But the survey also showed factory costs rising, raising fears about growing inflation.
Rent and utilities for the factory floor works out to about 11 cents per shirt, and head-office and marketing costs for the factory are 11 cents.
After resolving teething problems and making products that match specifications, innovation inside the factory turns to cutting costs, often in ways that range from unsavoury to dangerous.
Already some of the international parts companies which opened factories next to Nissan have started supplying the factory from continental Europe where costs are lower because of the weak euro.
Applied intends to trim the industry's costs in four ways: boost solar factory throughput, improve the productivity of every tool, cut materials costs by using photovoltaic materials more sparingly and raise solar cell efficiencies.
The news that a powerful carmaker would be forced to abandon a fully built factory and start over was stunning not only because of the staggering sunk costs of building a now-worthless factory.
Almost all of the costs are in the capital costs of having the factory at all.
As for the remaining 25 cents, that will just about cover repaying a 10-year bank loan at 18% interest, which the factory owner has used for set-up costs along with a home and car.
PricewaterhouseCoopers, a large accountancy firm, reckons that lower feedstock and energy costs could result in 1m more American factory jobs by 2025.
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Taking place every Monday at Ciudad Cultural Konex, an old oil factory, the show starts at 7 pm and costs 40 Argentinean pesos if you book in advance and 50 Argentinean pesos on the door.
Ferrate also can be made on-site--say, next to a factory kicking off dirty water--avoiding additional transportation costs.
Canadian Banknote is asking about Dollars 2.9m (Pounds 1.71m) to print the notes and is offering to build the factory as a joint venture, which would recoup its costs by printing money for other republics and nations.
When managers managed with a spreadsheet rather than real-world knowledge about what was actually going on in the factory and what were its possibilities, they overlooked hidden costs of the erosion of skills, the loss of quality and constraints on innovation.
When managers manage with a spreadsheet rather than real-world knowledge about what is actually going on in the factory and what were its possibilities, they overlook hidden costs of the erosion of skills, the loss of quality and constraints on innovation.
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One USCBC survey respondent said his factory raised wages by 20% from 2010, causing labor costs to inflate quickly and make retention more difficult due to an even more aggravated shortage of labor.
But after burning through hundreds of millions of dollars in capital--costs include more than 600 employees and a California factory to crank out its specialized chips--Infinera is finally seeing rapid sales gains, even as it continues to record losses.
Because the number of potential customers for such experimental sensors is small, the firms manufacturing them have to charge a high price per unit just to cover the fixed costs of designing the product, setting up the factory, and so forth.
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Hence, the company's desire to cut costs might have pushed forward the closure of the Ryton factory, though strained industrial relations may also have played a part, observers say.
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He does expect the efficiency of its solar panels to be even higher than 12.8% by the time the factory opens in 2013, noting that as efficiencies increase, systemwide costs drop.
There will be an aggressive narrowing of the competitive advantage China now wields in labour costs, the report predicts, as wages for Chinese factory workers rise by between 15pc and 20pc a year.
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If labor costs can be reduced by employing more robots in the factory, and if its feasible for a company like FoxConn to use such a large number, it begs the question of why Western companies might continue outsourcing.
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Boeing cut the cost of making fuselages by selling a factory in Wichita to a private-equity consortium, which drastically cut costs.
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The Georgetown factory was able to mothball one of its three painting booths, saving energy and upkeep costs.
Last year, Peugeot announced a programme to cut its costs by 1bn euros in response to falling sales, including the closure of one factory.
And critics worry that factory safety and worker protections won't improve as long as apparel companies chase the lowest manufacturing costs.
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