Types Of Jobs Requiring Equipment Storage

Equipment storage is crucial in businesses such as construction, manufacturing, and servicing facilities. Equipment storage can be vital to the growth of a company. Whether you are running out of room on a job, or perhaps you are just trying to account for and preserve the equipment you already have, equipment storage is one sensible solution to these issues. Read more about it at this helpful construction blog.

How Outsourcing to China will "Bring it Home"

Mei (name changed) is a Chinese factory worker who makes toys sold overseas. She works 12 hours except on Saturday when she is permitted to only work six hours. She lives in a small flat with her husband and one child. She was pregnant with a second but the local authorities forced her to have an abortion. For two years she managed raising their living child alone, because her husband was being detained under suspicion of having ties to a certain religion. This is not Hollywood, this is nothing remarkable, this is common people's life.. in mainland China.

The phenomenon of outsourcing to China took on a complete new dimension in the USA, with the sudden success of what some consider the single largest retail scandal in American history - Wal*Mart. According to the PBS documentary STORE WARS: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town:

Made in the U.S.A? Despite a well-publicized "Made in the U.S.A." campaign, 85 percent of the stores' items are made overseas, often in Third World sweatshops. In fact, only after Wal-Mart's "Buy American" ad campaign was in full swing did the company become the country's largest importer of Chinese goods in any industry. By taking its orders abroad, Wal-Mart has forced many U.S. manufacturers out of business.

(note the above recording of Wal-Mart's 1992 television ad "Bring it Home to the USA" was removed from YouTube several weeks after this article was published)

Most Americans never saw past the red-white-and-blue logo of this seemingly phony patriotism. Wal*Mart stock price skyrocketed with its success. Wal*Mart would ultimately get away with "selling the American economy" to Chinese elite on an unprecedented scale. Other retailers - by choice or by necessity - also increased Chinese imports. The Chinese elite came to understand that a great weakness of their western counterparts was the overwhelming self-centeredness of some. And as Wal*Mart showed everyone, you only need some. Convince one to outsource - two more follow. Others resist, but as their own products loose markets to cheaper competition, they too are soon forced to follow suit in a massive avalanche of outsourcing. This flood of new low-cost, low-quality product to store shelves also fostered a new "use up and throw away" mentality in people, which produces more waste and garbage.

But it gets worse. In early 2009 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed a collateral agreement in Beijing which grants China the right to claim Eminent Domain of LAND within the USA as security for all the debt this has helped cause. America has now quite literally - and quietly - mortgaged itself to China, and most people living there don't even know. Americans can partly thank their local Wal-Mart - after all - "They Care", as their carts say. All of this for the everyday low price of cheap tube socks and $2 a day paid in sweat shops that nobody else had to look at. So, for those who want to move to China, there is good news. We just keep outsourcing to China, and China will be brought to us.

Outsourcing Disasters Put Consumers at Risk

Outsourcing manufacturing and even development to overseas companies became a fact of life with international agreements and the economic globalization which quickly followed. Foreign export subsidies abroad and lowered import tariffs at home offer a powerful case for simply sourcing what we want from somewhere else. The benefit to consumers are cheaper display prices. However, the products themselves can have hidden costs which total much higher than the display price. Here are just three costs not on the price tag:

Safety: September 2009 saw the latest chapter in a long string of expensive and time-consuming product recalls of items manufactured in China. Just the other day one of our staff found themselves face to face with this reality in their own home, having narrowly avoided possible injury when the powder metal blade retainer for their new, one-day-old imported lawn mower cracked a large chunk off after just ten minutes of operation. This safety-critical part was stamped from powder metal and probably given insufficient oven time to bake - which means there are hundreds - thousands somewhere just like it. Back at the store our colleague watched as the entire model line seemed to have a similar flaw and started immediately getting pulled from the floor. How much could that have cost someone?

Economic: Training overseas personnel has opened the door to a flood of skillful black-market copycats, counterfeiters, patent and trademark pirates who apply inside knowledge to cleverly reproduce almost any product illegally, which becomes expensive and difficult to police. Local jobs and skills are lost overseas forever. Eventually, the local economy finds itself borrowing from China to buy from China.

Human Rights: Those employed overseas in the manufacture of low cost goods for export often discover their original expectations wrong, working in appalling conditions, with no way back out. Middlemen, business brokers and investors receive the entire net profit from the supply-demand relationship.

The real differential in the final consumer's decision is actually not cost, but timing. When presented a choice between "pay now or pay later", MBA 101 states that credit-based consumerism such as what is encouraged in the USA will pick "pay later" - even if it means paying more. Darwinism 101 responds that if cutting out fierce business competition could therefore be timed early, it technically justifies almost any other consequence in quality, ethics or community interest. Darwin knows that consumers will still have opportunity to pay their fare share of it all, just a bit "later".

Uncontrolled serial product outsourcing can be a disaster. Not surprisingly, there is growing understanding about the importance of highly selective outsourcing, supplier evaluation, certification and inspection by qualified local staff and agency, while maintaining tight product control, domestic R&D, and a healthy ratio of credible domestic suppliers and know-how at home.

progeCAM CNC Milling Lathe Wire EDM for progeCAD IntelliCAD

progeCAM CNC Software for progeCAD 2009 has been released on CADDIT. progeCAM is an affordable CNC manufacturing package for progeCAD designers who would like to use a CNC mill, lathe or wire EDM machine for cutting their designs. The CADDIT progeCAM CNC package links progeCAD Professional to PartMaster CAM with a small plugin which adds several new machining commands directly to the progeCAD interface: pcamMILL, pcamTURN, pcamEDM - along with a pcamOPTION and pcamHELP command. Commands are enabled depending on the manufacturing license chosen. There is also a small progeCAD toolbar which can call these functions without typing.

The progeCAM manufacturing package including progeCAD 2009, Dolphin CNC PartMaster and the CADDIT module is priced at a combined discount of more than 10% plus including the module software and support for free.

Special CNC Milling, Lathe, Wire EDM pricing

CADDIT has reached a limited-time agreement with Dolphin CADCAM Ltd, UK to introduce their Level 3 CNC mill, lathe and wire EDM solutions at greatly reduced cost. Buyers from the following countries qualify to purchase a full level 3 license at level 2 prices for the rest of this year (2008): Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore.

Buyers can also earn some money when they participate in the CADDIT customer referral program.

Reference links:
CADDIT/Dolphin PartMaster Level 3 CNC milling software
CADDIT/Dolphin PartMaster Level 3 CNC lathe software
CADDIT/Dolphin PartMaster Level 3 wire EDM software

More information about CADDIT CNC Software here.

Test users can download and trial PartMaster CNC here.