Manufturance Re-Shoring最近在一般商业出版社中经常出现。我们都听说过2013年花费1亿美元的计划，将一些制造业返回美国。然后The Atlanticarticle quoting GE’s Jeffrey Immelt as saying outsourcing is becoming “outdated as a business model for GE Appliances.”
As an example of why the model is becoming outdated,The Atlanticarticle noted that after GE brought back manufacturing of its GeoSpring water heater to the U.S. from a Chinese factory, GE was actually able to reduce the retail price of the water heater from $1,599 to $1,299. Furthermore, this lower priced U.S.-made product was of higher quality and efficiency than the China-produced version.
Of course, several factors figure into this, such as decreases in material and U.S. labor costs, increases in oil prices for shipping, and decreases in natural gas prices for operations, just to name a few. And though I can’t say exactly how much automation plays a role in this example from GE, I’m certain it played no small role. After all, it is largely the increased use of automation that has enabled a great deal of the manufacturing re-shoring that has occurred to date. Even China is increasing its use of robots and other automated devices to offset its own rise in labor costs.
最近的一项研究从IMS研究表示远离机器人的转变，主要用于焊接，码垛和组装等重型应用，以及朝着食品和饮料等行业的更轻的职业应用。该研究预测，食品，饮料和个人护理市场以及消费电子产品，将是2011年至2016年的工业机器人增长最快的两个行业。
According to Kiran Patel, an analyst at IMS Research, “Traditionally, work (in the consumer electronics markets) has been carried out by hand in regions of low labor cost, such as China. In recent years, wages have been rising by about 14 percent according to Chinese government statistics. The interest in industrial robots has increased in labor-intensive industries as companies look to automate and cut costs. Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn has announced that it plans to deploy one million industrial robots in its plants in 2-3 years.”
This increased use of robots in industries like food and beverage has a lot to do with the fact that it is an industry that fluctuates less with changes in general economic activity, says Patel. “With economic uncertainty continuing in the Eurozone, manufacturers of industrial robots do not want all their revenues to come from the automotive industry (which is one of the most sensitive to the rise and fall of the general economy). Manufacturers of robots have reacted by offering robots with a high protection class, making them applicable to food and beverage production,” he adds.
基于这种适应，IMS研究预测，从2011年到2016年，销售机器人销售额低于15kg的销售收入将平均增长6％。自动化生产食品和饮料和消费电子产品的投资将成为这种增长的主要贡献者。（参见此博客的图表）。
随着这篇博客的上行程序，机器人行业的增长看起来很有希望，缺点是，由于重新支撑的制造业工作中的一个大幅上涨可能不会在脱落中。
So what are the takeaways from all this?
这并不完全是翻天覆地的新闻,但是我明白了it, the return of manufacturing to the U.S. will not mean a return of the lower-skill, high-paying industry jobs that flourished for a few decades before and after World War II. In 2011, when Steve Jobs told President Obama those types of jobs weren’t coming back to the U.S., he may not have foreseen Tim Cook’s plan to re-shore some Apple manufacturing to the U.S., but he likely foresaw the continuing decline of low-skilled manufacturing work on a global basis in the face of increasing automation.
Though the outlook for manufacturing employment may not change dramatically as a result of re-shoring, reports like the one from IMS underscore the need for increasing levels of knowledge by those employed in industry. As with the GE water heater example referenced earlier, those results give educated engineers an edge and bolster the case for continuing engineering education.
See自动化世界’s Engineering School Innovationsfor a sample of what some enterprising engineering students have been up to lately.
