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The United Kingdom’s Financial Times says the cheap dollar is not the main reason why manufacturing exports have been so strong from the United States. Instead, the larger reason is the level of incentives that state governments are offering to manufacturing businesses. An auto manufacturing executive in Germany says “it can be cheaper than you imagine” to manufacture in the United States.

I think this competition among the states is great. I think the same kind of spending that would be wrong at the federal level is fully appropriate at the state level—and I explain why in this opinion column.

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Inbox Insights
Insourcing As Infrastructure
Compressor manufacturer FS-Elliott Co. is a successful exporter that will be profiled in the December issue of Modern Machine Shop. During a recent visit to the Pittsburgh-area facility, we saw the plant’s newly purchased Hermle five-axis machining center. The plant used to outsource five-axis machining in order to save cost. Now, it sees even greater potential cost savings from insourcing this same capability.

One reason is the flexibility. Now, it is easier for the plant to make last-minute design changes to five-axis parts.

But an equally urgent reason is insurance. Five-axis machining is a vital capability. What would happen if a competitor ended up buying out the plant’s main five-axis machining supplier?

For these reasons, and for others, insourcing is a real trend. Manufacturing is destiny, and leading companies increasingly want to control that destiny. To read the story of a manufacturer that reversed its decision to outsource machining and invested heavily to bring machining back in-house, see Back To Kansas.

Your Thoughts
Are You Insourcing?
Has your company found opportunities to save cost or deliver greater value by bringing some aspect of manufacturing back in-house?

Conversely, are you seeing even greater cost savings by increasing your commitment to outsourcing manufacturing to suppliers?

Share your thoughts. If we publish your response, you’ll receive your choice of one free book from the metalworking section of the Hanser Gardner Bookstore.

To respond, send an e-mail to Pete.

Re: Your Thoughts
Does IMTS Get Too Much Attention? No Way!
The latest issue of MMS Extra asked whether the hype building up to IMTS was proportionate to the value of the show. Most who replied said that the show was so valuable to them, it would be hard to over-hype it. James Matthews of Smith International had this reply:

“There is certainly plenty of build-up to IMTS in the (metalworking) media, and probably some hype as well, but it’s still the best place in North America for us to see and feel the new equipment we need to stay competitive. There’s just not enough time to see it all, so like most manufacturing folks, we make a plan before we go, so we can see the machines and tools we know we need to see in as expeditious a manner as possible. We usually get to about 75 to 80 percent of those. But the best part of the show is the stuff we didn’t know we needed to see or didn’t know was available. Without IMTS, we would not be as informed about state-of-the-art stuff. And that’s not hype. For a lot of us, it’s survival.”

Metalworking Mojo
Can Waterjet Cut A Titanium Golf Club
Flow International is a leading source of serious expertise on waterjet machining technology. Apparently, the company has a non-serious side as well. A new Web site is devoted to the spectacle of watching waterjet slice through everyday objects such as a cell phone, a blender and (in this case) a golf club. See video here.

Inbox Insights
Three Other Ways To Think About Your Tooling
Most shops choose cutting tools for one of three reasons: because the price is low, because the tool life is high or because the tool allows the shop to cut faster.

However, if these are the only cutting tool considerations, then the shop may be missing opportunities to realize an even more cost-effective process.

Three other reasons to choose a particular cutting tool include: (1) to reduce setup time, (2) to run unattended and (3) to take advantage of the machine tool’s features.

Our Next Issue
Lean Machining, Manufacturing Software
A Chicago-area job shop describes its aggressive commitment to becoming leaner. Believe it or not, changing employee toolboxes was one of the most significant moves. Other articles cover vertical grinding, as well as a shop that uses big, plasma screens to communicate performance data to employees as reported by the shop control software.

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