# Factor in the demise of small manufacturing...?



## vtcnc (Feb 11, 2017)

Perusing through CL tonight and stumbled across a machine shop liquidation listing. We all know there are a lot of factors in the demise of a machine shop or any small manufacturer: economy, politics, education, family values, etc., but I can never get past the nagging thought that the condition of this shop is the reason why it is not continuing on:

maybe it just wasn't profitable anymore? The picture explains that...how many times did a tool get reordered when there are a dozen about on the floor and in the corners?
children didn't want anything to do with it, even though it was profitable? The picture explains that too...
couldn't get good help anymore? I can't imagine why! Who in the heck would want to work there?













Machine Shop Disaster



__ vtcnc
__ Feb 11, 2017






How can we blame others for our problems when we have 100,000 of them we created staring us in the face?

O.k., stepping down from the soap box...apologies if the previous owner is on this forum. :sheepish:
I'm certainly not a clean freak and am not quick to judge when I see clutter in the workplace - but it has been proven over and over again - a clean workplace is a safe, happy and profitable workplace. Unfortunately, I've seen way to many manufacturing plants, big and small, that resemble this. Many are no longer around.

Link to the listing...


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## woodchucker (Feb 11, 2017)

Some of these pig sties do very good work. Sometimes talented people are a messy workers. Sometimes Not. I personally would not want to work there, seems kind of dingy. I doubt the machines have been properly cared for...  I would find it too dark to work in. Some of those look like die punch machines. So maybe not a machine shop that most of us think of as a machine shop. But it is a machine shop.. it just might be doing production runs of punched items and the mill would be for making dies...


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## eugene13 (Feb 11, 2017)

It's survival of the fittest, and that includes housekeeping, lean, clean, and mean.


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## vtcnc (Feb 11, 2017)

@woochucker - yup completely agree, there are shops of all sorts and types that do good, quality work - even ones that look like this. But there are shops that are far more organized and do what appears to be of equal quality; I argue that the quality of _*all *_things in those shops cleaner shops are superior.

The questions that come to my mind are things like: 

could things be safer if it were more organized?
could things be of a higher quality?
could things be of a lower cost?
could people take more pride in being better than the pig sty across the way?
couldn't the answers to these questions lead to a more profitable endeavor?
couldn't a better organized team lead to better quality people, processes, products?
Maybe I'm hopelessly naive, but when I see photos like this, I see potential. That means that even the past successes of high quality achievement are only a beginning. I wonder if the previous owners lost sight of this idea?


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## eastokie (Feb 12, 2017)

well several things come to my mind,, CNC and inventory tax,, almost anything mass produced in this shop can be done CNC, i worked in a shop that was all manual,we made up some simple shafts , i told and told them to do some CNC , contract it out, plenty of CNC in our city, but Nooooooooooooo, cant do that,we would be trying to make a dozen of so identical shafts, and would get stopped to make one shaft needed immediatly !! we wound up making just what was needed a day before it was needed,,i got fed up and quit one day, they are still in buisness, just barely..i have also worked in a plastics plant,we made tubing and fittings for home wiring use,wires ran inside pipe..once a week somebody would be tasked with doing parts runs,where we made up only what some pluming store in a state far away wanted,we couldnt got to stock and pull out 5 small parts and ship them Noooooooooo  we had to spend 30 minutes setting up a machine (2 people) and make 5 parts in 2  minutes,tear down machine 10 minutes,and do all over agin all the shift !!we had room at the plant for holding areas for over stock but they didnt want to pay the Federal inventory tax.also Mexico is a factor now, plenty of shops like that down there,lots cheaper too.plenty of tools and dies coming from asia too. it all about the money..


