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QuickHit: Manufacturers are bouncing back, but…

In this QuickHit episode, we are talking with Chad Moutray of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). Chad is the Chief Economist for NAM, and he talks with manufacturers across the U.S. every day, to understand their issues and informs them of the the overall economic landscape. NAM has about 14,000 members that includes state manufacturing associations. Tony Nash discussed with Moutray the state of manufacturing especially in this time of the pandemic. What are they doing, thinking, and what are their plans? 

 

You can revisit our previous QuickHit episodes here:

 

We’re not going to normalize
How do we use up all the corn now?
How ready is the military to face COVID-19 and its challenges?

 

The views and opinions expressed in this QuickHit episode are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Complete Intelligence. Any content provided by our guests are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any political party, religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.

Show Notes

 

TN: Can you walk us through some of the manufacturing firms that you’ve been interacting with and how do they’ve come to understand the environment? What have they been thinking about? What have their priorities been? Because I think it’s been confusing for everybody. But from a manufacturing perspective, what have you been seeing?

 

CM: I’ll go through a couple of things here. Number one, just that dearth of data that we had early on, everyone was asking me, “What is the current capacity utilization for manufacturing right now in the State of Pennsylvania?” I don’t know. How would I know, right?

 

There was a lack of information early on, and the abruptness and the severity of this downturn just caught a lot of people [off guard]. The numbers are so heartbreaking and jaw-dropping. We’re starting to get a sense now of what those numbers really are, and the drastic-ness of these figures in terms of being the worst ever, or the worst since the Great Recession. But there was a lack of information early on that really just caught people by surprise.

 

Companies don’t know what to do. This is not just a business conversation. It’s also a life and death conversation. Do you keep operating? Do you not keep operating? Are you operating in a state where you’re forced to close? Are you deemed essential? A lot of those things early on really dominated manufacturers’ time in terms of whether to operate, what happens if someone gets sick in your facility? What do you do? Do you close everything down? There was a scramble early on just to figure out operationally “What am I doing?”.

 

It moved from there to the conversation about PPE, Personal Protective Equipment, masks or ventilators or whatever else.

 

One thing that really has dominated that manufacturing conversation over the last month has been the National Association of Manufacturers work with the administration [to understand] whether it’s FEMA or DOD or the Vice President’s Office to say, “Okay. What do we need in order for everything to come back to normal? How many masks do we need? How many ventilators do we need?” And then helping to identify manufacturers that can produce that. That really has dominated a lot of time for the NAM over the last month or so–getting a handle on what are those needs.

 

That has gravitated into the new normal. Everyone is [asking] what does manufacturing look like three months from now, six months from now, a year from now? How do you get back to a sense of normal, whether there’s a vaccine or not a vaccine?

 

Answering those questions will dominate much of my time from a research perspective. We asked on a survey “Are you re-engineering in your process to have social distancing in mind,” or “Are you going to let people work from home?” That’s not always possible on the shop floor. But in some cases it may be, right? So those types of questions are first and foremost.

 

We’re talking to a series of tire manufacturers. They have a huge retail operation and retail is just going to change dramatically. They not only look at the manufacturing side, but how retail is going to change, and then how they can react. It shows you just how dynamic this particular moment in time is in terms of dramatically changing the sector.

 

TN: I know you’re still in the process of doing your research but what’s your feeling now? Do you get the sense that people want to get back to kind of a normal-ish environment quickly? I know “there” is relative. But do you think there’s a desire to get back and get relatively normal business activity back say in Q2 or Q3? Do you get the sense that it’s going to be longer? What’s the drag? How long will this drag effect impact companies and impact manufacturers?

 

CM: I do think that we’ve passed the worst of it. I do think that in that late March, early April, that’s when things just really hit bottom. You’ve started to see a sense, especially from some of the more recent data, that things, while they’re still bad, are not as bad as they were several weeks ago. I do get a sense that you’re starting to see that bounce back in the marketplace, which is good.

 

In general, there is what we’ll call “quarantine fatigue” not just for consumers but for businesses as well. There is a sense that activity is going to start resuming.

 

The difference here is that yes people are going to come back to it but there’s still going to be some hesitance there. We don’t have a vaccine. So coming back to work is not the same as it was before. That’s true at the NAM, that’s true in every workplace in the country. People’s willingness to go out to restaurants and bars and go to Disney World has all changed a little bit.

