Australian Manufacturing

[xelasnave]

Thank goodness for the local hippies because they are putting beads on string and making wig wams and as such appear to be the last of us involved in manufacturing.
I can't think of anything we make anymore..is there anything we manufacture now...besides wine and kitchens.

[el_draco (Rom)]

We make particularly stupid politicians..... Worlds best I suspect

[Solitarian]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

I can't think of anything we make anymore

Cups of coffee and fast food

Seriously, that's about all this country is good for these days

[xelasnave]

Seems stupid not to keep up some degree of skill.
We do things well why can't we become the worlds best weapons manufacturers for example.
Build our own fighter jets.
Save car manufacture before all sckills are lost.
What happened to our submarine building or did we buy overseas

[rrussell1962]

Yes, very sad indeed. It is cheaper to make a lot of stuff overseas, but in the long term the loss of skills will tell against us. I very occasionally go back to the UK, it is now a country based on dodgy banks and picture framing shops. As to why we don't make fighter planes here - too expensive, even the European Union makes them as a consortium and for all I know outsources the manufacture to China! Australia is now a country that digs up dirt and flogs it to the rest of the world to assemble. Sad but true.

[AndrewJ]

Gday Alex

Our Pollies of the day decided to buy a sub assembled using allen keys instead of the semi proven German type 2000.
The resulting problems crippled out credibility, and as such the
pollies now run a mile rather than try again.

Andrew

There are only 2 types of naval vessel.
Submarines and targets :-)

[koputai (Jason)]

There are actually quite a lot of small manufacturing firms operating in Aus. I had a very small niche manufacturing business for a few years, and a number of my friends still do. Yes, big manufacturing is definitely almost gone, but there are still people out there working very hard at it.

My customers were mainly in the UK, Europe, and the US, so I was actually bringing money in to Australia.

Cheers,
Jason.

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Research, development and scale of operations cost. It's always cheaper to manufacture where the maximum resource is located be that people or whatever.
The local answer is niche manufacturing as Jason says. High value, small footprint products that are very much in demand and can therefore command a good return.
We were in Vanuatu a few years back talking to one of the locals and he was setting up a Sandalwood plantation. Very much in demand in the perfume and cosmetics industry. He had a niche that didn't require bulk shipping costs and heavy duty manufacturing requirements none of which were available up there. I hope he's done well from it.

[RickS (Rick)]

Australia is a terribly small market. The last several companies I have been involved with design in Australia, manufacture in China and sell to the world. We have plenty of smart people but no natural advantage when it comes to generic manufacturing.

Cheers,
Rick.

[Jason_FJ_Djamm (Jason)]

Why bother trying to manufacture anything in Australia, we are too lazy to get out of our own way these days. Our sole concern on waking is discovering some new way to rort the system. If we have created any industry in the past decade, it is the industry of entitlement. The sound of industry has been replaced by the perpetual whine of people who make a lifestyle of complaint and little more. The system owes me a living. Why should I have to work for it? That's the new motto of the workers of Australia.

Our kids can't do basic maths, can't spell, can't string two spoken words together, don't read, don't think. We'd have to staff these new businesses with migrant workers to have any chance of survival. Might as well let those workers do the job in their home countries and save us the trouble.

[xelasnave]

Well Jason I would suggest that the condition you observe may well be traced to the fact our manufacturing has gone.
Really what do many young folk have to look forward to on work..become a waiter, bar maid or a sex worker. Getting a job as a check out clerk is now considered a rather good career.
Cheaper should not be the measure of better.

[el_draco (Rom)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Really what do many young folk have to look forward to on work..become a waiter, bar maid or a sex worker. Getting a job as a check out clerk is now considered a rather good career.
Cheaper should not be the measure of better.

This is consequence of not bothering to put the effort in at school. Very few young people study and, as a consequence, limit themselves to the above "professions". The attitude is often one of, "The government will PAY me". I've confronted a few of these slugs with the reality of who actually gives them the money they get and they seem either shocked or totally disinterested.

If we want to improve the situation, we need to get smarter. Cant compete with slave camps on the labour front, and we are losing the edge on the knowledge front.... Of course, that situation is unlikely to change while we have short sighted num-num pollies who think that "coal is good for humanity"

[xelasnave]

So ROM are you saying it is the childrens fault or the education system.

