John Wolz

Asia, cost increases, employer issues, and sales dominated responses to “What were your company”s biggest problems during 2007?”
A sampling of responses:
Of those mentioning Asia as among their biggest problems, specific references were: “Asian competition,” “China,” “customers moving production to China,” “outsourcing,” “Asian factories competing directly for our customer base/no loyalty,” “fierce price competition,” “longer lead times for imports,” and “Unless we reduce the number of blue collar jobs being outsourced to other lands my market will not improve.”
Among the “higher costs” references were: “Increased cost of imports,” “inflation of raw materials,” “rapidly rising stainless steel costs,” “unstable prices,” “energy costs,” “marketing costs,” and “plating prices.”
“Sales” problems included: “Slow business at end of year,” “the downturn in the residential housing market,” “sales at a profitable level,” “slashed marketing budget” and “slower economy.”
“People” issues included: “Finding engineers,” “skilled production workers,” “outside sales people,” “staff errors,” “finding young people who want a career in manufacturing,” “hiring competent labor” and “keeping a sense of urgency to produce and do assigned task.”

There were a variety of other problems, including: “Inventory,” “dead stock,” “inventory turns,” “computer system related IT issues,” “delivery,” “late shipment from suppliers, ” “common carriers missing delivery dates,” “suppliers shipping wrong part numbers,” “government compliance,” “health insurance cost,” “currency,” “margins,” “quality issues,” and “pricing pressure from customers.”

There were numerous isolated problems such as “customers requesting DFARS after material was delivered,” and “value recognition by customers in face of price increase.” \ �2008 FastenerNews.com