 

I do think that we are bouncing back already. But in this new environment, there is still a little bit of hesitance about getting out in crowds and the workplace change. Yes, I can go back to the office maybe, but am I going to? Am I going to continue working from home? How much separation is there for me between me and my co-worker on the shop floor? We’ve already started to see that rebound. But it’s in a different place than it was two months ago.

 

TN: A lot of questions. Let me shift gears a little bit and ask you about trade. With COVID-19 and initially when this was hitting China hard, we saw a lot of supply chains stall out and slow down. We’ve been talking about the regionalization of supply chains for a few years at Complete Intelligence. Is that something that you’re seeing, and I know you’re not necessarily advocating a position. So I don’t expect you to be doing that. But are you seeing that happen or is that concept not seeing a lot of traction on yet?

 

CM: We were starting to see people re-evaluating their supply chains as a result of the Trade War. Last year, we were seeing a lot of that. It doesn’t mean all of it’s coming back to the U.S., but it certainly means production might be moving out of China and other places. This exacerbates that even more. There’s been this realization that we can’t depend on one country and one source to get all of our stuff anymore given the extremeness of this disaster economically.

 

People are going to be re-evaluating the supply chain. From the NAM point of view, we want as much of that to come back to the U.S. as possible so we’ll be advocating policies on on-shoring. Look for that coming from us. But the reality is, companies are going to locate where they locate. There’s a lot of reasons why companies locate wherever they do, and it’s where the customers are, that’s where their other suppliers are, that’s where the intelligence is. And some of it’s going to go to Mexico, or to the rest of Southeast Asia. There is definitely this understanding that we’ve got to re-evaluate that supply chain process in terms of who we’re buying from, making sure there’s duplication, and I think that’s a conversation that every firm is having right now.

 

TN: Very good. Chad, thank you so much for your time. I’d love to have you back in a few months to revisit some of these questions. As the unknowns dissipate, it’ll be very interesting to to look back and see what people did right, what mistakes people can avoid next time this happens.

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News Articles

COVID-19: Towards the end of everything “made in China” for electronics manufacturers?

This post on Made in China first appeared in https://www.usine-digitale.fr/article/covid-19-vers-la-fin-du-tout-made-in-china-pour-les-fabricants-d-electronique.N950286. The copy posted below is originally in French and was Google-translated to English.

 

It is an old factory with a decrepit facade, on which climb some wild grasses. At the edge of this canal in the south of Taipei, only a watchman watches the ear. The plot has just been bought by the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Pegatron to increase its production capacity in Taiwan. Reported by the financial media Bloomberg, the initiative is the latest in a series of investment projects outside of China announced by Taiwanese subcontractors.

 

From Apple to Samsung, these shadow firms manufacture, assemble and sometimes design products on behalf of major electronics brands. Most of these companies have their headquarters and a handful of factories in Taiwan. But the final assembly is mainly carried out on the other side of the strait. The Taiwanese giant Foxconn, the main assembler of the iPhone, thus employs more than a million workers in China, distributed in twelve giant factories.

 

“FACTORY CITIES” CHALLENGED BY THE PANDEMIC

 

This model, based on economies of scale, was severely tested by the COVID-19 crisis. Travel bans imposed by Chinese authorities have led to production delays, as evidenced by the shortage of Nintendo Switch, assembled by Foxconn. The firm also anticipates a 15% decrease in revenue for the first quarter of 2020.

 

“The ‘gigantic’ model takes a hell of a slap, straightforward analysis Pascal Viaud, managing director of UBIK, a company specializing in partnerships and industrial cooperation based in Taiwan. The sectors are aware of their dependence on China and the logistical risks that this implies. Some companies, especially the smaller ones, did not necessarily know this because it concerns their second or third level of subcontracting. ”

 

According to recent announcements from Taiwanese subcontractors, the COVID-19 epidemic would push major brands to rethink their production line. Wistron, another supplier to Apple, recently unveiled a budget of $ 1 billion for projects of new factories in India, Vietnam and Mexico. “Many signals from our customers let us think that’s what we need to do “, Wistron chief strategy officer Simon Lin said in a conference call reported by the Singaporean daily Straits Times. According to Bloomberg, Foxconn, for its part, planned an envelope of $ 17 billion for projects in India and Vietnam.

