Germany once admired British workmanship – but that was a long time ago: Guardian

A._Badger

adouglasmhor wrote: »

Yet another idiotic opinion from probably the biggest self righteous scumbag on the forum. (How this fool gets away with calling people scum so often eludes me.)
It was Thatcher who created the something for nothing financial dominated Britain we live in now and destroyed the manufacturing base so there was little work for manual workers and tradesmen.

She went out and shut the factory gates personally, did she?

Who wrote your history book - the Daily Mirror?

Earlier posters have preferred figures to polemic. As has been pointed out, they are revealing.

CLAPTON

the 80s period was a period of major change
whatever one's view of the government of the day the realities were that
-northsea oil and gas gave us a high exchange rate that left our somewhat ineffecient manufacturing industry unable to compete
-the mining industry was really destroyed by the rise of natural gas to fuel power stations, cheaply, efficiently and cleanly
-the rise of japanese car makers producing sensibly priced and reliable cars comtrasted sharply with the (sadly) rubbish british car products
-similarly steel produced in the UK was rubbish compared to that from Germany or the far east
-deregulation of financial services did cause a boom in that sector that produced jobs and tax income; maybe regretted now but was a major earner at the time.

adouglasmhor

A._Badger wrote: »

She went out and shut the factory gates personally, did she?

Who wrote your history book - the Daily Mirror?

Earlier posters have preferred figures to polemic. As has been pointed out, they are revealing.

Pity you are incapable of seeing how Blair as Thatcher's true successor continued her work. As the figures showed.

adouglasmhor

CLAPTON wrote: »

the 80s period was a period of major change
whatever one's view of the government of the day the realities were that
-northsea oil and gas gave us a high exchange rate that left our somewhat ineffecient manufacturing industry unable to compete
-the mining industry was really destroyed by the rise of natural gas to fuel power stations, cheaply, efficiently and cleanly
-the rise of japanese car makers producing sensibly priced and reliable cars comtrasted sharply with the (sadly) rubbish british car products
-similarly steel produced in the UK was rubbish compared to that from Germany or the far east
-deregulation of financial services did cause a boom in that sector that produced jobs and tax income; maybe regretted now but was a major earner at the time.

Steel from Ravenscraig was ranked amongst the best in the world at the time it was closed.

CLAPTON

adouglasmhor wrote: »

Steel from Ravenscraig was ranked amongst the best in the world at the time it was closed.

it have no specific knowledge of ravenscraig and who ranked it as the best in the world and why it was closed but in general
during the 80s british steel produced rubbish compared to it's competitors

adouglasmhor

CLAPTON wrote: »

it have no specific knowledge of ravenscraig and who ranked it as the best in the world and why it was closed but in general
during the 80s british steel produced rubbish compared to it's competitors

It was one of the major German testing institutes, I can’t remember their name but they were based near Wenden* to the East of Cologne, however its net cost was pretty horrendous compared to Korean and Taiwanese steels in particular and it was full of people who thought it was their duty to take the pish instead of getting on with it (which did not help net cost at all).

Just noticed I had said amongst the best not the best.

*I was dating the daughter of the owner when the report was published so it does stick in my mind.

Conrad

According to the Banker that wrote 'The Puritan Gift', the anglo American business model is at the route of our decline. He cites the fact that in Germany and Japan, promotion tends to be from within and as such leads to business leaders with detialed domain knowledge encompassing the post room, the furnace and the sales room.

The Anglo Saxon model is to promote 'good talkers' often people armed with an MBA that can apparantly run any business. Rarely do you find an engineer running the company.

ash28

Conrad wrote: »

According to the Banker that wrote 'The Puritan Gift', the anglo American business model is at the route of our decline. He cites the fact that in Germany and Japan, promotion tends to be from within and as such leads to business leaders with detialed domain knowledge encompassing the post room, the furnace and the sales room.

The Anglo Saxon model is to promote 'good talkers' often people armed with an MBA that can apparantly run any business. Rarely do you find an engineer running the company.

Talk the talk or walk the walk - I've known plenty who could talk the talk and go far.....I used to work for one.

macaque_2

julieq wrote: »

You couldn't really be more wrong Macaque, which given your record is pretty impressive.

You can rant and generalise to your hearts content but you are wrong.

There's no difference in investment conditions between companies like, say, Siemens and their British domiciled equivalents, and big companies outsource manufacture pretty much wherever they're based.

I cannot comment on Siemens but there is a big difference between British and German companies in other industrial sectors. Likewise, the merits of outsourcing depend on the sector. If you take chemicals for example (less labour intensive), Chinese and Indian products are certainly cheaper but much of the saving are unsustainable because they stem from cutting corners (inadequate waste treatment, poor maintenance, poor quality control, hazardous working conditions). Many chemical processes are currently being repatriated to Europe (but not the UK) for reasons of rising costs, poor supply chain control and poor quality control. It is also true that manufacturing costs for companies like GSK in China are very similar to their costs in Europe (because they work to much higher standards).

This isn't just about reduction in costs - although these are significant, a Chinese factory can produce electronics at about 1.15 material cost, where in the West you'd be looking at closer to 1.4 – it's about removal of overhead which doesn't add a great deal of value, because it's highly scalable. There is literally no point investing in a factory full of overhead when someone in China will do it for you on the back of a contract manufacturing business. In fact outsourcing to contract manufacture in Western Europe will often make sense from a scalability sense.

It is about costs and overheads are part of the price of doing business. You delegate many of these at your peril. UK chemical companies started outsourcing 10-15 years ago. They are now competing with their outsourcers. Without control of the supply chain however, they are at a severe disadvantage. We lost manufacturing, then we lost R&D and now we are losing the companies themselves.

The model of family owned small companies making marginal or no profit isn't sustainable against global competition,

That is tosh. Innovation and flexibility are the qualities of small companies, not large ones (just look at where many of the new drugs are coming from). If you take a short termist view, small companies are having a rough ride but it is cyclical. Many of these small German companies have been around for 200 years or more. If they go, you will find out why they were needed.

they're opening up markets to the East, and they're frantically using the EU to erect barriers using increasingly stringent regulations, but it won't hold back the tide forever.

That's not correct. The most formidable trade barriers are to be found in India and China. For example, India has a 40% import tax.

kabayiri

Out,_Vile_Jelly wrote: »

I work in the engineering department of one of the UK's top univeristies, with strong links to manufacturing and applications in many industries.We have just been awarded several grants and are flush with cash, but are seriously struggling to recruit both PhD students and postdoc researchers.This problem includes the teaching of maths and science in schools, A Level choices, the status of engineering in our society and employment potential in applied sciences in the UK. It's not something that can be resolved overnight.

To be an engineer at certain times in the last few decades was to be a social pariah!

In the late 80s I went out in London with an old school mate who was a newly qualified barrister. He intro'd me to 3 girls training to be solicitors. When they asked what I did I just said an engineer working in high tech manufacture.

It might have been my accent because I think they heard "I work in a leper colony", judging by the sense of disgust on their faces!

Unless you are 'in the city', a barrister, a medical consultant or perhaps lecturer, people will turn their nose up at you.

We have terrible job snobbery in this country.

We are also in danger of becoming obsessed with qualifications, at the cost of overlooking talented young people who just lost their way academically.