I wanted to be in a position of having a better understanding on Harman’s recent outsourcing announcement before commenting. Over the past few weeks, I have talked to most of my contacts at Harman to try and gain clarity on the announcement and its impacts. I won’t sugar coat this issue. From the perspective of Lansing Heritage, and the desires we have to see the legacy of JBL carried on as broadly as possible, this can only be received as bad news. However, it is premature to say that this represents the end of the Lansing legacy.

At this time, the waters are still muddied since I have been getting conflicting assessments. Those on the front lines are the most negative in their view of what this portends for the future of JBL. Management feedback is calmer, stating that it will not substantively affect the existing product line or future product development. Only time will tell.

First off, there are a couple of rumors that I want to dispel. Number one, this change does not mean the end of the products that have the closest lineage to the legacy speakers that we all admire and revere. Those would be JBL’s high end products like K2 and Everest 2. The manufacturing of these products will be outsourced to Mexico but they are not being discontinued. As evidence, Harman is in the process of opening a superstore in Shanghai that is intended to be a showcase all of their high end products. Harman is undertaking a concerted effort to make inroads in the huge Chinese market and JBL’s high end speakers are spearheading those efforts. This project was unaffected by the outsourcing announcement.

Second, Harman is not ignorant of the fact that outsourcing has an associated quality management issue. The Mexico plant that is being used to outsource the manufacturing is a Harman owned facility that has been producing JBL products for around 30 years. This plant most recently has been producing the lower end professional product line, but has also had experience in producing high end product. For example, the 2245 was produced at this plant in the latter part of that product’s life cycle. Moving the full high end pro and consumer manufacturing to this site will require enhancement of the quality control measures already in place due to the higher standards for their manufacture. Harman knows this and is in the process of developing the necessary quality management controls.

That being said, I cannot dismiss the concerns of the front end staff that are closest to the design and manufacturing of JBL’s product line. JBL has been unique in developing and maintaining manufacturing staff with decades of experience and these will be lost in the outsourcing. Further, having the manufacturing location distant from the design staff eliminates a degree of synergy between the two whereby design can offer immediate input into manufacturing issues and these issues become feedback into future designs.

I share everyone on this forum’s disappointment with Harman’s decision to end U.S. manufacturing, and in that sense, it does represent an end of an era. It is further evidence of a troubling trend towards a total abandonment of manufacturing in the U.S. For now, the jury is out on just what the overall impact of this will be to JBL and I’ll keep watching and reporting in this thread as time passes.

To keep this thread readable, it will be closed to general posts. Discussions on this topic can be started in new threads in this forum. However, the moderators will be watching closely to ensure that they remain civil and on topic.