 


Foxconn’s headquarters in Taiwan

 

LOOKING FOR ALTERNATIVES TO CHINA

 

“China is becoming riskier for these companies, which may have felt that authorities withheld information during the epidemic, said Tony Nash, chief executive of Complete Intelligence, a business planning platform. costs and revenues of companies running on artificial intelligence. These companies are increasingly looking for alternatives to China. This is a classic risk reduction strategy already at work, but one that will seriously accelerate the next three years. ”

 

Kuan-lin (the first name has been changed) can testify to this. This salesperson works for a Taiwanese manufacturer whose client is a famous American brand of computers. For the past three weeks, the employee has been under constant pressure from his hierarchy and rarely leaves his office before 10 p.m. “Because of the epidemic, our client is asking us to speed up a project to build a factory in Mexico,” he explains, with dark circles and a pale complexion.

 

 

TRADE WAR WEIGHS ON SUBCONTRACTORS

 

The trend is not new. The trade war between China and the United States had already pushed part of the electronic production out of China. The manufacturers hoped to escape the sanctions of the Trump administration, applied to “Made in China” products. Depending on its Chinese factories, Foxconn had paid the price: according to calculations by the specialized media Bloomberg, the profits of the subcontractor fell by 24% for the period from October to December 2019.

 

“Competitors who did not have production lines in Taiwan have been disadvantaged by the trade war, confirms a manager of a Taiwanese electronics company which has a production tool on site. Thanks to our Taiwanese factory, we were able to reserve our products made in Taiwan for the American market. ”

 

With a skilled workforce and cutting-edge infrastructure, Taiwan is well placed to stand out. The Taiwanese government has elsewhere launched a vast plan to facilitate the return of factories to its soil. But the archipelago lacks space and has a limited comparative advantage. “Taiwan is suitable for high-end products, which can be sold more expensive, points out the same frame. For other products, manufacturing in Taiwan has an impact on profitability.”

 

 

TOWARDS REGIONALIZATION OF PRODUCTION

 

The most likely scenario seems to be that of a regionalization of production, which would jointly benefit several countries. “This is not going to be a massive departure from China, anticipates Tony Nash. For Asia, there will simply be more additional parts manufactured in Taiwan or Vietnam. For the American market, it could be Mexico.”

 

As a note from Deloitte suggests, this shift could also be accompanied by increased digitization of the production chain. Joined by L’Usine Digitale, Eddie Chang, head of finance at ASE Group, one of the Taiwanese behemoths for the assembly and testing of electronic circuits, confirms this future direction: “We are going to develop technologies enabling virtual teamwork and industrial automation. We also plan to increase the automation of our logistics to reduce human interactions”.

 

 

CHINA HAS NOT SAID ITS LAST WORD

 

However, the recent development of the epidemic calls for caution. In China, the main factories have returned to their pre-crisis operating level. Foxconn was able to restore production of the new iPhone SE with massive hires and inflated work premiums. “During the crisis in China, our factories were at 60% of their capacity, today we are not far from 100%”, confirms a sector executive whose factories are in Shenzhen.

 

At the same time, the countries presented as alternatives to China are in turn impacted by the epidemic. In India, where Apple produces its iPhones for the local market, Foxconn and Wistron have announced that they have suspended production until mid-April. The US state of Wisconsin, where a Foxconn factory is soon to come out of the ground, has seen in recent days a dizzying increase in the number of cases of contamination.

 

“The new turn that the COVID-19 crisis has taken is a game-changer,” says Aymeric Mariette, research officer at the France China Committee. The attitude [of electronics companies located in China] is now much more wait-and-see for relocations “. Apple CEO Tim Cook also defended himself at the end of February from any major movement, preferring to speak of “adjustment adjustments” linked to the crisis.

 

Especially since China will not let these companies slip through its fingers so easily. The strategic challenges are significant: the ecosystem of electronic suppliers has enabled Chinese brands, such as Huawei, to follow in the footsteps of American giants. “The Chinese authorities are carrying out charming offensives towards foreign investors in China, for example with the promise of equal treatment in access to financial aid, facilitation of investments or even the announcement of new reforms, analyzes Aymeric Mariette: China knows that it is now ahead of the other major world economies and intends to profit from it. ”