Could not have said it better myself. Just think, we (US) don't manufacturer hardly anything anymore. I'm 72 years young and in the 1950's and 60's I remember that we were the worlds leader in Manufacturing, sadly not anymore. You can't tell me that even today....... that we don't have the technology to build our own drones for commercial uses and fun. But the old adage is for us now to let somebody else make it and we will buy it (China mainly). Look at what you purchase, where is it made? Nine times out of ten, its not made in the USA. Yes, I know, I'm like most of you, I have drones, FPV gear all made in China.
I really love this hobby probably like you do, but right now way things are.........we have no alternative but not to buy from China or who ever that make the products we enjoy. I guess I've preached enough but I just had to reply. eEridani thanks for your comment on this subject.
I say for now(While we can) just enjoy our hobby. I really like our Mavic community on this forum, so much of you are so talented and have so much knowledge and are kind enough to share it.....I really appreciate it.........especially for old pilots like me..........God bless and Happy and Safe flying!
I'm 74 years old and worked in the semiconductor industry my entire career ... most of it as a moderately high level manager. For several years I had the engineering and P&L responsibility for about $350 million per year in sales. There are four reasons that a lot of American manufacturing went offshore:
1. Cheaper labor
2. Access to Asian markets who didn't want to be dependent on buying only from the west, didn't want to pay higher shipping from the west, and wanted closer suppliers for their version of Just-In-Time supply.
3. Less bureaucratic push back from local governments and far less delays in getting permits.
4. Access to skilled and educated workers who actually wanted to work in manufacturing.
Cheaper labor was only part of the picture. I remember when we wanted to expand a wafer fab in Phoenix and agreed to all of the conditions (safety, environmental, water usage, etc) that the city wanted to impose, and they still told us it would take 18 months to get the permits to even start. We couldn't wait that long and built the fab offshore.
We also tried very hard to hire college educated manufacturing engineers, but couldn't find them. VERY few colleges and universities had a manufacturing curriculum, and even fewer students wanted to earn a degree in what was considered such a boring field. In Asia (Japan, Korea, China), on the other hand, higher education was heavily focused on manufacturing and turned out lots of highly trained engineers.
One other aspect, of course, is that American manufacturing philosophy fell WAY behind the curve. The Japanese embraced Deming's quality teachings and virtually ate the American car industry for lunch. Concepts like JIT, The 5 Why's, lean manufacutring, etc all were developed in Asia. It took almost two decades for the U.S. to recover, and meanwhile American consumers were buying Japanese products based upon quality, not cost. A lot of talent and a lot of capability was lost during those two decades, and every time any U.S. administration of either color talks about reinvigorating American manufacturing it is mostly lip service compared to what Asian governments do.
Companies in the west don't drive these trends ... they just follow the money. Governments and consumers are the real drivers, and the more ignorant they are the worse things become.
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