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Sheriff
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Originally posted by <slacker>:
Outsourcing is here to stay.


I think it's quite a bit early in the game to make that kind of prediction. Regardless, having your nation's IT industry 90% dependant on panhandling to foreign businesses wouldn't exactly give me a warm fuzzy feeling about future stability.
When it comes right down to it, the question that needs to be examined is whether or not a particular nation's IT industry could survive if all foreign contracts were to disappear. In other words, can that nation's IT industry survive only doing business domestically? I would expect in most cases the answer would be a resounding "no". The US, Japan, and some of the European nations are exceptions. Their industries could continue to survive in a purely domestic market.
No matter how many companies may currently be using you for your cheap labor, the software that people are buying still has names like "Sun", "Microsoft", and "Oracle" printed on it. What happens when the winds of change blow those contracts into some other developing country, or they wise up and use domestic labor?

Thank God, US policies are not decided by keyboard sheriffs.


You don't seem to have much of a grasp on the US political system. While it is true that the corporations do have very much influence on US policy, you should reailze that the people are also able to exert some influence. Just ask the US steel workers.

If you cant compete against other countries...
my sympathies are with you.


Now that's just plain amusing. :roll:
 
mister krabs
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Originally posted by <slacker>:
Outsourcing is here to stay. Thank God, US policies are not decided by keyboard sheriffs. If you cant compete against other countries...
my sympathies are with you.

Well, actually American policies are decided by my elected representatives who I communicate with on a regular basis. And they do respond because every 2 years I get the opportunity to send him home.
 
Thomas Paul
mister krabs
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Originally posted by Mark Herschberg:
I disagree with the first statement, and very much agree with the latter. There was a well received book, "Quality is Free" published in the 80's about how higher quality reduces costs. Certainly the airlines learned this long ago--while safty costs may more then double the cost of producing aircraft, the value of safe travel more then pays for itself.

I just noticed this and I simply had to respond. If the airlines were truly concerned about safety they would have pulled the 747 off the market after the flight 800 crash. The recent crash of the Chinese 747 was probably caused by the exact same thing. The airline industry's concern about quality is directly tied to the cost of potential lawsuits. If the cost of a change to aircraft design is more than they would likely pay in litigation then they simply let people die.
 
Author
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Originally posted by Thomas Paul:
I just noticed this and I simply had to respond. If the airlines were truly concerned about safety they would have pulled the 747 off the market after the flight 800 crash. The recent crash of the Chinese 747 was probably caused by the exact same thing. The airline industry's concern about quality is directly tied to the cost of potential lawsuits. If the cost of a change to aircraft design is more than they would likely pay in litigation then they simply let people die.


That doesn't disprove my point. Airlines recognized that safty makes more people fly, but there's a point of diminishing returns. Can it be made safer? Of course, look at the space shuttle; but it's simply not cost effective.
Your original point was right in that business don't care about quality in of themselves, but quality is not mutually exclusive to profits. Many companies can and do use improved quality to achieve their goals.
Far too often engineers don't appreciate the business consequences of making somehting perfect, or having it be better quality just for the sake of quality. On the other hand, many managers don't appreciate the HR consequences of not meeting their engineer's needs when they conflict with short term business goals.

--Mark
 
Ranch Hand
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Have any of you studied process engineering? I think the quality quote makes more sense if you look at in from a manufacturer's point of view. A well run manufacturing process has built in quality and it is free. In fact it is cheaper. Read a bit about the Toyota Production System or Lean Manufacturing or Demand Flow Technology. This is one argument I have when I hear about the sweet shops in Asia. It simply is not good business. A well run factory produces far more then a sweatshop. Labor is actually a small part of the cost of running a factory.
 
High Plains Drifter
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I find that last assertion ludicrous on its face.
 
pamchau
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Mr. Ernest what do you find ludicrous?
 
Ranch Hand
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Is this thread going to end with an headline similar to this ?
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/07/23/snakehead.reut/index.html
- I don't get it , i am not a programmer ,just a plumber
 
pamchau
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I hope I did not confuse anyone. I have just been reading all the talk and bashing and I just wanted to point out that most Asian factories are not sweat shops. They are ISO 9000 compliant companies. If they were not, most western companies would not do business with them. A lot of the factories produce goods that are equal and sometimes superior to American made goods. Many American companies have studied the Toyota Production System. MIT developed Lean Manufacturing using the same concept and Demand Flow Technology is another American concept based up the Japanese System. By using their system, Toyota was able to compete with the larger American auto industry. It is not just cheaper labor that makes an Asian company able to compete with an American company. In some countries labor is not even that cheap any more. There is a lot more to manufacturing then just the labor cost. Countries like Malaysia have labor laws that are far more strict then American laws. For some reason I have talked to many Americans that think Asian countries, especially China run sweat shops where terrible things are done to the poor workers and it just is not true. Even GM, Ford and Chrysler found great savings when they started to incorporate many of the features of the Toyota System into their own traditional mass production system. I have seen my own husband go into a factories in Thailand, China and Malaysia that are losing money, study them, double the worker’s pay, put into place more streamline manufacturing processes and Just-In-Time inventory control techniques and double the production, the quality and the profit of the companies. The cost of the worker’s pay is a small cost as compared to the money that can be lost in rework or lost customers because of inferior quality or the cost of excessive inventory where parts may not even be useful 3 months after being purchased.
 
Ranch Hand
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Originally posted by pamchau:
..They are ISO 9000 compliant companies.


I agree. I was 'bodyshopp'ed by an ordinary Indian IT firm to UK in mid 2000 and they were ISO certified then itself, and later on they improved their systems to earn CMMi Level 5 Certification.
They are just an average Indian IT firm.
 
Leverager of our synergies
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"A national association of 235,000 engineers and computer scientists is calling on Congress to study the impact of the country's H1-B visa program, the recession, and the outsourcing of jobs overseas on the unemployment rate of engineers and other information technology professionals."
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/204/business/Congress_asked_to_review_IT_field+.shtml
 
Ranch Hand
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Here's my basic thought on this: it's all about greed, exploitation and short-sighted selfishness. I have NO problem at all with companies going overseas, IF (big if) they pay those developers fair prices, which of course they are not. While the developers are getting better treatment/payment than the poor people working in factories making computer chips, it has the same base. This is pretty easy to fix, however, write your representative. Tell them that this is bad for our country, for our industry and that you want something done. You'd be surprised at how easy it is to get them to listen to you. Remember, while you can't give millions to them through lobbying, there is only one way that they can get those millions: get voted in to office, and who votes? You do (I hope). Tell them what you want and that if they don't do something about it you won't vote for them and if enough of us say it (which believe it or not is probably only about 200 people) they will do it.
OK, now here's how you contact them:
SENATE
http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index_by_state.cfm
(Just scroll down to your state. and they have phone/email/address)
HOUSE
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
(Choose your state and enter your zip code, then it takes you to a form to enter your message)
 
Author
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I wonder. It is a global economoy. Technology is making it a smaller and smaller world.
Can you unring a bell?
I don't think so.
 
Ranch Hand
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Everyone westerner at this forum seems to be very concerned about software jobs going to India. But what about the manufacturing jobs going to China and Tiwan? Software is just a small pie. Compare it to the MANUFACTURING jobs. I am talking about goods that are sold in the grocery stores!!!
Everything in the Canadian stores seems to be "Made in China".
 
Yes, of course, and I accept that blame. In fact, i covet that blame. As does this tiny ad:
a bit of art, as a gift, the permaculture playing cards
https://gardener-gift.com
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