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April 30, 2007

U.S. High-Tech Industry Adds Jobs

The high-tech industry continued to grow in 2006, adding nearly 150,000 net jobs for a total of 5.8 million in the United States, according to the American Electronics Association and based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. This growth is faster than the 87,400 jobs added in 2005. The high-tech manufacturing industry alone added 5,100 net jobs. Here are some highlights and key challenges.

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Manufacturing Orders Up, Housing Down, Consumer Sentiment Worse

New orders for manufactured durable goods in March increased 3.4 percent to $214.9 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau announced in late April. This was the fourth increase in the last five months and followed a 2.4 percent February increase. Meanwhile, recently revised 2006 housing sales figures show that things have generally been worse than originally indicated, and consumer sentiment fell to its lowest in seven months in April.

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April 27, 2007

Light Friday: Earth-Like Planet, Space Wars Revisited, Offensive Bloggage...

... Handsome Riggs, Real Kryptonite, The Mathematics of a Frothy Head and The Who Who?

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April 26, 2007

Is Wind Power Full of Hot Air?

In the U.S., as people recently poured into Earth Day celebrations, they encountered all sorts of booths and speeches extolling the virtues of wind power and other renewable resources. What participants were highly unlikely to hear were the limitations of wind power. Let's revisit wind.

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Reform Takes Energy, Too

We're an energy-hungry society, no doubt about it. With the increasing attention paid to global warming, the pressure to curb greenhouse gas emissions grows. How to accomplish this, however, remains a huge bone of contention.

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April 25, 2007

Toyota to Supplant GM as World's Top Automaker? It's Happening It's Happened

Due in no small part to fuel efficiency, the prospect that Toyota might beat General Motors in global sales this year had been looming for some time, though the prospect still seemed very much in Detroit's rear-view mirror... until it happened this week.

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Chinese Textile Shipping Can't Compete with N.J. Mill's Turnaround

Like many others in U.S. manufacturing, the domestic textile industry has been shrinking dramatically over the past few years — from 1.1 million employees to 760,000 between 2000 and 2005. Amidst all the manufacturing job losses, one bright star of an experience sheds some light on improving competitiveness. Here the textile success story is attributed to lean manufacturing and employee liberation.

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April 24, 2007

Not So Quiet on the Western (or Eastern) Front

While the last couple of years have been a fruitful period for aerospace and defense sectors worldwide, the emphasis on the "global war on terror" continues to influence much of today's government spending on technology and R&D. Where and how are these funds being allocated?

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Manufacturing War Machines

Whether via tank, sub, ship or jet, taking the fight to the enemy has long been preferred. Yet transporting soldiers and equipment into battle zones safely and efficiently remains challenging for military forces all around the world. Here we look at developments and shipments in warfare vehicles on the ground, at sea and in the air.

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Lean Six Sigma Cleans Up TARDEC Shop

The U.S. Army Tank and Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center, upon identifying several types of waste recently, began restructuring the Design, Advanced Materials and Rapid Prototyping Center via a massive Lean Six Sigma project. The results are expected to save TARDEC approximately $500K a year, according to RDECOM Magazine.

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Burning Question

What is the most promising technology for bolstering military forces?

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How Manufacturers Can Learn from Marines

For Marines, teamwork and the esprit de corps can spell the difference between life and death. For manufacturers, collaborative communication, automation and innovation replace guns, grenades and bombs. Yet for both groups, cutting losses depends on better teamwork.

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Star Wars (For Real)?

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away — no, scratch that. No country today is known to have weapons deployed in space, and many countries oppose their development. Yet from orbiting lasers that strike from the heavens to China's recent anti-satellite test, the potential to wage war from space raises startling possibilities.

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Fighting to Fill the Engineering Gap

Engineers and scientists comprise 10 percent of the Pentagon's 600K employees, many of whom will reach retirement age over the next decade. In light of current conflicts and increasing displays of advanced weapons systems in militarizing countries, maintaining an edge in science and technology is more important than ever. What is the Pentagon's plan to fill the engineering gap?

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Weapons 'R' Us: Armaments for Enemy Submission

From lasers and ray guns to drones and next-gen nuclear weapons, the science and manufacture of weaponry never ends, nor do the creative (and scary) ideas for devices to make the enemy — whoever it is — submit.

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Not Your Father's GIs: Soldiers of the Future

In the past, the armed services wanted buff young men and women in good health, preferably with good eyesight, no flat feet and hopefully a strong back. Tomorrow's military could employ robots, honeybees, cockroaches and fish, not to mention invisible armor.

