The Beer Game -or- Why Apple Can’t Build iPads in the US
I found the in depth reporting at the Atlantic last month a bit more revelatory:<p><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/01/making-it-in-america/8844/" rel="nofollow">http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/01/making-i...</a><p>Though it sort of agrees that supply chain is important, just frames it differently.<p>The reason Standard Motor still employs (expensive) low skilled US workers like Maddie is because it wants to have her seal up a part immediately after the high skilled worker (Luke) finishes his precision machining role. Workers of Luke's caliber (with knowledge of metallurgy, coding, specific machine training) aren't reliably found in the lowest labor cost countries (at the moment, Poland is getting competitive here).<p>If robots for Maddie's job get cheaper, or demand grows such that the factory needs to run multiple shifts, or if the factory can somehow move Luke overseas, then Maddie loses her job. If any of these things happen, but firms like Standard keep their Maddies, they get bought out by gigantic German manufacturers, or just undercut on the store shelves until no one's buying their products anymore.