Why America’s Largest Tool Company Couldn’t Make a Wrench in America
Why America’s Largest Tool Company Couldn’t Make a Wrench in America
A highly automated Texas factory was supposed to bring the manufacturing of Craftsman mechanics’ tools back to American shores. The $90 million project was doomed by equipment problems and slow production.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/677480
Archived version: https://archive.ph/RQev4
Archived version: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/aUlm5
"couldn't"
Paywall. tldr?
Guessing… corporate incompetence and scaling problems and logistics and “muh supply chain” nonsense.
They bought into marketing hype from a machine supplier. Then didn't properly test the machines before bringing their process up to scale. The machines couldn't produce quality tools at the expected rate. They could have fixed the process by slowing it down, but that would have made the plant unprofitable. So they closed it.
Issues with the automation systems they tries implementing.
Yeah. A machine doesn't have the flexibility and resiliency of a human. When a machine has a problem, it turns out defective products or nothing at all. A human can quickly identify and resolve a problem.
Sounds like the story of how Tesla almost died. Basically they were determined to implement maximum tech and automation, but it actually caused serious problems and bottlenecks with mass production. It was solved by ditching some systems and adding more humans.
I'm pretty sure this info came from M***, though. Taking credit for the epiphany, as the savior with the genius idea before the company was bankrupted.
The archive link gets around the paywall. The tldr as I understood it is that they gave up bringing it back to America after only a few years of trying through COVID. They never planned past the next quarter.
No planning past the next shareholder meeting?? I'm shocked. /s
It's probably the tools at the top. They call the shots.