On Sunday, July 23, 2023 at 10:22:31 AM UTC-4, ltlee1 wrote:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/craftsman-america-wrench-stanley-black-decker-reshoring-factory-1125792f?
"The world’s largest tool company couldn’t figure out how to make a wrench.
Stanley Black & Decker SWK -0.47%decrease; red down pointing triangle
built a $90 million factory on the edge of Fort Worth, Texas, intending to burnish the Made-in-the-U.S.A. luster of the Craftsman brand by forging mechanics’ tools with unprecedented efficiency. But the automated system was a bust, and the tools that
were supposed to be pumped out by the million are so hard to find that some consider them collector’s items.
In March, 3½ years after breaking ground, Stanley announced it was closing the factory. The property is now being advertised for sale.
The Craftsman plant was a high-profile example of a drive among U.S. manufacturers to bring offshored plants back home. Government incentives and a desire to shorten supply chains have sparked a factory-building boom. The high cost of American labor
makes automation critical for plants to turn a profit.
Turning manual tasks over to machines, which are supposed to churn out goods with minimal human involvement and maximum productivity, poses its own challenges. The Craftsman factory’s first-of-its-kind system was supposed to make tools so efficiently
that costs would be on par with China, but ex-employees said it had problems that couldn’t be fixed before the company decided to pull the plug.
“It was supposed to be different,” said Tom Felty, who worked in the factory as an electroplating engineer. “It was supposed to be bringing the Craftsman brand back. It was all these new technologies. It’s why I moved from North Carolina to
Texas to be a part of it, and it was an absolute disaster.”
Echoing a previous statement, Stanley blamed several factors for the plant’s closure.
“We endeavored to make Craftsman mechanics tools in a new and innovative way,” a spokeswoman said. “The events of Covid and supply chain challenges, coupled with technology that did not meet our expectations, resulted in the discontinuation of
operations.”
The company declined to comment further."
Three factors contribute to the failure: Covid, supply chain challenges, below expectation technology.
Looks like Stanley Black & Decker fails to acquire something from oversea with technological content
which could not be meet by local suppliers. Capital goods such as machine tool is a good bet.
Is Stanley Black & Decker is the only company look for capital goods from oversea?
"The bad news is that America hasn’t invested much in manufacturing during the past 20 years.
The worse news is that most of the manufacturing capital equipment that America uses came
from imports.
Not only does the US have a US$1 trillion trade deficit, but about $300 billion of that deficit comes
from imports of capital goods, namely goods that make other goods.
Federal subsidies for chip fabrication plants and green energy have recently bulked up the numbers
for factory construction, but orders for capital equipment remain depressed. The subsidy-driven
increases in factory building help explain an enormous surge in US imports of capital goods.
America’s dependence on foreign capital goods reached an all-time high in 2022, as capital goods
imports exceeded domestic production of capital goods for home use, according to Asia Times’
calculations.
To reduce its $1 trillion trade deficit, the US would have to invest in capital goods. But it would need
to import most of these capital goods, which means that the trade deficit would have to increase in
the short term in order to shrink in the long term.
That rules out a broad “decoupling” from China, which accounts for the largest share of America’s
trade deficit. Decoupling has become a shibboleth in US politics, and calls for a trade cutoff with
China will grow shriller as the 2024 presidential election approaches.
But advocates of a broad decoupling are arithmetically challenged: America’s atrophied capital
goods industry can’t supply the needs of existing production."
https://asiatimes.com/2023/06/us-reliance-on-chinas-capital-goods-rules-out-decoupling/
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