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Recommended Reading

The United States Marines have refined a wide-ranging system of management practices that have evolved continuously under the most demanding conditions conceivable. Armed with straightforward principles presented in Corps Business: The 30 Management Principles of the U. S. Marines, any organization can achieve the high-impact responsiveness demanded by today's ultra-competitive, fast-changing business environments.

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April 23, 2007

Skeptical About U.S. Manufacturing's Future?

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.

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April 20, 2007

Light Friday: Drilling In a Danger Zone, Chinese Manners, Sisters and Roses in Space...

... Drought Reveals Drowned Town, Jobs You May Not Hate, Spacecraft Force Field, Spring-Loaded Fishhooks and MORE.

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April 19, 2007

Measuring Productivity, Offshoring and Wages when Statistics Lie

A recently revised study proposes that the federal government's measure of productivity growth of the U.S. manufacturing sector may be widely overstated due to outsourcing and the shift to offshore production of goods. It also finds "a direct link" between productivity measurement, offshoring and workers' wages. Statistics can lie, so how do we measure manufacturing productivity?

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April 18, 2007

Fed Says March Manufacturing Production Up

ISM's latest Manufacturing National Report on Business showed production growth in March over February. This is consistent with the Federal Reserve's latest monthly industrial report, which this week says that production of both durable and nondurable manufacturing increased.

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April 17, 2007

Offshore Labor Cost Advantages Decline

In today's global business ecology, the offshoring issue seems to have become "if you don't do it, you won't survive," an attitude that's emerging in virtually every industry across the globe. Yet the relative cost advantage of the leading offshore destinations declined almost universally last year, while their scores for people skills and business environment rose significantly, according to A.T. Kearney's latest offshore outsourcing report.

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April 16, 2007

Recognize, Understand and Solve Design Problems

Like in his work with design engineering students, former CEO and entrepreneur Burt Swersey's recently conceived Innovation Junction blog gives a step by step for improving products and processes by helping to identify, understand and solve open-ended problems.

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April 13, 2007

Light Friday: Best Sci-Fi Movie of All Time, Fishy Blimp, Spy Gadget Design Contest ...

... DIYers, the CDC and Nail Guns; "Corrugated Iron Beef"; H2whoa; and How Many Safety Violations Can You Spot?

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April 12, 2007

GM Blames Washington

In today's post on the all-electric Tesla Roadster, blogger-in-crime Fred referred to General Motors' history with electric cars. Now, announced today, GM has suspended development of nearly all of its future performance-minded cars. And the automaker blames Washington.

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Thrilling Thursday: Driving 100 Percent Electric

Powered by 6,831 mass-market lithium-ion batteries, the Tesla Roadster has a 249-mile range and can recharge in as little as 3.5 hours. It goes from zero to 60 mph in about 4 seconds with a top speed of over 130 mph. It also costs about $92,000.

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April 11, 2007

Labor Movement Base Shifts in New Unionism

"Move over Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland. … Unionism characterized by heavy manufacturing is giving way to a new labor movement built by service-sector employees," according to The Christian Science Monitor. This is particularly acute in Los Angeles, due to the number of immigrants, a shrinking middle class and a new model of activism.

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Be Prepared

It's the Boy Scout motto, but it's also a philosophy complementary to business profitability. What would happen at your manufacturing site if an accident or incident occurred? In addition to minimizing pain and suffering, preparedness can have a major impact on business failure, too.

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April 10, 2007

Top Supply Chain Trends

Supply chain strategy is a holistic view of demand, product and supply processes aimed at maximizing opportunity and mitigating risk. To this end, here we address both the leading high-priority supply chain initiatives and the day-to-day business processes we can expect in the near future.

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How to Manage Risk

Today's threats of natural disasters and terrorist attacks make it crucial that manufacturers have contingency plans so the supply chain continues functioning. Yet disruptions are most often caused by problems associated with supply chain partners, raw materials and the employ of illegal workers.

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Burning Question

Labor unions: power to the people or unnecessary evil?

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The Lean and Mean Supply Chain

Although we often apply lean thinking to manufacturing, lean practices are applicable anywhere processes need improvement — that is, in the entire supply chain. The following are some basic ways going lean can produce exactly how much of what is needed, when it is needed, and where it is needed.

