Manufacturing in San Diego County won’t ever be cheap or easy, but there are still thousands of companies that make things here.
Some of the businesses that build products locally extolled the virtues of doing so on Friday to kick off Manufacturing Day 2013. Across the country, more than 800 manufacturers opened their doors to the public to show that not everything is made in China or Singapore, where labor is cheaper.
But overall, manufacturing employment continues to decline in San Diego since The Great Recession. It has expanded in other parts of the country.
“San Diego has never been a major manufacturing center,” said Alan Gin, economist at the University of San Diego. “It’s too expensive to make stuff here.”
But, companies do make things here. On Friday, San Diegans learned about beer, paddle boards, guitars, airplane parts and a company that makes prototypes of electronics.
“We still have to do what makes sense, but I think you’ll be surprised,” said Alex Kunczynski, president of D&K Engineering, which makes product prototypes, including ecoATM. “There’s definitely a change in tide and for certain products I think we’re going to see a resurgence of those things coming to back to the U.S., to California and to San Diego.”
D&K has 300 employees in San Diego and 250 in Singapore. Kunczynski said it depends on individual products whether it makes more sense to manufacture locally — the ones that require high innovation and have quick time-to-market needs are better made here. Gin said some of those products would be medical devices or technical equipment.
Kunczynski said San Diego’s technology cluster can act as a springboard for companies to get those cutting-edge products to market.
“Cheaper is not necessarily better, you have to look beyond that,” Kunczynski said. “You have to look at risk mitigation, you’ve got to look at overall value proposition, and you have to look at speed, and innovative capability.”
But there are still challenges — the cost of business is high, and the work force is underqualified. Manufacturing employment in San Diego County dropped from 102,400 in August 2007 to 91,500 in August 2013, according to the state Employment Development Department.
Rick Urban, chief operating officer of Santee-based Quality Controlled Manufacturing Inc., which makes aerospace products, said in 2011 the company had to turn business away because it couldn’t find qualified workers. He noted training programs being put in place at local community colleges to prepare future employees.
Success in those programs could mean economic expansion in San Diego. Mark Cafferty, CEO of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp., who moderated the panel discussion, said each manufacturing job creates an additional 2.5 jobs elsewhere. He said there are 2,800 manufacturers in San Diego County.
But while the region is close to Mexico, it faces obstacles when it comes to exporting products. A study released in May by the Brookings Institution and University of California, San Diego cited bottlenecks at the Port of San Diego and San Diego International Airport holding companies back.