Could automation actually bring mfg jobs back to the US?

[zolotiyeruki]

Last week, there was a big dust-up about a Chinese manufacturer embedding spy chips into server motherboards, and this morning, I saw a story about some electronics companies moving their manufacturing out of China, potentially to the US.

This brought up an interesting point:  electronics manufacturing is *highly* automated, which tends to diminish the impact of labor cost.  With the labor cost becoming a much smaller percentage of the overall cost of manufacturing, could that result in a shift of manufacturing back to the US?  At my job, I handle some of the procurement, and in our (admittedly limited) experience, the cost of having something fabbed in the US has basically reached parity with China.  Manufacturing in the US also has the advantages of a smaller time difference, no language barrier, and faster shipping.  And the "made in the USA" label, which I guess is important for some consumers.

Does anyone else deal with manufacturing, and have similar (or contradicting) experiences?

[bognish]

Besides cost the China advantage is the supply chain network of other factories close by. Unless the automated factory is going from raw material to end product, the components will still be made in China. Even if labor cost are equal regulations, permits and taxes are onerous in the US. If you are trying to get ride of the shipping time it would make more sense to build the automated factory in Mexico.

[Bateaux]

Automaton will brings manufacturing to their markets once production is despecialized.   Facilities could produce thousands of different products with different product runs everyday.  We could see neighborhood mini factories instead of giant mega-factories. 

[Slow2FIRE]

Several years ago before I jumped ship from Engineering to Legal I worked for a Japanese electronics manufacturer.  One of their often recited "claims to fame" was that they did 100% of all manufacturing in Japan while the 800lb gorilla of the market was moving some manufacturing to China (from the USA).

Personally, I found it hard to see how you would get many cost deductions with the parts placement machines being located in China vs elsewhere if you instill a little Toyota manufacturing ethos into your production line considering the headaches of dealing with a foreign country, regulations, and workforce.  This is as it applies to small electronic devices amenable to high levels of automation.  The production line workers were just loading component reels onto the production line for the parts placement machines (those things sound like little machine guns as they place all the components - some passive components barely the size of table salt crystals in your home salt shaker).  I've also visited similar facilities in the US...while not quite as clockwork as the Japanese facilities, they still looked pretty damn impressive.

However, there is a case for having those people doing QA and loading parts placement machines being paid 1/4 as much to eek out a tiny bit more profit.  At this point in time, I don't believe you can have a 90% automated production line (let alone fully automated).  This was one of Musk's big problems with Tesla Model 3 production if I read the articles correctly.

The components themselves, though, are still likely cheaper from China than being produced locally (things like resistors, capacitors, inductors, transistors, diodes, etc).

On the other hand, 3D printing can certainly bring the NRE waaaaay down for limited production runs vs. creating a mold for just 1,000 units -> 3D print them.  I'd imagine isolated areas (like Hawaii) may be able to benefit from 3D printing over having specialized components of limited quantity shipped in.  Need a camshaft timing gear for a model of car that isn't common on the island of Hawaii?  What about a non-standard fastener?  [NOTE: I'm thinking additive manufacturing of metal and carbon fiber impregenated resins, not PVC and ABS plastic 3D printing]