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Asia's Major Players

Many companies have looked to Asia for product sourcing in the pursuit for lower costs. Even countries with underdeveloped logistics industries and lagging infrastructure can benefit from the advances of global players. Here is an overview of some of the movers and shakers in Asia.

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Is the Promised Land Offshore?

As supply chain managers now operate in a global business ecology, including low-cost regions in today's operations is a given. Determining which regions to access for a particular purpose and managing risks inherent to global sourcing, however, remain significant challenges.

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Biological Revolution Depends on Engineers, Too

The increasing need to fill biotechnology positions is opening up new opportunities for engineers in manufacturing. In fact, there is great demand today for engineers who can apply their physics knowledge for organizations involved in processing biologicals. The biotech revolution is too important to be left only to biologists.

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Supplying the Moon and Mars

Rapid technological change, globalization, growing population, increasing environmental issues and looming shortages are changing the world of manufacturing and the supply chain. Today's supply chain spans the planet; tomorrow it will span even farther.

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The State of the Auto Union

We no longer hear the loud, proud speechifying or witness the momentous rallies, aggressive organizing and strong political-muscle flexing. These once-common traits of one of America's most powerful movements, labor unionizing, are only whispers today after years of decline from unions' past popularity.

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The Fight for Inbox Sanity

If a renewed surge in spam continues its current track, 90 percent of all e-mail will be spam by the end of the year, according to a recent report. Yet the hustle to delete this spam immediately has an impact on legitimate small businesses and the users who depend on them, too, as results from our February survey indicate.

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Recommended Reading

Written by a master black belt/educator and neatly condensed into a 10-step process, "Lean Six Sigma for Supply Chain Management" teaches business managers how to apply the tenets of Lean operations and Six Sigma management principles to supply chain management.

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April 9, 2007

Commerce Dept. Applies Anti-Subsidy Law to China

Late last month, the U.S. Commerce Dept. announced a preliminary decision to apply U.S. anti-subsidy law to imports from China. The decision alters a 23-year old bipartisan policy of not applying the countervailing duty (CVD) law to non-market economy countries, and reflects China's economic development.

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How to Remain Lean in Logistics

In order to avoid the average 7.96 percent increase in logistics costs that the average process industry company has been hit with over the past two years, a new Aberdeen Group report suggests aping the ways of Best in Class companies.

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April 6, 2007

Light Friday: Boss Gives Loyal Employee Red Roses -- and a '65 Mustang...

... and in Automotive: KITT Car for Sale, Enviro Buses, the KillaCycle, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and MORE!

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April 5, 2007

Start Your Engines In the Race for Green

The X Prize Foundation, the organization behind the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE for private spacecraft, has announced a competition to build an environmentally friendly, super-efficient car. Interested teams — major auto companies and innovators alike — are invited to participate, and the winner gets a big sack of cash.

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Climate Change Aggravates West's Water Shortage

A Western U.S. drought that began eight years ago has continued after the reprieve of a couple of wet years. In response to the water shortages and consequent intensified competition among users in the West, major water projects are taking form.

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April 4, 2007

The Cautious Big 3 and the Asian Auto Market

The Big Three all suffered sales declines last month, while its Asian competition saw gains. (There's a surprise.) Meanwhile, despite the high potential of the burgeoning auto markets of China and India, the two markets pose high credit risks for foreign automakers due to intense competition, quality issues in local manufacturing operations and uncertainties over intellectual property rights, says a new report.

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Manufacturing Improved Slightly in March

The Institute for Supply Management's latest Manufacturing National Report on Business shows "new orders and production indexes advanced while the employment and inventories indexes declined." Here comes the math.

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April 3, 2007

Permit Me to Test My Rocket

Within the next few weeks, the Federal Aviation Administration will issue regulations concerning so-called "experimental permits" that private spacecraft owners will use to test their rockets. Essentially, the rules tell developers what they need to do once they obtain a permit, and are designed to expedite research on spacecraft.

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April 2, 2007

Manufacturing Employment to Continue Growth in April

Good news at the start of April: last month's SHRM/Rutgers LINE survey of HR executives reveals that hiring in the manufacturing sector is expected to repeat last year's substantial growth. Also, although recruiting remains a major concern for manufacturers, recruiting difficulty is down for firms in the sector.

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How Good Is the Fit?

There are many elements to running a successful business, but the workforce is what really shapes a company's future. And there remains a high demand for those who have the know-how to satisfy customers. For hiring, here are some general questions to consider long before a job candidate arrives to interview.

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