Current U.S. manufacturing is hit repeatedly with truly enormous challenges as well as numerous unchallenged myths. Although parts of it need some serious attention, the industry suffers from many people’s perception that it is antiquated. A recent interview with John Layden, a developer of Six Sigma quality control at Motorola and CEO of PREVEL Consulting, addresses the public’s confusion of an industry and the companies in it.

A recent interview with John Layden, CEO of PREVEL Consulting, notes that manufacturing has followed the same pattern as agriculture. That is, the number of workers involved in agriculture has declined from 27 million in 1910 to 5 million today for agriculture. In the manufacturing sector, employment in the U.S. peaked in 1979 at 19 million and has since declined to about 14 million today, according to the interview (via Midwest Business).

Like the employment shrinkage in agriculture, in which output continues to grow, Layden shows that the volume and value of manufacturing output have increased. The need for fewer workers results from incredible gains in productivity in the last two decades.

However, in Midwest Business‘s interview recap, the article focuses on the auto industry.

Layden notes that this is “a classic example of confusing an industry and the companies in it.” For instance, while Ford and Chrysler struggle. Toyota and Honda are not. Still, “all are involved in traditional manufacturing, so the lines get blurred.”

It doesn’t matter to the assembly line worker if he or she is building vehicles sold by American or foreign-owned companies — either way, the mortgage and bills get paid. In fact, if you look at the year-to-date value of the automobiles shipped in 2006 versus that of 2007, there was only a 0.5 percent drop, according to recent government statistics. Of course, for light trucks, this value dropped by nearly 12 percent. Perhaps the rising cost of gasoline swayed consumer purchases away from SUVs and light trucks to sedans.

Last year, of course, there was an unexpectedly large swing in consumer demand away from pickups and SUVs, to smaller cars and crossover vehicles, due to rapid increases in gasoline prices. And Ford Motor Company, for instance, was largely unprepared for such a sudden shift in demand.

Could the dwindling supply of crude oil and the rapidly increasing use of it by Asian countries have been phenomena that failed to show up on automaker management’s radar? Or has the influence of available surplus income of large groups of consumers been underestimated? Whatever the case, automakers seemed determined to do better and to reform. Who knows, maybe American automakers will achieve an upset at the last minute.

According to TIME magazine’s cover story in January, “William Clay Ford Jr. wants to blow up the company’s hierarchical traditions, trim the ranks of bureaucrats and encourage a climate of risk taking. He will go out on a limb with bolder car designs [… .] And he will gamble that saving the planet from the car industry is the biggest long-term priority of all, so he will pour billions of dollars into eco-friendly factories and cars.

TIME reported:

Most notably, the company will dramatically increase production of its hybrid gas-electric models, promising to produce 250,000 a year by 2010, a tenfold increase from last year’s output. “The old way of doing things doesn’t work,” Ford says. “Is [this] risky? Of course, it’s risky. But I tell you what: Going the way we were going is the highest risk of all.”

In the Midwest Business interview, Layden adds that “the economic engine of the U.S. economy is manufacturing,” which “leverages more value in secondary jobs than any other sector of the economy.” Specifically, for every job in manufacturing, “another five to eight jobs are created directly or indirectly.

“An estimated 65 percent of the U.S. economy is built around manufacturing or manufactured goods.”

Nevertheless, in the auto industry, strong Asian competition, skyrocketing health-care and raw materials costs, and a slide in U.S. market share has led Ford, at least, to announce more restructuring for its North American operations. Saddled with a junk debt rating and facing a sharp drop in U.S. market share, Ford’s restructuring plan — the “Way Forward” — is designed to reverse huge recent losses in its North American operations.