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| 8-hydroxyquinoline Credit: Wikipedia |
What has to change is the economics of manufacturing in the USA. One way to do this is automated synthesis. A good example of a problem: How would one automate the synthesis of an OLED chemical like 1 MT of 8-hydroxyquinoline? This is an existing item of commerce, so entry into the market means taking share from someone else. You’ll probably have to best the market price by 10 % at minimum to induce someone to switch vendors.
The chemistry isn’t cutting edge, but the processing economics may be. This is an example of how entrepreneurialism can and should tackle manufacturing problems and gain a competitive edge. Since labor cost is a huge driver, find a way to shave off labor. An entrepreneur’s competitive edge may be process cost savings alone. You don’t have to wait for a scientific paradigm shift.Considering the synthetic details (that I've seen so far) include a Skraup reaction, I'm not quite sure how you might automate the process, but I'm guessing it could be done. Hmmmmmm.
Labor costs delta is always mentioned yet as pointed out in th'Gaussling post there are numerous other considerations such as environmental/waste/safety regulations that impact competitiveness so I believe more automation is unlikely to tip the scales enough even if one has a plant set-up to operate with less people (thus ignore the larger infrastructure costs). There used to be Quality and Reliability factors beyond simple Lowest Price however since those more intangible elements can be hard to quantitative current business models only give lip service to them these days.
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Quality is still alive in well. It changes its name throughout the years but it is very much prevelant.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think Six Sigma is? It is focused on very high quality to lower material and rework costs.
Anon 2:30PM I would suggest the "Appearance of Quality is alive as well". I know what Six Sigma (TQM,Demming or what ever label chosen), ISO and even GMP are designed to do and can indeed be of benefit for control. However in real world buying decisions how many times is having such "certification" part of the equation. Many places give lip-service to this as criteria but still go with the lowest bid regardless of suppliers status (think of as Walmart shoppers). At the same time some suppliers obtain/label themselves with such designations that are more for show than actual substance in how operations performed.
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