China has been the major thorn in American manufacturing for some time. Now a well-known expert says this is coming to a dramatic end in the next 10 years. Proficient Sourcing has a network of domestic manufacturers eager for reshoring interest or just a desire for better suppliers. Maybe at last we have some “good” news concerning manufacturing and China! Peter Zeihan has been writing about world geopolitics for decades and recently released a terrific… Read More
A McKinsey & Company article of Jan 12, 2022 is labeled as part of the Davos Agenda. This alone gives us pause. Do you trust the Davos crowd for sound advice? Please let us know your view on this subject. In any case, among other things, this McKinsey author bemoans the decline of US manufacturing, as it’s driven inequality and hurt its global competitiveness. Further, revitalizing manufacturing could add lots of well-paying jobs with digitization… Read More
Many years ago we found a 1954 publication, How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff. There were a number of useful thoughts in this book, which was an introductory presentation of how to use, and abuse, statistical data. This ssubject is important enough to warrant another article. All of us are subject to statistical presentations that may tell a distorted story. Beware! If you are at all attentive to graphs, charts, and related presentations you are… Read More
Just about every day we hear news of labor shortages in this business or that business, and seemingly everywhere. Is there a retail business or fast food restaurant, or any restaurant for that matter, that’s not seeking employees? There are some unorthodox steps available to some businesses, and many of these are things we have direct experience in times past. Some were quite successful! When we attended a retirement party at a very large corporation,… Read More
Big current news stories summarize nicely the economic effect caused by semiconductor chip shortages. The big stories were car prices skyrocket and Intel, once the world’s #1 chip producer, is building an enormous chip factory near Columbus, OH. Here’s the Reuters story on that: Jan 21 (Reuters) – “Intel Corp said on Friday it would invest up to $100 billion to build potentially the world’s largest chip-making complex in Ohio, looking to boost capacity as… Read More
Cheap, reliable, handy, and abundant energy has provided a robust competitive advantage for US manufacturing. Over the past couple of years, Congress and the administration now seem driven to promote an emissions free plan. Are initiatives like the Green New Deal helpful overall? We think it’s clear that manufacturing is a highly desirable feature of our country and should be encouraged. As a result, all of us interested in a good manufacturing future in the… Read More
A friend sent us this piece by History Professor Victor Davis Hanson, and we think it’s good enough to pass along in its entirety. By: VICTOR DAVIS HANSON October 3, 2019 6:30 AM A man stands in front of riot police officers during a protest in the Sham Shui Po district of Hong Kong, China, October 1, 2019.(Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)But did she wake up just in time or too late? In these times of near civil… Read More
”Chinese state media is now suggesting that rare earth (17 elements that serve as key components in devices ranging from defense weapons, lasers, hi-tech smartphones and cameras to flat-screen televisions and computers) exports to the US could be cut in retaliation for American measures sparking fear among manufacturers. If Beijing chooses to make good on these threats, the impact on US manufacturers could be disastrous”. Rare earths are present and critical in such vital items… Read More
Proficient Sourcing is focused on machinery and equipment components. One family of these items consists of processing machinery rolls, gears, gear boxes, journals, self lubricating bearings/bushings, and sprockets. We have a group of companies that prosper with these sorts of items. Equipment with process rolls, idlers, presses, and carrier rolls may require services such as OD grinding and even hard chrome plating, not to mention repairs. Here are a couple of articles that deal with… Read More
Almost every object we touch in life came from a factory somewhere. This is a relatively new thing in human history, and took a great deal of combined innovations to become possible. A large number of people working in an organized and coordinated way did not occur until the late 1700’s. Since Proficient Sourcing is involved in finding sources for your factory’s outsourced parts or assemblies, we are most interested in such history. Recently we have… Read More
