Why are all cool machines from Germany or France? 10

[curiousmechanical]

Due to the nature of my work, I get to travel around quite a bit and visit many company's facilities. I see a lot of very complex automated machines (very cool stuff) all over the place. Mostly high speed injection molding (making plastic bottles), filling, and packaging machinery. Everytime I ask someone at these companies where the machines come from, their answer seems to always be "from Germany" or "from France" for some reason. Now I know the Germans have an excellent reputaion for engineering. Does France as well? Why isn't the U.S designing and building these machines? Are we not as advanced? Or we more expensive? I know we probibly DO design SOME of them, but it just doens't seem like many.

Does anyone have any insight on this?

 

[BJC]

Email I just recieved. I think it might be relavant to this discussion.

************************************
Modern Parable

A Japanese company (Toyota ) and an American company (General Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River . Both teams practiced Long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the Reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior Management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person Steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person Rowing.

Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a Consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second
Opinion. They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the Boat, while not enough people were rowing.

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent Another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was
Totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering Superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 Person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the "Rowing Team Quality First Program", with meetings, dinners and free pens
For the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and Other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor Performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and Canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was Distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing Team was outsourced to India.

The End.

 

[prost]

I am going to have to disagree with you as to the quality of French engineers; of the few I know, all are brilliant engineers who can and do compete with the engineers from any other country. Unfortunately, statements like "French engineering is obviously doomed (the French are born pessimists for some reason) as they schools are hopelessly retarded and the most brilliant students leave the country," merely confirm we all need to get out more, intermingle with engineers and scientists from other countries more. Blame companies that aren't willing to pay for that kind of (what I think is necessary) expense.

A little known secret that might explain why European engineering seems to be way ahead of say, American engineering, in many areas is that the education system weeds out aspiring but academically underqualified potential engineers and scientists in the transition during teenage years to high school. Now this was a while ago, apologize if this isn't the case yet, I recall learning in Deutsche Klasse that Germans take the 'Arbirtur' exam when they are about 12-13 yrs. of age--do well, you get sent to the university track high school. Do poorly, and you get sent to vocational track. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as in places like Germany there appear to be plenty of jobs for machinists and other vocations. In the US, those vocational jobs are disappearing fast. The downside of course is that you miss all the 'late bloomers', kids who aren't necessarily academically mature enough at 12 yrs. of age to know what they want to do with the rest of their lives (I am told by others that only engineers seem to 'know' that at age 12! LOL).

How much of the 'buy European machinery because it is superior' is perception rather than reality? So much of the selling process is centered around creating market 'buzz', manipulating perceptions, generating positive word of mouth. Maybe the Germans, Swiss and French are just better at generating 'buzz' and positive feedback.

Don't you worry about Airbus--Europe has spent billions propping up this monstrosity, trying to grab market share from Boeing (which has its own subsidy issues, of course), they'll just keep tossing money at it until their problems go away or are masked.

 

[BJC]

Prost
I know two excellent engineers who came from Europe. Both were sorted out at the age of 12 or 13 or so and destined to be electricians. Both went abroad to work and eventually wound up in the US. They both continued their academic training and became engineers. One got his PE and is doing very well.
If they had remained in the UK and Germany they would have been Electricians and probably done OK. They didn’t like they sorting process that determined at 12 or so what you would do the rest of your life.
At 12 I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a EE.

 

[WGJ]

In the course of my own work, in addition to meeting quite a few American engineers (Ford, GM, Walbro Delphi), I've met engineers from France (Valeo, Solvay, PSA, Renault), Germany (Ford, Kautex), Luxembourg (GM, Delphi) and Italy (Fiat).

Putting aside the language difficulties (also known as me not being able to speak any of their native tongues, including 'American'), I'd say that many (not all) had a reasoably rounded education but there were also many that had heavily academic educations.
It doesn't hurt to know how to weld, drill holes and mark out. Or how to solder, wire-up and test. Or to dig footings and pour concrete. These ought to be things practiced during training.

I think that you do sometimes come across lads (especially males) who show an aptitude for practical sciences at the age of 12 or 13 and I was like this in my school, along with several others.
I also think that, with some 'modern' education systems - like the one we seem to have in England now - that young people like that get overlooked now. Where once thay would have been fodder for apprenticship schemes, they are now neglected in favour of the academically 'sharper' students that, perhaps, excel in IT and language-based subjects.

At 13, I thought I would like to study physics, but realised in time that I can't do big sums.


Bill

 

[curiousmechanical]

Thank you everyone for the great posts! I find it very interesting to hear about engineering education in other countries. Does any one have any interesting comments about how things work in any other countries? Perhaps Japan or China?

 

[hydromech]

I'm not sure about Japan...

But I know that my company has budgeted for a 30% rise in pay for the next year in China and India.

When deciding where to produce our products...England, US China or India, the senior management use the following guidelines.

If it can be automated or if it requires high spend on CNC's then the US or England will make it, as cost of machinery and associated overheads is higher China and India.

If it can be assembled by hand, then China or India as labour is very low cost.

CFD analyist in England £27,000-£30,000. Same level of skills in India less than £10,000.

In India every year the market is flooded with 25,000 newly qualified engineers, although the term 'qualified' is a loose one. But there is no doubt there are lots of very clever young engineers in India. The trouble we have is that being so young, they have no clout with the older staff. We have some very good engineers in senior positions but the social structure prevent them from being effective.

It is similar in China where social and cultural differences dating back 50 years are getting in the way of business...

