Minelab's new manufacturing location . . . . . interesting insight into the decision

[grumpyolman]

Balming Obama for the war(s) and the greed on Wall Street is a little like blaming the mortician for the poor job the physician did. Jim

 

[JHM]

Minelab was bought out by a big company. Most big companies are top heavy. Too many chiefs and not enough indians. The chiefs spend an hour a day on the computer, 3 hours in meetings, and the rest of the time kissing up. We have to down size the real workforce and get labor for 10 bucks a day to pay for it all. They should have to sell all their products in Malaysia. That way it would be a even playing field and they could adjust their prices to fit the economy there. However Minelab is no different than a lot of others. Welcome to the global economy. If you look back in history, no society stands the test of time when they get someone else to do their work for them.

 

[Erik in NJ]

n/t

 

[conlaodh]

n/t

Et tu brutie
or now us

 

[Erik in NJ]

The British were the greatest of the triumvirate colonial powers - like the Roman Empire of the latter centuries - and perhaps the greatest empire the world has known...(no wonder they are such good detectorists! )

 

[deeponedge]

We must all just hope for the best.

 

[Erik in NJ]

Regardless of where they're made -- I'm a believer!

 

[JHM]

I picture the Roman empire where the guy is setting on the couch being fanned and fed grapes by beautiful women. Too busy to see the army approaching on the next hill.

 

[Docsoo]

US or any other country moving to Asia!?? In the US our companies are baling out to avoid ridiculous government regulations and payroll taxes. And I know this is gonna piss off a lot of people but industrial unionism ( as opposed to trade unions, EG carpenters, electricians. boilermakers, etc, etc.) is driving business away. The steel industry crashed here because of environmental regs and huge labor costs. The auto industry is another. Toyota and Honda don't have unions even in their US ops and they are thriving and build the absolute best cars. And who cares if they pay employees in Asia $10 per day. If it's not enough people just won't take the jobs. Who cares where Minelab operates out of as long as their product remains superior. If you think they're getting rich but some freakin Minelab stock. I'm sure it's publicly traded. I personally feel absolutely no obligation to subsidize anyone's employment. And I do not begrudge anyone getting wealthy. And I never got a job from a poor person.

 

[JHM]

I'm so mad, I'm going to go read the Tesoro forum.

 

[SteveP(NH)]

whether or not the new owners will continue to fund research and development efforts at Minelab as high as it was funded in the past. It seems to me that history is split on how new corporate owners look at this. Sometimes they say, "we just invested a lot of money in this and we need to get some profits back out of it." To that end they cut costs and try to milk the current product line as long as possible, sometimes repackaging the same technology in a new package in order to get the most mileage out the money that was put into R&D in the past. A good example of this is the company (Cohu) that owned Fisher before First Texas bought them. Cohu just milked the Fisher brand. The Fisher line hadn't had any new machines for a while and the production quality had slipped from the past (if you ask me). Then after they lost market share they dumped Fisher and First Texas bought them, paying a basket case price for them. After First Texas bought Fisher they put more money in R&D and started bring out new machines again (the F series) plus they put some money into manufacturing and quality control and you can see they results in the current lineup.

It will be interesting to see how things shake out at Minelab. Will the Codan treat Minelab like CoHu did to Fisher and just milk past R&D in order to maximize profits, or will they treat it like First Texas has treated Fisher and put enough money into the brand to keep it as a top quality brand?

 

[Dennis 2]

I hope Codan does allot better then First Texas did with Fisher. First Texas did a great job with the R&D . But their Quality control isn't the best .But at least they make their own detectors. Now Minelab is basically jobbing out their work. Not a good thing. No way are they going to care about a product that means nothing to them.

 

[Erik in NJ]

n/t