It is a great, but terrifying time to be a manufacturer in the United States. New manufacturing plants are popping up and existing manufacturers are pushing their capacity to the limit. The big issue that remains however, is the skills gap. Retiring baby boomers are vacating skilled manufacturing jobs. To complicate matters our culture tends to emphasize academics more than job … [Read more...]
Beyond the Shop Floor: Manufacturing Advocates Podcast
One thing you will quickly discover if you get to know people in the manufacturing industry is how busy they are. I guess it should be no surprise that they stalwarts of their local communities in terms of jobs and direct economic output. How so? We'll address that shortly. People in the industry seem to juggle so many balls that they are unable to participate in things like … [Read more...]
Making Manufacturing Cool for Current and Future Generations
The Image Problem with Manufacturing in the USA To say Manufacturing in the US has an image problem is putting it lightly. Even Walmart's attempt to rally support for their commitment to US Manufacturing portrayed factories as dingy, dirty, grit encrusted environments. When you talk about manufacturing it conjures up a vision of huge factories in the far east with unskilled … [Read more...]
Two for Friday – Innovation and OEE
While visiting one of our customers in the Visalia area this week, the visit provoked some ideas about innovation in manufacturing. Luckily there was a tie in to that in the news as well. On LinkedIn we saw several discussions about calculating OEE and looking beyond just OEE so this week's topics are: Efforts to Promote Innovation in Manufacturing OEE and Beyond, What … [Read more...]
Two for Friday – Global Competition and Autonomous Cargo
So many of the conversations going on carry over from week to week with regards to North American Manufacturing. Specifically this week what stood out: North America Now Very Globally Competitive Are Unmanned Cargo Aircraft the Future of Economical Air Freight? North America Now Considered Very Globally Competitive North America (specifically the US and Mexico) have … [Read more...]