In my experience the US companies that do the best are the one that have reached out into Europe.

Regards

Adrian

 

[FACS]

We make cool machines all the time.

Charlie

http://www.facsco.com

 

[csd72]

I think perhaps the reason for this is to do with culture. Both Germany and France have a lot of respect for engineering and science professions (I believe german structural engineers are some of the highest paid in the world).

In the US, like many other western countries, it is the managers,accountants and lawyers that earn all the money. None of these professions actually create things, they just move money and resources from one place to another.

Therefore in the US, the best and brightest will be more likely drawn to the more profitable professions therefore draining the engineering profession of the most brilliant minds (no offence meant to my fellow engineers).

 

[tgmcg]

Despite all these perceived problems with US engineering, the US is second to none when it comes to innovation...whether it be aerospace, biotech, computers, software, telecom.

While US high schools may not be the best, US engineering schools are superb.

I worked overseas for 13 years with Europeans and Asians. Does any country turn out better engineers than another? After 30 years in this game, no clear pattern has emerged. Experience and attitude play a greater role in determining the better engineer than does country of origin. On top of that there is the talent factor, which is very much an individual thing.

I've encountered more US engineers with a broad multidisciplinary capability than engineers of any other nationality. Having a multidisciplinary background is an advantage in many situtations. Most problems are multidisciplinary by nature.

 

[opsops3]

I used to drive a Ford now I drive a Toyota
I used to own a Harley, now I ride a Yamaha.

 

[tgmcg]

I used to drive a BMW, now I drive a Corvette

 

[opsops3]

some suckers never learn!

 

[opsops3]

my friend your are gonna like it:

bmw m3 v corvette on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUxNEBKxzHk&NR

 

[regalia]

It has nothing to do with the quality of engineers. It has everything to do with economics (and maybe a lot of beaurocracy too). Extravagence is to expensive to capalists. Socialists are at least slightly more capable of it. But let's be optimistic shall we:

-The days of Saturn V are over. The era of $1 bil toasters on Mars are in.

-We can't construct an interstate highway through the Rocky Mountains in 5 years anymore. But we can sure as heck repave a 3-mile stretch of highway in 2 years.

-Don't worry about inferior American cars losing out sleak German machines. Soon GM and Ford will be Chinese cars....which still consequently are still inferior to Euro and Japanese cars.

-Come 2008, socialized medicine will mark the beginning of the end for biotech and pharma research in the states. How silly of us to invest billions in R&D.

-The EPA will ensure that we never catch back up to the French in nuclear technology. If the EPA were to allow an efficient and clean source of energy....well, that would just make too much sense.

-We'll always be good at refining oil...and no one can take that away from us (except if OPEC doesn't want to sell us any more).

It's a shame, we have so many bright engineers in America, and nowhere to use them. Bah, time to go finish my TPS report.

 

[dcasto]

to follow up Regalia,

Since we can't go forward with real things in the US, we design new standards and criteria to repair or upgrade what we have. For example;

We now have to have a permit notification to take a 5HP gasoline air compressor onto a BLM land gas well, but in the winter I can rev up my 150HP snowmobile all day there.

Poor land owners that sold their mineral rights years ago to build a huge house on their land are now crying that the oil companies are spoiling their view with an oil well....

We have to install gas incinerators on each well site for those 4 times per year the well is vented for work, but the cattle feed lot 200 yards away releases more methane and oboxious odors every minute.

But, that incinerator and the 5HP air compressors must be cool machines because they get the attention of so many people, I'll bet more people applaud them than any ol Porche

 

[Dinosaur]

I hope not to see any more inflamatory posts.

Getting back to the OP, I think there are many factors that make "cool" machines more prevelant in those countries. On top, or at least near, is the condition of the legal system in the US. I would suspect that companies that were in the business of making some of these machines began to shy away from cutting edge technology for fear that if they missed something the US courts would cut them up like a side of beef.

Second, development of many unusual commodities requires a group of workers with a specific set of narrowly focussed talents. I suspect the coorperate philisophy of the companies producing them reflect this kind of team building necessary to create and maintain such a team.

A third contributer is the ethos of the country itself. I have been told often that in other countries, engineers are the top tier of society, with doctors and lawyers slightly below. This would serve to attract brighter individuals into engineering and these engineers would likely be more dedicated to their profession. In the US, I not only see much less emphasis on engineering, but I see an amazing emphasis on marketing. I suspect this detracts from the importance of engineering and manufacturing.

There are other contributers, but these are a few off the top of my head.

 

[tgmcg]

A 13 second quarter mile is not that impressive. 10-11 for a turbo Corvette with skilled driver.

 

[tgmcg]

There's plenty of "cool machines" made in the US. The US is second to none in gas turbine and aerospace technology. Also oil & gas production and refining technology. Different countries have different strengths in a variety of niches. Germany, for example, excels in high pressure processing technology.

Germany might be losing their edge in automobiles...I looked at BMW's before deciding on the Corvette. After driving BMW's for the past 16 years I wanted something with higher performance. The latest styling and colors available from BMW were just plain boring. My red 400 HP Corvette is a whole lot of fun, more comfortable and better handling than any BMW I've owned. Serious fahrfenugen.

 

[SomptingGuy]

I just got my copy of "Automotive Engineer" (IMechE, PE Publishing) and was rawn to a news article titled:

"Renault engineering perceived as 'too French'"

Unfortunately there was no clarification of what "French" engineering is.

 

[WGJ]

All the plastic trim gives off a garlic odour and the ash trays come ready-filled with Gitanes ash.


Bill