Off Topic
Being an engineer in the past, and having to deal with suppliers, you wouldn't believe what goes on sometimes. As a graduate of the '90s, I got the JIT manufacturing and supply indoctrination, but that was based on responsible, reliable outsourcing, by engineers to trusted partners. Not the '90s business-led, dollar-based supplier atmosphere we're still dealing with.
Heck, Boeing learned it the hard way on the Dreamliner. They ended up buying some of their partners, and moving some component manufacturing and assembly back to trusted partners and subsidiaries. There are a few in Mexico, and Ford has made such investments (with improving quality), but a lot ... well, I've been involved with one that went under as a result.
It's been a more recent case study of both how to and how to not outsource. I mean, Boeing has lived it a long time, and done very well with partners (e.g., Boeing's partnership with Japanese companies has kept EADS-Airbus at a continual disadvantage for sales) but the Dreamliner taught them where there are limits.
Here in the US, we're still trying to deal with the labeling, as it's global economy now -- "American assembled from domestic and foreign components" is common for "Made in USA" now. Porsche has long bought their turbos from an Ohio-based company, and Ferrari still relies on GM-Delphi for their advanced suspension (while charging 5x as much as the exact Corvette part list), all while no American company makes manual transmissions any more, and my little daily GM beater has a Fiat transmission, while everyone looks to the Brits for high-torque manuals and sequential gearboxes. Heck, even Ford and GM collaborates on auto-slushboxes now, and some of the patents are quite innovative, least for size, weight and upshift speed.
Disclaimer: My brother-in-law co-authored about 40 patents as GM Assistant Chief Engineer, Powertrain-Transmissions.
It's not a simple problem to address, no matter what Presidential candidate promises. And then there's Congress, who has their interests, let alone loves to pass laws on the final hours of the last day of a session, when less than 40% are still able to vote -- *cough*1990*cough*. It's easy to complain, far more to address the bigger issue. Although I've just seen to many companies slit their own throats.
Whenever I see a company switch to Mexico fabrication, unless they've had the operations there for 10+ years, it's crap 98% of the time. Heck, after I got an '04 Ford with Mexican assembled auto-tranny that dropped at barely 60km (40k-mi) on it, and the Ford dealer admitted it was defective at fabrication (not shavings, but chunks when I asked how the heck that could happen -- he flat out admitted it), it wasn't a surprise to me since they had moved a lot of powertrain and assembly to Mexico as its was 1/10th the price.
But it's also how Ford avoided bankruptcy, while Chrysler and GM kept much domestic. But that's another story.
Experience is always the key. The Chinese and Mexican fabrication and assembly plants are getting better as they learn. And they'll have a new generation of expertise, one we in the US are losing by our own leadership and doing.
