Our machine tool industry--changer or changee?

he United States machine tool industry is experiencing unprecedented change. Our historic business models are no longer applicable. Machine tool consumption has declined by more than 60% since 1997, causing ruthless and seemingly endless hyper-competition. Industrial globalization, outsourcing strategies, customer demands for more services, and the relentless advance of technology are heaping even more stress on machine tool companies.

The predominant feeling in our industry is that the good ole days are a distant memory, never to return again. Let's get real. Are we actually challenging ourselves as an industry, asking the right questions and analyzing root causes? What are we doing, other than lamenting and waiting for the economic turnaround? Are there deeper issues negatively affecting our industry long term we are not confronting?

Let's face some facts. In 2003 China is projected to be the number one machine-tool-- consuming nation in the world. Germany will be second and the United States will plummet to third. Why? Because other countries are aggressively building and protecting their manufacturing base while we let ours slip away. Even a robust United States economic turnaround will not bring back the substantial number of manufacturing jobs permanently lost to other countries in the past several years. Do we want to return to number one, or are we satisfied with third?

More facts. The United States machine tool industry is in danger of losing its technology and manufacturing process knowledge base. The machine tool business has been so difficult for so long that several industry icons have closed their doors forever. Some of the best people in the industry have tossed in the towel and left the business to work in other industries. Further mortgaging our future is our difficulty in attracting young applications engineers, service technicians, and sales personnel because of perceived poor career opportunities.

I believe the writing is on the wall. The US is losing countless manufacturing jobs as we continue to migrate from being a producer-nation to being a consumer-nation. This shift weakens our economic foundation, and makes us vulnerable to ever changing geopolitical scenarios such as we now face with oil-- supplying nations. The end result, if we take no counter measure, will be the decimation of the US machine tool industry, and the rendering of our prospects for future growth, prosperity, and manufacturing competitiveness DOA.