(2)
(a) Robert Safian, From the Editor: Paradoxes of the Digital Age. Fast Company, July/August 2013
www.fastcompany.com/3012429/from-the-editor-digital-dilemmas
(“Perhaps no single piece more unexpectedly captures this essence than ‘The Wire,’ Charles Fishman's visit with a small Maryland maker of wire baskets. At a time when most discussion of American manufacturing is negative, Fishman shows how an innovative approach--even in an unlikely place--can provide an inspiring new model for success”)
My comment: The editor’s note, at the beginning of every issue of this magazine, summarizes key contents. There is no need to read the rest of the note.
(b) Richard Fishman, The Wire. Fast Company, July/August 2013
http://www.fastcompany.com/3012591/marlin-steel-metal-baskets
Quote:
"Within five years of buying Marlin, Greenblatt was getting killed. [In or about 2003] Chinese factories suddenly started making bagel baskets. Marlin sold its baskets for $12 apiece * ** Chinese factories were selling baskets for $6 each
"The average US factory has just 40 employees. Many such factories get trampled on price alone and disappear without notice, taking a steady trickle of jobs with them.
Note:
(a)
(i) The Jewish (Ashkenazic) surname Fishman is variant of Fischman.
(ii) The German and Jewish (Ashkenazic) surname Fischmann is "occupational name for a fish seller, from Middle High German visch ‘fish’ (modern German Fisch, Yiddish fish) + Middle High German and Yiddish man ‘man’ (modern German Mann)."
(iii) The surname Greenblatt is "[p]artly Americanized form of the Ashkenazic Jewish ornamental name Grünblatt, a compound of German grün ‘green’ + Blatt ‘leaf.’"
(b) "In 1998, Drew Greenblatt bought one of those corners--a company called Marlin Steel that specialized in a single product: wire bagel baskets, which bagel stores use to display their wares."
(i) The company "Marlin Steel" where marlin is a kind of fish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlin
(ii) For "wire bagel baskets," see the second last photo in
Photo Gallery. Bagel Baskey (at York, Maine), undated.
http://www.bagelbasketyorkmaine.com/photo_gallery.shtml
(c) "[Marlin Steel's head said:] 'You had the guy who made the metal chafer stands that buffet serving dishes sit on, with the cans of Sterno. And you had us, doing the bagel baskets.' Marlin's customers were the big chains: Einstein Bros., Bruegger's."
(i) Sterno
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterno
(section 1 History)
The section mentions "chafing dish." Click that, because few if any English dictionary defines "chafer" (n) or "chafe" (v) in THIS context--though chafe as an English verb is derived from French of that sense (to warm):
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chafe
(etymology: Middle English chaufen to warm, from Anglo-French chaufer, from Vulgar Latin *calfare, alteration of Latin calefacere, from calēre to be warm + facere to make; First Known Use: 14th century)
(ii) Bruegger's
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruegger%27s
(founded in 1983 by Nordahl Brue and Mike Dressell, with the first store opening in Troy, New York)
(d) "The Boeing engineer, who had seen a Marlin ad in the Thomas Register, a pre-Internet manufacturing directory, wanted baskets to hold airplane parts and move them around the factory."
Thomas Register
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Register
(e) "Tom Salvador is a senior manager with Power Systems Manufacturing, in Jupiter, Florida, a small division of the $20-billion-a-year global energy conglomerate Alstom. PSM reconditions gas turbines for large commercial power plants, and it needed wire baskets to hold finished parts during a demanding inspection process."
(i) Jupiter, Florida
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter,_Florida
(a town)
(ii) Alstom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alstom
(a large French multinational conglomerate; section 2 History: founded in 1928 from the merger of THOMson-Houston and Société ALsacienne de Constructions Mécaniques (SACM) to form Alsthom which "changes its name from GEC Alsthom to Alstom" in 1998)
(f) "Today, a decade later, Marlin Steel is outcompeting not just Chinese factories but German ones as well. * * * That sort of flexibility helped Marlin win a job this year from a longtime German supplier to a US auto-parts factory. The order was for baskets that are more like trays, about the size of the ones in a cafeteria, but weighing more than 10 pounds and made of stainless steel, with thick wire props in the middle. The baskets hold heavy auto parts so they can be washed, treated, and presented to robots for assembly. 'Because you're staging parts for the robots, the parts have to be in exactly the right place,' says Greenblatt--within three-thousandths of an inch in all three dimensions. The baskets, which will hold parts that go into Chrysler cars, cost $200 apiece. And the supplier needed 1,000 of them--a $200,000 order. 'The German vendor had made this style of product for them for over 20 years,' says Greenblatt, "and quoted them four months to make the new version.' Marlin said it could do the job in four weeks. And it delivered. 'If a car company doing a model-year changeover can get the assembly line going faster, the value of that extra three months of production is enormous," says Greenblatt. "The baskets are paid for in a couple hours.'"
This refers to the "basket" shown in photo 1. |
发表于 6-24-2013 15:55:31
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