Excellent OpEd Piece in the Times Today

There was an excellent opinion piece in today's NY Times by Adam Cohen (click here for the whole piece) about how government needs to remember its responsibilities on the non-glamorous subject of public works. Here's an excerpt:

The nation is unlikely to embark on public works programs like those launched during the Great Depression, unless there is another economic crisis of that scale. But Roosevelt’s basic idea — that the government should employ idle hands to upgrade the nation — should never have gone out of fashion. The next president will need to confront the nation’s disrepair. It should be an issue in the campaign right now.

I think this is an excellent point. Why are we so eager to spend billions on the military, while our infrastructure crumbles? The country as a whole would be much better served if some of those billions went toward fixing the things that most people use every day.

Depressing Thought of the Day

January, 1942 - my dad was born & we were at war.

October, 1969 - I was born & we were at war.

December, 2007 - my daughter is due to be born... and we will be at war.


Blech!

Dominican Republic Trip - Day 5

Friday, October 25, 2007

Thursday night & Friday morning were spent at Casa de Campo, an enormous resort on the Caribbean Sea. This was our only down time on the whole trip, and lasted only a few hours because we had to travel back to Santo Domingo to catch our plane ride home (an
odyssey that lasted until our touchdown in Detroit... at 3:00am on Saturday!).

Here are a few pictures from Casa de Campo:

Dominican Republic Trip - Day 4

Thursday, October 25, 2007

The day started with a run through the long, narrow city park in Santo Domingo. I have had difficulty finding an online map of Santo Domingo, but the park I ran through can be seen in this
Satellite Image of the city. It was nice to get away from the treadmill and run outside (and there were plenty of folks walking, running, etc.), but despite the fact that it was about 7am, it was already very hot & humid. I was drenched by the end of the run.

Then, we loaded into the van (we were all getting a bit sick of the van by this point), and travelled to Parque Cibernetico Santo Domingo, another free zone industrial park. This one, however, also contains a trade school, that produces engineers, technicians, etc. It is a very nice facility and is certainly helping with the DR's technology push.

We then visited with a small US company that has set up shop in the DR - Caribbean Manufacturing Solutions, run by Bob Faxon (bob.faxon@gmail.com). This company is currently supplying Ford with service parts, and there is a good opportunity to expand that. This company is fully up to speed on automotive supplier requirements, as they are also located in the USA and are a supplier here (under the name Faxon Machining).

This park, and Las Americas from the previous day, are located only minutes from the Santo Domingo airport and newly-expanded sea port. We visited the DP World facility next, and were briefed on its recent expansion and plans for further expansion. This is owned by Dubai Ports World.

From there, it was on to La Romana Free Zone and then to Casa de Campo.

Dominican Republic Trip - Day 3

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

The third day of the DR trip started with a visit to the Parque Industrial ITABO - PIISA, which is a very modern free trade zone industrial park located right on the Carribean Sea. This park has an impressive number of companies representing a variety of industries, including a Q1 supplier to Ford (see below).

The free trade zone concept is one that has been in place in the DR for more than 30 years. It consists of areas designated by the government (most are privately held and others are owned by the government) as areas to which materials can be imported and exported without taxation. This was originally set up for the apparel industry, so fabric could be imported to the free zones without tax and the apparel could be exported without tax. The same concept applies to other industries and works well for parts with high labor content.

One supplier in this park is Control Devices, Inc., which is a Ford Q1 supplier (site code S930V). They produce switches and other small electrical devices for Ford and other OEMs.

From there, we travelled across town to Las Americas Industrial Free Zone, which is owned & managed by:

• Luis MI. Pellerano - l.pellerano@zfla.com
• Claudia Pellerano - marketing@zfla.com

While there, we visited two suppliers.

The first was Pixley Richards, which is a small precision molding company. They have 6 machines currently, ranging from 110-165 tons. They are currently producing the housing for smoke detectors. They also produce switch housings that are sent across town to Control Devices. Mold designs are done in the USA, but this site does have the ability to do testing and quality checks and hold very tight tolerances of the parts they produce.

The final supplier visited at this park was Power-One, which is a producer of electrical devices such as DC-DC converters, AC-DC power supplies, etc.

