Participants Mr. Greg Antoun Mr. Kevin Baird1984 Mr. Daniel Jepson Mr. Jerome Nelson 1983 |
Henderson Auditorium, Quigley Hall |
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| " Manufacturers want to reduce costs. The largest trend I see in
manufacturing is the effort to reduce the cost of human labor. It is much
less expensive to buy a robot than to pay a human being to stand in front
of a machine. The tendency that I see that is very prevalent in this industry
is to get rid of people. If we produce a commodity to sell on the open market, then we have to be willing to accept the price that is the going rate set by the consumers of that product. The alternative is to manufacture unique products that create wealth, that create the need for training and the development of human capital and if we do that, we will be well off, if we don't do that, we will be making commodities and we will be mighty poor. " |
Mr. Greg Antoun |
" Recognizing that we are in a global playing field. Your competitor isn't next door, he's half a world a way. Unfortunately it's not always fair. The US is really true capitalism. Most of the world is somehow subsidized capitalism. So the problem we have is, we don't like that, but our consumers still want the lowest price product in the world. Manufacturing in the United States it's based around productivity and the future is dependant upon the fickle nature of the consumer. The faster you want something as a consumer, the better it is for US manufacturing. You cannot export logistics. You cannot export having a product next door in an hour from anywhere around the world. " |
Mr. Kevin
Baird1984 |
Mr. Daniel Jepson |
" We have stay unique, we have to stay on the cutting edge. We have to look for those things that we can do better than anyone else can do and that’s getting harder and harder to do and we have to search deeper all the time to do that but that is the key, to keep unique, keep our costs down, keep everything in line so that we don’t attract attention and try to find niches that we can fit into and that way we can survive. We see receding wages, we see a lack of profit so that the companies can’t buy the new equipment that they need to be competitive on the global market. It’s in very much a state of shock right now because it’s been so good for the past 50 years and why does it have to change but it has changed and we need to adapt to that and find out the answers to survive. " |
| " We have to learn lessons from the mistakes we’ve made in the past. You have to be doing things cheaper or better and in most cases both. There are relatively fewer barriers to entry to getting into business today then there were previously. You can now for a fraction of the cost put up a smaller mill and be in business. So it puts a lot of pressure on larger companies who have older steel making technology. We have to continue to invest and through that, make it more efficient. Barriers to entry are one of the key differences in manufacturing; the other is, it’s a world market. Before, if you were in Chicago you had to worry about what the guys in Cleveland were doing. Now, you have to worry about what’s happening in China or India. " |
Mr. Jerome Nelson 1983
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