Who made China

Ili zanimljiva i savremena prica o porcelanu...

ova prica nije ni crna ni bela ni siva, ona je samo kratak osvrt na neka uobicajena desavanja, i nema neke veze sa emigracijom, tako da je bez nekih emocija...cisto informativno.

Pre par meseci a nakon posete ROM muzeju u Ontariju zainteresovala me je jedna posebna era u proizvodnji evropskog porcelana, i iskopala sam film, koji je inace meni fantastican ali bi drugima mogao biti nezanimljiv, snimljen od strane britanaca
http://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=Ceramics:_A_Fragile_History
Prica ukratko ide ovako, pre ko zna koliko hiljada godina kinezi su napravili porcelan )na engleskom china) u vreme porasta evropske trgovine sa kinom svima se svideo i potreba za njim je rasla, tako da su evropske zemlje svaka za sebe pocele da muckaju recepte da bi otkrile kinesku tajnu. Dve su uspele na neki nacin, kralj poljske Augustus strastveni kolekcionar i zaljubljenik u porcelan unajmio je nekog alhemicara i naucnika koji se zvao Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus i zatvorio ga dozivotno u zamak dok god ne napravi porcelanska cuda identicna kineskim...sto je ovaj neposredno pre svoje smrti u istom zamku i ucinio i tako je nastao Meissen porcelan cija je tajna ljubomorno cuvana bas kao i kineska, bar neko vreme, 1710 tada Saksonski Meissen je proizvodio neverovatno otporan i kvalitetan porcelan ciju tajnu niko nije znao.
Engleska i Francuska su se ukljucile u trku za masovnu proizvodnju evropskog porcelana, 1749 Thomas Frye je patentirao formulu za bone china ili porcelan od mlevenih kostiju.
Svaki put kada odem na pijacu ili u antikvarnicu vidim stotine tananih i prelepih solja i tanjira od tog porcelana sa sjajnim zlatnim ivicama, od kojih su najstariji rucno slikani a koje su hiljade emigranata iz britanije, irske i skotske dovlacile na svojim prekookeanskim odisejama...sada su ta njihova blaga nista vise nego zanimljiva dekoracija za dom za desetak dolara, ili jos jedan detalj u kolekciji sakupljaca porcelana.
Njegov patent pretvorio je mali britanski grad Stoke on Trent u prvu proizvodjacku meku industrijalizma, jer to je bilo jedino mesto koje je imalo kop kaolina i rudnike uglja za porcelanske peci-kiln na istom mestu, plus reku Trent za laksi transport sredstava i robe. Najveci proizvodjaci porcelana firme Spode, Minton, royal Doulton i Wedgwood koja je pripadala dedi Carlsa Darvina, napravile su svoje peci i ateljee tu.
Film govori o ovoj epohi razvoja industrijske proizvodnje porcelana, kako su radnici stvarali sindikate, kako su u pocetku rucno slikali a posle su izmislili prese za stampanje na porcelanu, kako su njihova deca prvo ucila da slikaju detalje na tanjirima pa onda slova i naravno nasledjivala poslove u grncarijama...kako je grad rastao, bogatio se i otvarao salone keramike i fakultet umetnosti...
Prica se zavrsava )ili pocinje kako se uzme) sredinom devedesetih i pocetkom 2000 kada su zbog jeftine konkurencije i lose ekonomije manje firme preuzele vece i iselile sve proizvodne pogone, pogodite gde...u Indoneziju i Kinu.Pogoni i firme su zatvorene i propale, Stoke se pretvorio u djubriste za grncariju a ljudi su otisli za drugim poslovima.Prodavnice je preplavila jeftina keramika iz Kine :)
Nekoliko lokalnih grncarija ostalo je da radi sve do sad, 2009 skoro 15 godina od propasti britanskih keramickih giganata firma Portmeirion vratila je deo proizvodje iz Kine nazad u Britaniju kada je kupila Spode.
Royal Doulton se jos pravi u indoneziji, btw. ono royal su dodali sebi finim marketinskim potezom kada su se prvi deosetili i tadasnjoj kraljevskoj porodici poslali nekoliko vaza i komplet tanjira na cemu su im ovi zahvalili, a kompanija sebi dodala u naziv "kraljevski" porcelan :))
Vecina svetske keramike se i danas pravi u Kini, vecina svetskog svega se pravi u Kini...ponekad me ulazak u plasticne supermarkete dovodi do ludila, mozda je trebalo da naucim kineski i emigriram u Kinu? I dok zemlje u tranziciji drma strah od svemocne Unije, severnu Ameriku i Kanadu drma strah od Kine, naravno ne one koji profitiraju od kineskih poslova samo one koji gube...
Nedavno je jos jedna kompanija iz okoline iselila deo proizvodnje u Kinu ali je obecala da dizajn i inzinjere nece seliti iz Kanade )mozda i zato sto je vlada gurnula par desetina miliona dolara pomoci da ostanu),
naravoucenje ove price proizvodnja je jeftina i zamenljiva, pametnjakovici i menadzeri nisu, budite inzinjer ili bar nagovorite decu da zavrse skole...
Izgleda da je nesreca radnicke klase hronicna pojava u globalizovanom svetu, neke muci tranzicija i prodavanje firmi za par dolara a neke to sto im za jedno popodne firma sa 1500 radnih mesta otputuje preko okeana, kladim se da ni oni jadnici u Kini nisu bas presretni svojom situacijom i platom ali bar imaju posao-privremeno.
Jer ako isele sve zivo tamo ne znam ko ce ostati da kupuje tu silnu robu koja se pravi svakog dana ako je izgubio posao i primanja, doduse korporativna logika mi nikad nije bila jasna :P, al ajde nek im bude.
Nekada su ljudi ziveli relativno bezbedno u svojim gradovima, radili u istoj firmi do penzije ili smrti a danas prelecemo kontinente, menjamo jezike i drzave, gradove i adrese u potrazi za poslovima, i obrnuto ranijem ljudskom stanju gde je sigurnost bila ostati iza bedema na jednom mestu,danas cini mi se sto smo mobilniji to smo sigurniji, ako se vezes za jedno mesto sve postaje teze, postoji sansa da se gadno razocaras...Jezivo je koliko se svet ubrzao.Cak i dinosaurusi koji ce radije da proklinju promene nego da se prilagode i prezive kako znaju i umeju su odavno svesni toga iako to ne zele da priznaju.Ja verujem Darvinu, svet ne pripada meni niti mi se prilagodjava, necu biti dovoljno dugo tu da ga pokusam promeniti,
Viktor Igo kaze da samo jedan kutak univerzuma mozes da promenis- sebe, a to znaci da se popnes na ono Njegosevo brdo...i vidis dalje od ostalih.
RIM koji sve svoje pogone drzi u Waterloo je na ivici opstanka, Apple koji je odavno u Kini ima 100 biliona viska ove godine...
Kada je Obama pitao Jobsa za vecerom zasto je iselio poslove u Kinu ovaj mu je odgovorio da nije mogao da nadje 30.000 inzinjera proizvodnje u americi i sakupi ih na jedno mesto da nadgledaju proizvodnju...dobar izgovor zlata vredi.
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'I WANT A GLASS SCREEN'

