Cure for offshoring: The design side of product development

摘要

You have probably seen it yourself: images of Chinese workers toiling in mud-floored factories, each feeding a separate punch press, as if part and parcel of a living, progressive die. The lure of this cheap labor has sent many US manufacturers scrambling overseas to cut production costs. Although design-for-manufacturing tools that would have made this exodus unnecessary have been around for more than 20 years, companies continue to overlook them, says Mike Shipulski, chief engineer of plasma-cutter manufacturer Hypertherm, Hanover, N.H. Shipulski says Six Sigma and lean manufacturing work well on the production floor to reduce part variation and streamline manufacturing processes.