Sponsored by BishopWisecarver Corp.                                                Vol. 4 No. 7

Canadian companies adopt
offshoring sparingly – and not very successfully

Offshore outsourcing is not a prominent business practice among Canadian companies. Furthermore, those firms that have transferred business activities offshore are not fully achieving their objectives, according to a recent report from the Conference Board of Canada (conferenceboard.ca).

The report, Business Process Offshore Outsourcing: Will Canadian Businesses Sink or Swim?, outlines the findings of a 2004 Conference Board survey of 132 medium and large-sized companies. Although these firms would be the most likely to transfer business functions to offshore locations, just under 40% said they had offshore suppliers or contracts.

Respondents identified manufacturing as the business function most frequently sent to offshore locations (26%). Cutting cost was the most important factor influencing a decision to offshore (also 26%), followed by service improvement and achieving world-class standards (12% each).

Surprisingly, Canadian organization's investments in offshoring are expected to have little impact on Canadian jobs. Firms are spending only small amounts on offshore contracts. About 70% of responding organizations currently spend less than $1 million on offshoring activities. In addition, 70% said their planned offshore expenditures will not exceed $1 million.

And I thought China presented a clear threat to the mold, tool and die activities in Canada...

I'd be happy to hear your thoughts and plans on offshoring. Please drop me a line at the e-address below or click on my image above.

Profitable surfing!
Mike Edwards, Editor,
DPN Magazine medwards@clbmedia.ca
Past e-LETTERs: go to dpncanada.com,
then click Articles

USEFUL SITES

.NET compliant DAQ software. Data Translation (datatranslation.com) has announced free .NET compliant data acquisition, math and graphing software for use with Microsoft's Visual Studio.

Component manufacturing. The Investment Casting Institute (investmentcasting.org) provides an information source for OEMs looking for someone to make a part, who casts similar components, or who casts the alloy they require.

Metals failure analysis. More than 1000 case histories are available online in the ASM Failure Analysis Center (asminternational.org). A fee applies.

Microcomponent fabrication. SolidWorks Corp., Microfabrica and MOSIS have announced EFAB Access, a service for creating microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), microdevices and microscopic mechanical parts (microfabrica.com).

8-bit microcontrollers. ZiLOG, Inc. has extended its Z8 Encore! microcontroller family with the addition of the Z8F0823 series of 8KB Flash devices.

CCD laser displacement sensor. The LK-G series laser displacement sensors from Keyence provide non-contact measurement with a resolution of 0.0004 Mil (0.01 µm), an accuracy of ±0.03%, and 50 kHz sampling speed.

Die cast aluminum connector housings. IP68-rated RockStar connector housings from Weidmuller are die cast aluminium housings with powder coated paint finish resist corrosion and provide EMC protection.

Solar-powered wireless sensor. EnOcean has introduced the STM100, a solar-powered wireless sensor module. Within its custom two-stage solar cell, one stage is said to provide quick startup energy while the other charges an onboard energy reservoir.

Coming in the
September DPN

PTDA Canadian conference report
Breakthrough hydraulics technology
Fluid power challenge in Edmonton
Motion Control feature report

Mary Sue Lyon, Executive Director,
Power Transmission Distributors Association
(ptda.org) at the historic Fairmont Hotel in Calgary.
 

UPCOMING EVENTS

July 19 + 21, 2005. Toronto + Montreal. Electromate Industrial Sales Ltd. presents Robo Expo Lunch N' Learn seminars on electric cylinder and control technology (electromate.com).
 
October 3-6, 2005. Dallas/Fort Worth. SAE has merged the Aerospace Manufacturing Technology Conference (AMTC) with the Aerospace Automated Fastening Conference (Aerofast) to create this event (sae.org/events/amaf/).

October 17-20, 2005. Toronto. Canadian Manufacturing Technology Show, including the National Factory Automation Show and Canadian Machine Tool Show (reedexpo.ca/cmts).

October 20, 2005. Toronto. The 6th Annual STARS Gala in support of technology education in Canada presented by the Yves Landry Foundation (ylandryfund.org).

November 5-11, 2005. Orlando. The 2005 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition presented by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (asme.org).

November 16-17, 2005. St. Louis. Rockwell Automation will host the 14th annual Automation Fair, a free educational forum created to showcase the latest ways manufacturers can use industrial automation technology (automationfair.com).


CLICK HERE FOR MORE EVENTS

GET MORE FROM OUR SPONSOR: BishopWisecarver Corp.

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