[gaa_ian (Ian)]

Hey Alex
I do appreciate and share your lament ...However.
There are things we still make (I make/sell a few of them myself)
However I also contract to the resource industry & I have seen the change in that industry where industrial plant up to the size of a 10 story building is bought into Aust by ship, having been made in Thailand, Malaysia Etc in PAM yards (Pre assembled Modules) The quality of these is often dubious, but our government allows this. As for the Kids, it is the responsibility of the PARENT to teach kids the value of Money, Reward for effort & possibly more importantly a political awareness that the future is in their hands.
For my part, I involve my family in my enterprise and seek to teach the skill of self reliance & having a questioning mind.
Good on the Hippys, I grew up in a "Hip Capitalist" family in the 70's and enterprise is in my blood :-)
In the words of Redgum "If you don't fight - You Lose" !

[sn1987a (Barry)]

No need to worry, all the smart and clever people are working on the robots and intelligent computer systems that will eventually do all the manufacturing everywhere, problem solved.

[Paul Haese]

It wouldn't matter if people studied more and harder in Australia. Simple economics is at play here. The biggest problem with Australian manufacturing is the cost of labour in general. Even materials that are made here are over priced because of the cost of labour. We cannot compete with countries that can supply labour cheaply.

Australians don't want to work for lower wages and demand all sorts of entitlements and to boot don't work like they should; I know because I have been running a business for 15 years and I have seen it get worse. Korea is one of the few exceptions where high wages and output are matched. Nearly every developed country has this problem now and in the end we the developed world will become the developing world. This will be the cycle of the capitalism. It will always seek the cheapest labour to maximise profit.

So for now labour moves off shore as business owners want to earn profit and manufacturer skill level moves off shore. This is not a government fault either. No government can do anything about this problem. You cannot throw money at this. We have to have a wage adjustment and income adjustment across the board. It has to be wide reaching into all parts of our life including real estate. A decent depression would do the trick and reinvigorate our entire society. We had the chance to do this in 2008 but every government spent up big to prevent a depression. That in my opinion was a mistake for long term viability. It would have meant millions out of work, falling real estate prices, perhaps even high crime rates for quite a while but it would have given us a competitive edge again.

We had this a little during the recession of the 90's, the one we had to have and instigated by the then Hawke/Keating government. We need this again to solve a lot of the problems. Until then manufacture moves off shore and will eventually lead to declining revenues to the point where countries will regress. Comforting thought.

[ZeroID (Brent)]

I was involved ijn a discussion with a retired elder gentleman ( 'elder' than me that is ) at the weekend. His hobby was RC boating, build, sail, etc etc. He was lamenting the fact it was hard to get new members of a younger ilk interested and when they do they just bought and assembled kitsets. None of them had any skills or proclivity to building from scratch, making their own parts etc.
It seems to be a general trend these days. People have a lot more interests and demands on their lives and so the 'shortcut' is the norm. Instant satisfaction is the answer, buy and try, throw it away, next please.
I get much of my astronomical satisfaction from the challenge of building and exploring the technical aspects of the hobby. It it wasn't so I probably wouldn't be anywhere near as committed.
( Hmm, maybe I should be committed anyway ... )

[jenchris (Jennifer)]

If we get the free trade agreement with China, we'll be competing for jobs with Chinese workers in Australia.
Guess we can say goodbye to our country now and be done. We sure as hell can't compete with China here.

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by sn1987a

No need to worry, all the smart and clever people are working on the robots and intelligent computer systems that will eventually do all the manufacturing everywhere, problem solved.

Thinking about it much of manufacturing is robotic..we just need more robots

[PeterEde (Peter)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Seems stupid not to keep up some degree of skill.
We do things well why can't we become the worlds best weapons manufacturers for example.
Build our own fighter jets.
Save car manufacture before all sckills are lost.
What happened to our submarine building or did we buy overseas

I wouldn't call building cars (except those doing design) much of a skill. These people over priced themselves out of jobs. $59K walk in off the street starting pay for assembly line work?

WE made our own planes up until the Nomad. WE designed what was said to be the best military trainer in the world but never built it?

Subs are still up in the air. But we may also be building another 8 frigates as well. Still waiting on that news also. Wish they'd hurry up because I work there and want to know if I have a job.

Originally Posted by AndrewJ

Gday Alex

Our Pollies of the day decided to buy a sub assembled using allen keys instead of the semi proven German type 2000.
The resulting problems crippled out credibility, and as such the
pollies now run a mile rather than try again.

Andrew

There are only 2 types of naval vessel.
Submarines and targets :-)

I worked for the alternate tenderer back then. Most we shell shocked when IKEA got the contract. Having said that now after all issues have been sorted I'm pro building Collins evolved. We own the design. We know what it's short coming are.
Or The Germans have said they will build here and cheaper than Japan.

As much as we hear about the Japanese subs being "great" They are not suitable to our needs. Japan has built a submarine suitable for it's needs "Self defense" They are not long range, they have less speed, they are designed for 1/2 the life of Collins. Effectively they will cost more than Collins