Seti aff •seti neg •Asteroids Aff
Answers To: Industrial Base Advantage
Download 2.75 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- Answers To: Industrial Base Advantage
Answers To: Industrial Base Advantage[____] [____] [____] Obama’s space strategy includes more opportunities for job creation in the aerospace industry, which solves the impact. Ann Klamper, staff writer at SpaceNews.com, 6/18/2010 “Obama Asks Congress to Shift $100M from NASA for Job Initiatives”, http://www.spacenews.com/civil/100618-obama-asks-congress-shift-100m-from-nasa-for-job-initiatives.html In April, Obama pledged $40 million to NASA’s largely Florida-based space shuttle workforce transition to new jobs. He appointed a task force led by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to decide how best to spend the money. Bolden told Congress in April that the $40 million would come from $1.9 billion NASA was requesting in 2011 to cover costs associated with terminating the agency’s Constellation program, a 5-year-old effort to replace the space shuttle with new rockets and spacecraft optimized for lunar missions. Under Obama’s newly revised spending proposal, $100 million of the $4.26 billion requested for NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate next year would go to the Commerce and Labor departments. Specifically, some $30 million would be moved to the Commerce Department for “economic development assistance programs” aimed at helping the area around NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, while another $45 million would be used for “other areas affected by job losses” expected to result from the proposed cancellation of the Constellation program. The Labor Department, meanwhile, would get $10 million for Florida-based workforce initiatives and $15 million to promote job growth in other parts of the country expected to suffer post-shuttle economic hardship. NASA spokesman Michael Cabbage said in a June 18 statement the space agency “is pleased the president has targeted additional support from his fiscal year 2011 budget request to help the communities and workers around the U.S. most deeply involved in our space program meet the challenges of tomorrow. “Our workforce is incredibly talented and dedicated, and we are committed to equipping them with the tools they need to contribute to new developments in our nation's space program and related industries. This $100 million investment in our people is essential to spurring regional economic growth and job creation.” Answers To: Industrial Base Advantage[____] [____] Aging workers and a policy of outsourcing are dooming the aerospace industry. Ray Goforth, Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M, 4/21/2008, “Outsourcing’s Hidden Costs” A convergence of demographic changes and short-term corporate policies is creating a crisis that threatens the very foundation of the U.S. aerospace industry. The average age of an aerospace engineer at the Boeing Co. is 46. Technical workers are an average of 50. Although U.S. colleges turn out engineering and science degrees at double the pace of 40 years ago, aerospace has lost its luster as a career path. The Baby Boom generation of engineers, technical workers and machinists who design, build and effectively manage the production of aerospace products is fast approaching retirement. Moreover, while one demographic group is planning to rapidly exit the aerospace workforce, the industry is ignoring the need to groom the next generation. Instead, U.S. corporations remain fixated on short-term cost-cutting and cost-shifting strategies to boost the prices of company stocks. One of the primary corporate strategies to paper over this crisis is to cut the domestic workforce and outsource projects to lower cost workers overseas, a strategy predicated upon a fundamental misunderstanding of the aerospace workforce. The idea that complex aerospace products can be outsourced as if they were cheap consumer electronics is profoundly flawed. For example, Boeing developed its business model for the 787 Dreamliner upon the idea that aerospace workers are easily replicated. The assumption was that an engineer is an engineer and that transferred jobs can be leveraged to gain foreign sales. Final assembly was left for the gutted domestic workforce. Although it may make sense to outsource common redundant pieces of mature products, cost savings from outsourcing during the design and initial manufacturing of complex aerospace products is illusory. Boeing discovered this when it had to perform costly rework on thousands of components outsourced for the 787. One particularly devastating example was the 787center wingbox. Companies obscure the true costs of outsourcing disasters by burying them in overhead. Boeing and other companies are now discovering what the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace warned about in 2002: Complex, technical and manufacturing jobs cannot be outsourced. Aerospace is not built on discrete tasks of individual engineers, technicians and machinists. Rather, it is the integration of complex tasks evolved from decades of experience working on similar projects. This value-added synergistic workforce cannot be purchased in the world marketplace by cobbling together a network of global suppliers. Boeing’s answer to its disastrous 787 outsourcing model is to dip into its experienced workforce, and scatter its members around the world to fix the problems at global ‘partners.’ For today’s problems, it may work. But, without a new generation of aerospace workers training at their side, the company, and our industry, will not be able to solve the next problems. This doesn’t mean there aren’t extremely talented younger workers in the aerospace industry. Of course there are. However, there are not nearly enough of them, and even they are being deprived of the tribal skills-transfer that comes from working projects from development to final rollout. The outsourcing of the intermediate production steps is robbing the workforce of the opportunity to engage in the intergenerational skills-transfer that is vital to keeping the American aerospace industry innovative and competitive. Directory: wp-content -> uploads -> 2011 2011 -> Voices of the Old Sea Norman Lewis 2011 -> Malevil Robert Merle 2011 -> The Elephant Keeper’s Children Peter Hoeg 2011 -> Jv packet •Mars Colonization Affirmative •Mars Colonization Negative 2011 -> Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) omb no. 1024-0018 2011 -> All America Looks Up to Virginia;” Virginia and the Declaration of Independence 2011 -> Rao bulletin 2011 -> Christopher Columbus was born between 25 August and 31 October 1451 in 2011 -> The Battle of Frenchtown (1855), Washington Territory: the Political and Demographic Context rev 9/4/11 2011 -> The harmony society Download 2.75 Mb. Share with your friends:
|