So how is it for you companies out there? I work in the marine field so our customers are willing to pay a premium but how is it for everything else out there?

Being self employed for so many years I also know a lot of self employed people, to over simplify and in my small circle, there seems to be sectors that are doing very well but with the majority it seems more famine then feast.

What sectors are doing well? Medical?

I dont really know about specific sectors. I would have thought that medical would be doing well. We are in the plastics, molding, and prototyping. Things could be alot better. There was very little in automotive the first quarter of this year and I havent heard of any major project breaking loose. Military and defens seems to be doing well. All of the housewares and consumer goods seemed to have gone overseas.

__________________
Doug Pryor
David Wolfe Design, Inc.
Akron, Ohio USA
www.davidwolfedesign.com
www.airpoppet.com

I think that what volume of business your sector has is what basically determines weather its been shipped overseas or not.

My business is in the Custom motorcycle aftermarket and we are doing well but the volume is not as high as say the automotive industry.

The one fellow (Small business) that I was thinking of makes motorcycle parts as well, for Honda, stays busy all year, one guy barely keeps his doors open, mine would be shut as well if it was my main income, although if it was I would be working harder at getting work. Others that I have spoken to but do not personally know are very slow also.

There was a good article in Mechanical Engineering magazine a couple of months back.

It came down to offering something different. You needed custom work, fast turn around, small batches, or specialized processes to survive and thrive. If you were competing on basis of price for large volume orders of regularly produced parts, you were in for a rough ride.

-Jeff

While most of my business is small to medium runs. Or repair work that needs to be done now. I have lost two customers whom I have had for years, to China. The parts are 100 to 500 per run and they run every 3 to 5 months. Setting down with the purchashing agents with both companies, they showed me what they now get the parts for. The parts are made, plated, and assembled. I can't even buy the material for what they pay for the whole part includeing shipping.
I have since have picked up a few new customers. But as time goes on I do worry about this trend. For a few years I really didn't because China and India required a company to buy 10,000 and above and it took months to get, now it looks like small orders are getting to be more common for the the importers.

Jeff

It is a tough road to make anything cheaper then what can be produced overseas. But it has always been that way. Once it was Japan now it is China. I do not know who is at fault is it the person buying the product,I am sure he is finding it hard to make a profit or is it big business,raising prices on materials. All I know is I am trying to hang in there and produce a good product if my cost is to high,I try to find ways of lowering it. I have to say that I am like everyone else,I do not know the better way of making a product with good quality and at a price that will sell. What I do know is that if I work just cost that someone will summit a lower bit.

I work at a company that makes outdoor lighting. we recently started buying parts from china that i was in chage of making. the part about the price being less than our material costs is the sad truth. one of our buyers told me that the company that makes the parts over also runs the material processing.
so our own anti-trust laws and the seeming willingness of a government to back the losses of the companes puts us at a bad disadvantage.
for my own business, i have not seen any jobs with high volume. the only advantage i have is the ability to do the programming and machining myself and many times for free. only to ensure the repeat order maybe in 6 months of a year.
most of my orders are less than 5 pieces and many times only 1.