Dominican Republic Trip - Day 2

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Day 2 of the Dominican Republic trip took us to the Pisano Industrial Park in Santiago, which is approximately 2 hours north of the capital, Santo Domingo. The park is shown here.

• Primary contact for this industrial park:
  Ing. Jeannette Domínguez Aristy. (jdominguez@pisanozf.com)
  

We visited three suppliers at this park.

1. DMG International - a small plant that specializes in cutting and sewing leather for use in Alan Edmonds shoes. This was included in the trip to show the capabilities of suppliers in this area to handle leather. Automotive supply by this company is unlikely, since they probably could not handle the volume or quality requirements. The area, however, is known for fine quality leather (see B'Leather below).
   
2. K-Rain Industries - a producer of automatic sprinkler systems. This facility is equipped with several injection molding machines, sized from 65-300 tons. They handle the injection molding, assembly, and testing of these parts. They can handle tight tolerances, but have limited ability to repair tooling, so they carry 1.5 weeks of safety stock. Material used is ABS SD-0170 from Samsung, China.
   
3. Paxar Dominicana - a maker of labels for the apparel industry. This facility has the ability to produce many kinds of labels at high volume. They are a potential source for bar codes or other labels or stickers for the auto industry. Capacity is available because apparel industry has shrunk in the DR as companies flock to China.
   

The afternoon consisted of a visit to B'Leather, and was probably the most interesting visit of the trip. I had no idea how much went into the production of leather products. This facility produces high-quality leather that is used for shoes, and has also begun supplying leather at the tier 2 or 3 level to Toyota. An explanation of the process is:

"Blue Leather" is brought in. This is the hide of the cow that has had the hair removed and has been treated with a chemical process to turn it from an organic to an inorganic material. This process turns the hides blue. They are inspected, washed, shaved (shavings, unfortunately, end up in landfills) and cut. The smell in this part of the plant is a bit strange - unlike anything I've smelled before.

The material is then placed in enormous drums, where it is treated with whatever dyes and chemicals are needed for the end application. They stay in these drums for 12 hours, and are then dried.

Material for use in automotive must be stretched before its dried. These hides must be dried in driers (as opposed to hung). They are then manipulated through several processes to make them soft a supple.

B'Leather ships these automotive hides to the US for use on Toyota and Lexus vehicles.

Dominican Republic Trip - Day 1

Monday, October 22, 2007

Participated in a trip to the Dominican Republic along with Ford's Emerging Markets group. This was the first emerging markets trip that included tier 1 suppliers, who could potentially look either for tier 2 sources or scout locations for possible future tier 1 plant locations. Particpants included:

• Myself


• Jenny Hu (Ford)


• Paul Prestel (Ford)


• Sam Thigpen (Summit Polymers - 269-377-5698 - sthigpen@summitpolymers.com)


• Chris Allison (Magna - 248-760-5685 - chris.allison@intier.com)


• Luis Barrio (Faurecia - 248-709-3075 - lbarrio@troy.faurecia.com)


• Jason Fahlbush (Faurecia - 248-765-0158 - jason.fahlbush@faurecia.com)

Hotel: El Embajador

This is a place built in the 1960s, and was the site where the Cuban hotel scenes were shot for the movie Godfather II. We did not get a chance to sit around the pool, however, since this trip was fairly packed with supplier visits, etc. My review of the hotels is that it is a nice place, but showing a few signs of its age.

First night included a dinner at Pat' e Palo restaurant, which was very good. Everyone gave enthusiastic thumbs up to the food and the atmosphere. This is in a very old building (housed the first tavern built in the new world - in 1505!) that sits across a square from the home built by Christopher Columbus's son.

Our hosts at dinner included Llc. Eddy Martinez Manzueta, Secretary of State for Commerce for the Dominican Republic. (Click here for an interview w/ Sr. Martinez about economic opporunities in the DR - our discussion went over several of these topics). Other hosts:

• Hector Rafael Gonzalez (rafael.gonzalez@cei-rd.gov.do)


• Cesar Jose (cesar.jose@cei-rd.gov.do)

Here is a picture of the team, after dinner, taken in Pat' e Palo. Sr Martinez is in the front, on the left of Jenny Hu from Ford (her left).