The negatives of working in manufacturing

[TouchDown]

Well, just announced today... LAYOFFS!!! 10% reduction, due to softening demand and moving more supply to our Asian sister plant (cheap labor and tax incentives).

Then the plant manager sends out an e-mail for the whole plant explaining the above, and finishes it up with the following words:

"Now, let's get back to work!".

How's that for a kick in the teeth.

But, I'm a money whore. They pay me well enough that I will put up with the crap just to get paid well. (of course, "well" is relative) as we've all had the discussion on other jobs (non-engineering) that make a whole hell of a lot more than us.

:ZZZ:

 

[FusionWhite]

Im desperate to move to a manufacturing job. I co-oped in a plant and it was the best job I ever had. Now Im in consulting and bored out of my mind. But I guess in consulting (with a very successful and busy company) I wouldnt have to worry about layoffs. At this point in my career a layoff wouldnt mess me up too bad, Im young and can bounce back.

I hope you survive the axe. Im sure the engineers get a decent severence package (You would hope).

 

[EdinNO]

tdthomas,

I hope it all goes well. When I was in mfg, we dealt with that stuff, but usally it panned out OK for most. I think some of it was more a means to get everyone to tighten up.

I love mfg as well, although there is not much of it where I am. I, too, am bored with consulting.

I am considering going to work for the local manufacturing extension partnership (MEP, more specifically MEPoL or MEP of Louisiana). They work to help smaller mfgs to run more efficiently. Their goal is to create and maintain mfg jobs locally. Each state has one. They are funded by grants, client contributions and other sources including NIST.

Anyway, I hope things go well. I hope the recent move helped and not hurt you. Sounds like it would have helped, huh?

Ed

 

[Road Guy]

Good Luck.

Only time we ever had layoffs was when we used perceived lack of work as a good excuse to loose some people we never should have hired in the first place (but thats consulting, not manufacturing)

Is the 10% for all job fields, or do you think one section will take a harder hit?

 

[gatormech_e]

i've been there. i used to work for Corning (NC) and they CLOSED THE WHOLE PLANT SITE. this is after they had 2 waves of layoffs. i left and went back to school for a few semesters when that happened, now back in industry (non mfg).

hopefully, you'll dodge the bullet...

 

[TouchDown]

At this juncture, it's only impacting hourly employees (production workers). When I started here 10 years ago, there were over 1200 employees on site. Now, after the startup of the Singapore plant, the movement of product to that site for obvious financial benefits has left our plant with about 522 employees now.

Thats > 50% reduction in less than 10 years. For a town of ~100,000 people, 500 jobs is kind of big. No worries for most, though, the un-employment rate in this town is close to zero, if you want a job, they are available in most cases.

Our lay-off policy with hourly workers is very black and white, using seniority as the cutoff. This caught anyone that had hired on the last 7.5 years. This plant has been around since mid 70's, so the original people that are here have 30+ years seniority.

As rumors go, they usually have some shred of truth. The rumor about this layoff came out last week and said 70 employees. It was correct, and the 3M employees lost were 46, in addition to that, there were 25 temporary workers that were let go as well... 71... I'd say that rumor was pretty on the mark.

Next rumor is that they will evaluate in January again and if things don't bounce back, they will look at another cut, and at that time they will look at salaried positions as well (supervisors/managers/engineers/administrative). I feel relatively safe. The way that they cut salaried is that the individuals typically meet the following:

1. poor performance reviews

2. On corrective action (does happen occasionally - may be associated with #1)

3. Job elimination - you don't want to be in a middle management type position in these times - that layer can be wiped out

4. (can't remember)

Missouri is a no - fault state anyway, so it really doesn't matter. But, I'm thinking that moving into a new job (just posted) means that I'd have some legal ramifications if they eliminated it soon after they allowed me to fill it. I have had good performance reviews, and pretty much go with the flow. The business that I'm associated with is closely tied to US and Europe, so the movement to Asia is less pressure. We make electrical connectors vs. flexible circuits on the other side of the plant, which is more electronics / cell phones / etc.

 

[Road Guy]

I honestly dont know if I would want to be involved in any type of manufacturing in this country, hard to compete against the wages in the rest of the underdeveloped nations as far as production goes, or can the design aspect be done stateside and all the production "outsourced"

 

[EdinNO]

tdthomas,

What is defined as "middle management"? I'm not really 100% sure.

To me, these are the guys who work and carry out a large brunt of the management over the lower groups of people.

Do they typically have managers below them?

Just curious. I've not really been a humongous facility that had that many tiers.

I was a manager at decent sized small/mid sized manufactuer (~$100M annual sales and ~700 emplyees worldwide in 3 or 4 countries), but only had a customer service and applications engineering group under me.

I'm just trying to put your statement into perspective. Not sure if I would have been lower level management or mid level. Just trying to et my arms around the term.

Ed

 

[TouchDown]

Management's new description of our plant is:

"prototype facility"... we design, build, and ramp up production, then outsource for high volume.

 

[Mike1144]

No worries for most, though, the un-employment rate in this town is close to zero, if you want a job, they are available in most cases.

I would also take that to mean that if you don't have a job, you can't afford to live there.

We've actually out sourced some of our engineering and drafting to Mexico. For a while I was helping to train the guy. How well would you train somebody to do your job for a quarter of what you make?

 

[EdinNO]

How well would you train somebody to do your job for a quarter of what you make?

25% or half of half-heartedly :dunno:

Ed

 

[TouchDown]

As for middle-managment (maybe a poor selection of words), but it's how I would interpret it.

The company I work for is a multi-national, 300 billion dollar company. Our plant is one of more than a hundred, employing in the range of 75,000 people worldwide.

We have layers of management... for instance:

Front line supervisors (direct hourly production report to these guys)

middle management (front line sup's and some salaried engineers report) - called the "general supervisor", I reported to a general supervisor.

upper-middle managment (all general supervisors report)

Product manager (all upper managers and other engineering group managers report - including product engineering, product development, etc.)

Plant manager (all product and infrastructure management report)

then you get to upper management at division level - VP's, etc.

The layer of middle management is a layer that could be WIPED out and not have too major impact on business. when you look at the layering scheme in management, you don't want to be in a layer that is seen as "dispensable" when times get tough.