Posted by: Cragyon ® 04/12/2004, 06:58:10 Author Profile eMail author Edit

I have been hearing alot from the American media about job outsourcing.  With this  web site ( Engineers Edge) being primarily a mechanical design and engineering forum, I was wondering if any body in the trenches could share their perception of the effects of outsourcing on our technical professions? Modified by Cragyon at Mon, Apr 12, 2004, 07:25:30

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Re: Affected by Outsourcing?
: Affected by Outsourcing? Are we in Mechanical Design and Engineering being Outsourced? -- Cragyon	Post Reply	Top of thread	Engineering Forum

Posted by: RandyKimball ® 04/12/2004, 21:28:43 Author Profile eMail author Edit

Hi! I'm not being outsourced. I design machines for my employer that meet our needs to a custom point of view. However, I outsource all the parts and work. Sometimes after I design the project I outsource the machine turn-key. Most of the time I bring in all the parts and assemble them in house. The reason for bringing in the parts and doing the final assembly myself is it is nearly impossible to find shops that can machine, wire and program. .. The biggest reason I bring them back for assembly is turn-key shops are usually months late on delivery, by my experience. -randy- The worst suggestion of your lifetime may be the catalyst to the grandest idea of the century, never let suggestions go unsaid nor fail to listen to them.

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Re: Affected by Outsourcing?
: Re: Affected by Outsourcing? -- RandyKimball	Post Reply	Top of thread	Engineering Forum

Posted by: gumbo ® 04/13/2004, 22:24:36 Author Profile eMail author Edit

A lot of engineering is being outsourced.  It is much cheaper to contract engineering and drafting in, say, India for less than half of the stateside costs.  I worked for a major "US" company that outsourced all of its FEA, drafting and initial design work to India.  They kept a skeleton staff of engineers around to feed the information to them but many technical jobs were sent overseas.  Most of their engineering staff was less than three years out of college too.  The quality of the product was compromised but that is secondary in a lot of todays markets.  This is only one example of many.  The next phase (actually current) is to rely on contract engineers to fill the voids and eliminate overhead.  Of course product knowlege and quality is greatly sacrificed again; but, the bean counters that make the decisions now don't have one scintilla of knowlege about quality and until the customer quits purchasing the end product nothing will change.

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Re: Affected by Outsourcing?
: Re: Affected by Outsourcing? -- gumbo	Post Reply	Top of thread	Engineering Forum

Posted by: akimcheng ® 05/09/2004, 21:50:19 Author Profile eMail author Edit

we are an outsourcing company located in china, and focus on activities of outsourcing mechanical products including custom injection plastic part, sheetmetal part, spring, bearing etc. Outsourcing activities will be trend in the future, since production cost in Euope and USA are much higher than China or asia. and now china become a world factory, many factories move to china, However those products are pretty simple and easy to manufacture. High tech product still remain in Europe and USA. but some will be transferred to china.  it is a principle of natural, no one can change it!

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: Re: Affected by Outsourcing?
: Re: Affected by Outsourcing? -- akimcheng	Post Reply	Top of thread	Engineering Forum

Posted by: katieo ® 04/08/2009, 20:38:49 Author Profile eMail author Edit

We tried outsourcing some drainage studies overseas since our firm did not have anyone that could do it and we didn't get enough of it to hire someone fulltime. We found the quality of the overseas work to be fairly poor and had to have the work redone stateside. We found a company that specialises in virtual engineering services and doing contract cad, drafting, and engineering. They keep the work local and the product was very professional. I think in the future, especially with the low number of jobs we are getting we may need to focus more on "contract employees". It saves on money on employee benefits and wasted "admin time" when we don't have enough work to keep them busy.

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