In 2007, a little more than a month before the iPhone was scheduled to appear in stores, Jobs beckoned a handful of lieutenants into an office. For weeks, he had been carrying a prototype of the device in his pocket.

Jobs angrily held up his iPhone, angling it so everyone could see the dozens of tiny scratches marring its plastic screen, according to someone who attended the meeting. He then pulled his keys from his jeans.

People will carry this phone in their pocket, he said. People also carry their keys in their pocket. "I won't sell a product that gets scratched," he said tensely. The only solution was using unscratchable glass instead. "I want a glass screen, and I want it perfect in six weeks."

After one executive left that meeting, he booked a flight to Shenzhen, China. If Jobs wanted perfect, there was nowhere else to go.
For more than two years, the company had been working on a project that presented the same questions at every turn: How do you completely reimagine the cellphone? And how do you design it at the highest quality -- with an unscratchable screen, for instance -- while also ensuring that millions can be manufactured quickly and inexpensively enough to earn a significant profit? The answers, almost every time, were found outside the United States.

In its early days, Apple usually didn't look beyond its own backyard for manufacturing solutions. But by 2004, Apple had largely turned to foreign manufacturing. Guiding that decision was Apple's operations expert, Timothy D. Cook, who replaced Jobs as chief executive last August, six weeks before Jobs' death. Most other U.S. electronics companies had already gone abroad, and Apple, which at the time was struggling, felt it had to grasp every advantage.

