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CNN:
VELSHI (voice-over
For someone who runs a guitar string manufacturing business, Jim D'Addario is also a bit of a tinkerer. Over the past two years, he's cut inventory, stream lined factory floor operations, updated technology, and saved jobs at his Long Island-based company.
JIM D'ADDARIO, CEO, D'ADDARIO: We made a commitment in the '70s that we were going to make our products, our D'Addario Strings in America. And we're still committed to that. We've never sold one string that we didn't make here in New York.
VELSHI: D'Addario is one of a growing number of U.S. manufacturers that has adopted the Toyota waste reduction strategy popularly known as LEAN that relies heavily on automation.
More than half of U.S. manufacturers surveyed have implemented LEAN or plan to do so. Critics say the automation eliminates jobs. D'Addario says the replaced workers can be cross trained to do other jobs.
D'ADDARIO: We do not want to lay people off because LEAN has been effective. That's not going to help people embracing LEAN and it's not going to really help our company or our community. What we're trying to do then is we take those people and we train them to do something else.
VELSHI: Like work in the guitar strap division, part of a company D'Addario acquired several years ago. Those jobs were previously in China. Today, Long Island. Economists say other companies can also position themselves to bring jobs home.
PETER MORICI, LABOR ECONOMIST: LEAN manufacturing makes it possible to create products in the United States efficiently, cost effectively and so forth. Some manufacturing should be done in China. But too much manufacturing is being done in China that could be done more effectively in the United States.
VELSHI: Jim D'Addario agrees and hopes that other manufacturers will follow his lead.
D'ADDARIO: I think people are afraid to make the commitment to LEAN, to automation, to reinvesting in their factories because they have this stigma in their mind, they have this belief that you can't make it effectively and profitably in America and that's not true. I think people give up on manufacturing in America prematurely. It can be done.
CNN:
VELSHI (voice-over
For someone who runs a guitar string manufacturing business, Jim D'Addario is also a bit of a tinkerer. Over the past two years, he's cut inventory, stream lined factory floor operations, updated technology, and saved jobs at his Long Island-based company.JIM D'ADDARIO, CEO, D'ADDARIO: We made a commitment in the '70s that we were going to make our products, our D'Addario Strings in America. And we're still committed to that. We've never sold one string that we didn't make here in New York.
VELSHI: D'Addario is one of a growing number of U.S. manufacturers that has adopted the Toyota waste reduction strategy popularly known as LEAN that relies heavily on automation.
More than half of U.S. manufacturers surveyed have implemented LEAN or plan to do so. Critics say the automation eliminates jobs. D'Addario says the replaced workers can be cross trained to do other jobs.
D'ADDARIO: We do not want to lay people off because LEAN has been effective. That's not going to help people embracing LEAN and it's not going to really help our company or our community. What we're trying to do then is we take those people and we train them to do something else.
VELSHI: Like work in the guitar strap division, part of a company D'Addario acquired several years ago. Those jobs were previously in China. Today, Long Island. Economists say other companies can also position themselves to bring jobs home.
PETER MORICI, LABOR ECONOMIST: LEAN manufacturing makes it possible to create products in the United States efficiently, cost effectively and so forth. Some manufacturing should be done in China. But too much manufacturing is being done in China that could be done more effectively in the United States.
VELSHI: Jim D'Addario agrees and hopes that other manufacturers will follow his lead.
D'ADDARIO: I think people are afraid to make the commitment to LEAN, to automation, to reinvesting in their factories because they have this stigma in their mind, they have this belief that you can't make it effectively and profitably in America and that's not true. I think people give up on manufacturing in America prematurely. It can be done.
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