Page 86 - Part One of a Two-Part Story: We Worked for General Instruments

ISSUE : Issue 49

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1988/8/1

but small parts--stampings. (And they didn't want to do that.) No, they didn't want to do that. So anyway, we finally found a fellow, Nickerson, in Halifax. He would make tools for us. So then we took trips--'cause I can remem? ber going up to Ajax Manufacturing up in Toronto area, up in Montreal, up to a va? riety of suppliers, and saying that, "Do you have the capacity to do this, this, and this?" And it was just like talking to somebody in Chicago--yes, they had all kind of capacity to do this, this, and this. So then we started transferring the tooling out of the plants in the States up to the plants in Toronto and Montreal and so on. And, before we left, we already had--we were still making about 50% of the parts in the U. S., but we were making 50% of the parts here in Canada. Of which--I think 3% of our business, of purchased material, was done in Nova Scotia. Roy Burchell (You were tell? ing me that you thought the thing that real? ly killed Gener? al Instruments in Cape Breton was transporta? tion.) Oh, defi? nitely. I still say it was transportation. Because--they didn't give us that good a deal 0' 0 ' "' * ' in Mexico. I'm 0ta'' t?"f''"??*m ** saying, they didn't go down there because it was cheaper in Mexico. But it was closer to the sub? assemblies. Mex? ico's on the border. So, sub? assemblies were there close by, in the United States. (What does that mean?) Well, if you took a plate--if you took a sheet of steel --and you wanted to make a casing for the tuner. Okay, you put the sheet--the steel-- in the machine, and the die would come down and shape it. And there it was, the piece of the tuner was there--the frame for it, okay? That was close--right next door, in El Paso. (U. S. A.) Yes. So all they had to do was to go ship it across the border--10 minutes. That (same) frame, for Sydney, was made, possibly, in California. This is where sub-assemblies were made. All over the world. (By sub-assembiies, you mean various little parts that you needed.) Right. To assemble this tuner. (And those other little parts were made, as you say, all over the world.) Yeah. (They weren't made in Sydney.) No, none of them. Not a part. And we had to get them shipped in here. We'd have (parts) coming in by truckloads-- $1800--I can remember the figure (the transportation cost) then was $1800. Coming in from the States. And that truck would stay down here overnight, 'cause we'd have a load to go back, of the finished product. I'tttT W' Min OVERLOOKING SYDNEY HARBOUR Tel: (902) 539-6550 Toll Free: 1-800-565-9409 Vistjjotel 59 Units * Open Year Round Licensed Dining Room open 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. with Home-Styled Meals 140 Kings Road SYDNEY Nova Scotia B1P6J9 JUL

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