In part, Asia was attractive because the semi-skilled workers there were cheaper. But that wasn't driving Apple. For technology companies, the cost of labor is minimal compared with the expense of buying parts and managing supply chains that bring together components and services from hundreds of companies.

For Cook, the focus on Asia "came down to two things," said one former high-ranking Apple executive. Factories in Asia "can scale up and down faster" and "Asian supply chains have surpassed what's in the U.S." The result is that "we can't compete at this point," the executive said.

The impact of such advantages became obvious as soon as Jobs demanded glass screens in 2007.

For years, cellphone makers had avoided using glass because it required precision in cutting and grinding that was extremely difficult to achieve. Apple had already selected a U.S. company, Corning Inc., to manufacture large panes of strengthened glass. But figuring out how to cut those panes into millions of iPhone screens required finding an empty cutting plant, hundreds of pieces of glass to use in experiments and an army of midlevel engineers. It would cost a fortune simply to prepare.

Then a bid for the work arrived from a Chinese factory.When an Apple team visited, the Chinese plant's owners were already constructing a new wing. "This is in case you give us the contract," the manager said, according to a former Apple executive. The Chinese government had agreed to underwrite costs for numerous industries, and those subsidies had trickled down to the glass-cutting factory. It had a warehouse filled with glass samples available to Apple, free of charge. The owners made engineers available at almost no cost. They had built on-site dormitories so employees would be available 24 hours a day.

The Chinese plant got the job.

"The entire supply chain is in China now," said another former high-ranking Apple executive. "You need a thousand rubber gaskets? That's the factory next door. You need a million screws? That factory is a block away. You need that screw made a little bit different? It will take three hours."

It is difficult to estimate how much more it would cost to build iPhones in the United States. However, various academics and manufacturing analysts estimate that because labor is such a small part of technology manufacturing, paying U.S. wages would add up to $65 to each iPhone's expense. Since Apple's profits are often hundreds of dollars per phone, building domestically, in theory, would still give the company a healthy reward.

But such calculations are, in many respects, meaningless because building the iPhone in the United States would demand much more than hiring Americans -- it would require transforming the national and global economies. Apple executives believe there simply aren't enough U.S. workers with the skills the company needs or factories with sufficient speed and flexibility. Other companies that work with Apple, like Corning, also say they must go abroad.

"Our customers are in Taiwan, Korea, Japan and China," said James B. Flaws, Corning's vice chairman and chief financial officer. "We could make the glass here, and then ship it by boat, but that takes 35 days. Or, we could ship it by air, but that's 10 times as expensive. So we build our glass factories next door to assembly factories, and those are overseas."

INNOVATION'S LOSERS

Toward the end of Obama's dinner last year with Jobs and other Silicon Valley executives, as everyone stood to leave, a crowd of photo seekers formed around the president. A slightly smaller scrum gathered around Jobs. Rumors had spread that his illness had worsened, and some hoped for a photograph with him, perhaps for the last time.

Eventually, the orbits of the men overlapped. "I'm not worried about the country's long-term future," Jobs told Obama, according to one observer. "This country is insanely great. What I'm worried about is that we don't talk enough about solutions."
In the last decade, technological leaps in solar and wind energy, semiconductor fabrication and display technologies have created thousands of jobs. But while many of those industries started in America, much of the employment has occurred abroad.

Companies have closed major facilities in the U.S. to reopen in China. By way of explanation, executives say they are competing with Apple for shareholders. If they cannot rival Apple's growth and profit margins, they won't survive.

The pace of innovation, say executives from a variety of industries, has been quickened by businessmen like Jobs. GM went as long as half a decade between major auto redesigns. Apple, by comparison, has released five iPhones in four years, doubling the devices' speed and memory while dropping the price that some consumers pay.

Before Obama and Jobs said goodbye, the Apple executive pulled an iPhone from his pocket to show off a new application -- a driving game -- with incredibly detailed graphics. The device reflected the soft glow of the room's lights.

The other executives, whose combined worth exceeded $69 billion, jostled for position to glance over his shoulder. The game, everyone agreed, was wonderful.

There wasn't even a tiny scratch on the screen.