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## Billh50 (Feb 12, 2017)

I have been in shops like that. They were a one man operation. Those men worked 12 - 14 hours a day machining by hand. Top quality work for larger companies that didn't want to take the time to run off 5 - 50 parts because they had orders for 1000's of other parts. They were just too damn tired at the end of the day to straighten up most of the time. And they needed to keep making parts to make a decent living for their families right up until they died. Then the family just let everything go for what they could get for it. 
I don't judge a man's shop by what it looks like because of that. I judge the quality of his work that he does on machines that most people would not even want to run. Because I have seen some pretty good work done on machines most places would have scrapped.


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## Tozguy (Feb 12, 2017)

There have been way too many examples over the years of self employed persons who were skilled at their trade or technology but lacked the business and management skills to succeed financially. Being too busy to see where you are going is a classic mistake.


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## Uglydog (Feb 12, 2017)

Perhaps I should start a new thread, and this may be a regrind of an old one.
Regardless, at the risk of sIf I may I would like to offer a different spin, and ask a question:
Is a clean and organized shop is a safer shop? Fewer incidents? 
From anecdotal extrapolation from other industry I'm not sure that it is. 
I believe that individuals are safe or not safe.
Individuals create a safety culture.
However, the kinds of people who are organized may also think about safe ordered operations.
Which causes which, and is there a correlation?

Daryl
MN


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## cathead (Feb 12, 2017)

There may not be a correlation between a  clean and orderly shop and safety.  Personally, I an not the neatest person
in the world and my shop reflects that.  I do have a constant watch for things that will bite you like chuck keys parked
in the chuck or flaky set ups or stuff that can fall.  Speaking of stuff falling, if I have something valuable that could potentially fall 
and break, I set it on the floor( out of the way).   I do that often with my coffee cup when I done with it or my multimeter.
I think most accidents happen from either fatigue or carelessness.   Maybe I will do some cleaning in the shop today 
while I am thinking of it.


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## ranch23 (Feb 12, 2017)

Please dont confuse that with a shop. Thats a collection of garbage best cleaned up with a bulldozer.


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## Billh50 (Feb 12, 2017)

ranch, that may be garbage to you. But to some of us who have no money that would be a great find and we would love to have some of that stuff.


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## ranch23 (Feb 14, 2017)

Billh50 said:


> ranch, that may be garbage to you. But to some of us who have no money that would be a great find and we would love to have some of that stuff.


Understand completely Bill.


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## A618fan2 (Feb 15, 2017)

Funny, it was a a shop nearly identical to the one above that is responsible for re-igniting my interest in metalworking.  About 8 years ago I needed a large wheel for an old bandsaw bored out so I looked in the phone book for a machine shop close to home to have the work done.  Two miles from home I found the 75 year old owner/machinist was a pleasant old gent who had reluctantly inherited the shop from his father.  The building was an extended old carriage house from the 1870s with a dirt floor.  Most of the machines dated from the turn of the century through 1940 or so although his lathe was a bit more current.  He mostly did work for the local heavy equipment manufacturer.  Anyway, in spite of appearances, he did good, accurate work and he knew where everything was.  He made a few other parts for me before the bug bit hard.  I thought the place was flat out awesome - like visiting a working museum or something - but I do remember thinking I wouldn't like to work there.  Never-the-less, I admired the old guy for providing a service and sticking with it.  He did tell me that when he died, it was all going to auction because no one was interested. I actually thought the photo was from his place and felt a brief pang of sorrow at his possible passing.  I'll have to stop by tomorrow to see how he's doing.


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## 12bolts (Feb 18, 2017)

A618fan2 said:


> .....He did tell me that when he died, it was all going to auction because no one was interested. ......


If I knew somebody like that I would be their son in an instant. Showing all the enthusiasm and eagerness they were looking for. He would probably happily gift it or sell it at a huge loss to you if he thought it was going to be put to use by somebody.

Cheers Phil


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## Hukshawn (Feb 18, 2017)

I bought my lathe from a guy similar to that. He had been sitting on it for a while. Lowered the price considerably because I didn't have enough but he just wanted it to go to someone who was going to use it and appreciate it. 

Wish I could find more deals like that...


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