pen.

Background : I work for an agriculture manufacturing company. While we have a modest $50 mil. annual sales of our patented product line we also are a tier one supplier to the 3 largest agriculture manufacturing companies in the country.

rockyn's diary :: ::
I am probably giving myself more credit than I deserve and I want to state that upfront, but I truly would like to believe that my constant preaching and persistant approach to having facts present to validate my rhetoric did indeed help finalize this decision.
My job as a master scheduler and materials planner requires that I walk the fine line of proper inventory levels to react to economic fluctuations, maximize cash flow turns, and maintain the proper overall cost to profit ratios. I call it the " dance of stress ".
In the course of my time on this job I have had to endure meeting after meeting of relentless snide anti Democratic insults purposely directed at me for the express purpose of their amusement. Who's amusement you ask.
Well that would be 2 purchasing agent slash ministers, 2 right wing marketing managers and of course the 2 Reagan worshipping mulit millionare co owners. As you can imagine, all I have heard for year upon year is rw propaganda. The purpose of these monthly meetings were to discuss cost saving measures to stay competitive with the current market.
I call it the greed meeting. I get away with it inpart because the co owners know my background and respect what I've been able to accomplish, and they probably figure they owe me for the relentless assults on my politics.

So anyway every month I would listen to everyone rationalize why we should begin to outsource some of our products from vendors overseas.
The arguement of course would be why buy from the states what you could buy from china or India or brazil or Spain for a third the cost. My argument would be why would we want to turn an item that we could get from our vendor in 2 to 4 wks to 4 to 6 months. It's easier to plan in shorter windows and it reduces risk from market down turns. But all they could see was the short term dollars. It was like watching children drool over the candy counter. They would see a 5 dollar item from an incountry vendor reduced to a 20 cent item from china and you could hear their heart rate go up. I knew I was going to lose the arguement when the sales rep from Brazil showed up for one of the meetings and was asked point blank what their labor cost was and he smiled ear to ear and said
26 cents an hr. and all the republicans in the room got erections.

So the decision was made to join the outsource bandwagon or we wouldn't be able to compete in the market. So I decided to record our current list price of all our products at that date and our competitors list price, because I knew I was being fed a line of bs. I also kept detailed records of cash flow, inventory levels, service calls, and customer delivery compliance. I knew that some day I could win my argument with facts. Unfortunately I also knew that it would be at the cost of fellow citizens lost jobs. Every time a new part would get added to the outsource list I voiced my concerns I refused to admit at anytime any of these decisions were good decisions. One of the guys asked me why I kept fighting a lost cause. To me it was as simple as something my grandfather used to say " If you ever hear someone say this goes against my principals, then make sure to point out to them that it surely wasn't really a principal if they were willing to give in "

So getting to the good part. Last week I laid out indisputable numbers to back up my years of opposition and in the process I proved the failure of outsourcing and I put an end to the trickle down reagan economic rhetoric the co owners push relentlessly at me.

First the outsourcing argument. I told them at the beginning that the quotes we got would not be sustainable and they were purposefully being quoted at a loss to assure they would get the job. I told them we would have quality issues and I pointed out every instance of the failures of other products, toys, dogfood, etc. I explained the offset of price decrease to cashflow because of transportation logistic cost and order qty increase. All of this with facts on hand in pie charts, you have to have pie charts with this crowd pictures are the only thing they really grasp. I had charts to show increase in customer complaints in not meeting delivery times and lost sales and numbers showing field failures.
The kicker though was the statistics showing U.S. foundry closing in direct correlation with the oversea vendors price increases. I drove this home with numbers of people just miles from us out of work directly because of our outsourcing, and I read a notice from a vendor just across the state line that was considering selling out due to a loss of business. I read emloyee names and their family size to emphasize the fallout of our decisions in real life misery.

Then I proceeded to ask some pointed questions. If we had to outsource to stay in business because our competitors were out sourcing then shouldn't that have a direct correlation to our list price ? Why then has our list price gone up while our cost of product was reduced ? How did our customers benefit from our outsourcing ? By getting late delivery, an inferior product at an increased price ? How did our employee's benefit ?
Did our wage go up ? Did we get better health care ? Did the extra profit lead to an increase in employees ? After all haven't you repeatedly insisted that rich people add jobs to the economy when they are able to make more money ? The co-owners looked at me and shook their heads,I was hoping in some shame. When all was said and done they surrendered and I am happy to say I was given the green light to give purchase orders to incountry vendors for this summer and fall builds, in particular the foundry I mentioned across the state line. These orders are large enough to enable them to pull back from selling out.

So it might not be a lot but some jobs are coming home to the U.S.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/14/866568/-I-helped-bring-mfg-jobs-back-from-china

[blm]

1. Great post to share...thank you.

.

[Stuart G]

7. Thanks for sharing this.

[Jennicut]

2. One would think these types would get a common sense argument

the first time. But the fact that they need pie charts to understand something says it all. Short term greed is killing their company. And many other companies. About time at least one company got it.

[Catshrink]

3. "After all haven't you repeatedly insisted that rich people add jobs to the economy

when they are able to make more money?"

That's been the line from Reagan and every convervative tax cuts for the rich RWer ever since. We've known it's bullshit. That "savings" buys big houses, extra houses, yachts, etc. Jobs? Who needs 'em?

Kudos to rockyn and thanks for posting this. There is hope.

[Pirate Smile]

4. He needs to box up (videotape) that presentation so it can be shown (without

proprietary and confidential information) to other owners and companies.

[calimary]

6. I LOVE this argument. Anytime some asshole says - "whenz the last tahm yew got a job

from a poor person?" I'd say - well, all those big-ass wheeler-dealer free-market slicky-boy types in corporate America got all the bailouts and tax breaks and regulation cutbacks and they're recovering and making all kinds of money - and - well - WHERE ARE ALL THE JOBS THEN????? HAVE YOU SEEN THE UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES LATELY????? WHERE ARE ALL THE JOBS THEN, NOW THAT THESE PEOPLE ARE BACK IN FAT CITY????? We've given and given and given to the wealthy corporations, given them EVERY break and bailout and helping hand and tax cut and legal loophole and competitive advantage in the world - and so, WHERE ARE ALL THE JOBS???????? How's that "when's the last time you got a job from a poor person" stuff workin' out for ya?

They don't have an answer for this. Because there ISN'T one (well, except for the kinds of answers the reagan-worshippers don't want to hear, that is).

[OHdem10]

5. So Inspirational. I so admire his tenacity and standing for what

he believes. C

[Omaha Steve]

8. K&R!

[Scurrilous]

9. K & R

:thumbsup:

[Pirate Smile]

10. kick

[Cowpunk]

11. Kick fucking ass!

Now that's class warfare I can believe in.