Unnamed in America

When reading this piece I learn a lot about assembly lines, and the companies that support them. For example, in the beginning of this reading Barry Lynn mentioned that Dell, Ford, Motorola, and Intel were manufactured in six different countries before shipped back to the United States, WOW! This seemed odd to me for Motorola because they produce many cellular phones, and phones aren’t that massive in size to need different parts from all over the world, but apparently they do. Then the next part talked about how Dell assembles its OptiPlex in Austin, Texas (the only part assembled in the United States) in such tight workstations give the impression that workers are probably stressed out most of the time, especially since they only have three minutes to assemble their piece before the red light comes on. If the red light should come on, that could slow down, or even stop the whole operation.

The control and command model is in one way good, like for producing substantial amounts of products, but it could also be bad because goods produced in such short time could easily break down. It’s particularly bad when producing goods that are so expensive because people expect their product to be top of the line. Just five years ago Compaq took 60-120 days to do inventory for their computers, but just last year Dell past that time period with only performing it in four days, WHAT? I find this hard to do because in four days you can’t possibly do a detailed inventory.

It’s also hard for major companies such as Dell, Motorola, and Intel to rely on globalization because if there was another earthquake like the one in Taiwan, but say this time in Hsinchu’s industrial park where all the products are put together, then the economy could be put on hold because we rely on this place the most to do all of the work. Like in 2001, during those attacks, Bush used his authority to shut down all flights, which caused the US to be cut off from their suppliers. For this reason it’s important that there are US plants so that the companies can easily travel to the assembly location. Globalization was also looked at as a positive thing because it brought, “better services, lower prices, and more jobs”, but everyone knows that the only places receiving more jobs are the places overseas; the thing is to take all of the American jobs, and offer them to people who are willing to work for lower pay, which in the end produce more goods, but cause high unemployment in the United States. It's in a way just like outsourcing, but the difference is that outsourcing involves management control to the supplier, just check out wikipedia for examples of outsourcing, and also globalization, and the companies involved.

According to this website American Economic Alert the 4,500 parts that Dell gets from different countries are parts that could be found anywhere on the planet; so why do they necessarily go to other countries for them? With knowing this information, I now understand why Dell can sometimes easily break down (according to Dave, and some computer experts, Dell is considered to be crap!) Alexis' point about how Dell relies on foreign countries relates to what I meantioned above. Now Dell isn't the only company that depend on China, and Taiwan and places such as these for production. In fact according to the reading, hundreds of companies depend on them for a market place. Another source that points out how bad globalization can be is Student Stuff, which not only gave the good, but also the bad (mostly bad) side of globalization. Some students pages I found interesting were Joy's because she mentioned that companies are only concerned with getting their products out first because of the competition. Elena made great points about the Baryy Lynn piece. One point she elaborated on at the end was how companies shouldn't rely on so many international manufactuers because of what could happen. According to Barry Lynn, if China turns to violent stikes, it could take forever for the United States to receive shipments.