Category Archives: International

Things China Makes

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AUGUST 7, 2013

Even though economists expected that the Chinese manufacturing sector would contract in July 2013, it did exactly the opposite. China’s economy is heavily dependent on manufacturing and exports; its citizens consume only a fraction of all the goods made in the country, and the rest are exported to the U.S., Europe and other markets. In fact, China makes so much stuff that if it suddenly decided to stop, most of the rest of the world would experience impossibly high demand for many “essentials” of modern life — things like air conditioners, cell phones and personal computers.

This post provided courtesy of Jay and Barry’s OM Blog at www.heizerrenderom.wordpress.com. Professors Jay Heizer and Barry Render are authors of Operations Management , the world’s top selling textbook in its field, published by Pearson.

The Challenge of Fixing a Boeing 787

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AUGUST 6, 2013

ethiopian airDesigning a new product such as the Boeing 787 is a huge undertaking. The thin plastic skin on the 787 Dreamliner, writes The New York Times (July 30, 2013),  ”is an engineering marvel, a mix of carbon fibers and epoxy molded into large barrel-shaped sections that are then baked at up to 350 degrees in giant ovens.” But while airlines love how this lightweight concoction saves fuel, the recent fire on a Ethiopian Air 787 in London provides the first test of how much more difficult and costly it will be to repair serious damage than on older aluminum planes.  Each day a jet remains grounded costs an airline tens of thousands of dollars.

The cause of the fire, a pinched wire on an emergency transmitter, was fairly mundane. But the high temperatures weakened the supports in a 10-foot stretch at the top of the rear fuselage and seared the paint on the top of the skin, causing the most extensive damage yet to one of the new 787s. Boeing will have to cut out the damaged areas and bolt a large patch, made of overlapping panels of composite materials, onto the plane. It will also need to install new composite supports and shore up the structural integrity of the plane. If the damage were more extreme, Boeing could remove the entire 23-foot-long barrel containing most of the jet’s rear fuselage and snap in another one.

The use of composite materials on planes has grown steadily over the last 4 decades. Only 1% of the weight of Boeing’s 747 jumbo jet came from composite parts when it was introduced in 1969. That increased to 11% by 1995 on the 777, which has an all-composite tail section. Composites now account for half of the 787’s weight, which, together with more efficient engines, cut fuel consumption by 20%.

This post provided courtesy of Jay and Barry’s OM Blog at www.heizerrenderom.wordpress.com. Professors Jay Heizer and Barry Render are authors of Operations Management , the world’s top selling textbook in its field, published by Pearson.

Still Made in America

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JUNE 30, 2013

paintbrushesChinese manufacturers long ago wreaked havoc on the U.S. textile, apparel, toy and electronics industries. But disruption has come more slowly to the brush business, writes The New York Times (June 18, 2013).  There are simply so many types of brushes for so many applications that many Chinese manufacturers thought the business wasn’t worth the hassle. Despite the recession, there are still more than 200 brush, broom and mop makers in the U.S. These companies have employed two strategies to stave off Chinese competition: 1) change everything all the time, or 2) don’t ever change a thing.

Kirschner Brushes hasn’t changed a thing. The Bronx, NY company makes brushes the very same way, employing many of the same machines it bought 50 years ago. Kirschner sticks with the old ways because, unlike with toys and T-shirts, a big chunk of the brush business caters to professionals who aren’t merely shopping for price but rather for quality.

At the other end of the business is Braun Brush, which is constantly creating innovative brushes so that it never has any competition. Bruan makes a beaver-hair brush that’s solely for putting a sheen on chocolate, an industrial croissant-buttering brush, a heat-resistant brush that can clean hot deep fryers, and a tiny brush that helped Mars rovers dust debris from drilling sites. When Braun sees other firms making one of it brushes, it often drops the product rather than enter a price war. Braun has grown at 15-20% annually for the past 5 years.

Despite all the doom-and-gloom US manufacturing stories, there are still more than 200,000 small factories, like Kirschner’s and Braun’s, that provide a solid, if rarely heralded, base line of American business. Very quickly though, the US is becoming a nation of Brauns–one in which a product faces extinction, or a rebooting, shortly after it is unveiled. This flexible economy has many advantages–and over time, it delivers more economic growth to the US.

This post provided courtesy of Jay and Barry’s OM Blog at www.heizerrenderom.wordpress.com. Professors Jay Heizer and Barry Render are authors of Operations Management , the world’s top selling textbook in its field, published by Pearson.