URGENT Manufacturing & Distribution Industry News
15 Years into Lean, CEO Mary Andringa is Still Finding Room to Improve, Not just a case study in the effectiveness of Lean initiatives, learn how one inventive CEO implemented lean techniques to address the issue of rising health care costs. Click here to read the full article.
Counterfeiters have become increasingly sophisticated at imitating products, these products are a threat not only to our health and safety but to our economy... analysts estimate that counterfeiting costs US companies $250 billion and results in American job loss. This report from ANSI: Best Practices in the Fight against Global Counterfeiting outlines several recommendations to assess and address counterfeiting across industry sectors. Click here to read the report.
Manufacturing in Action allows manufacturing executives and employees throughout the United States to join together and make their voices heard—through phone calls, faxes and e-mails—to support issues important to the manufacturing community and a vibrant and competitive economy in the future. To learn more click on the National Association of Manufacturers logo.
"Lean Manufacturing" Helped Win Jobs Back From China. A must read article from Vermont's The Herald of Randolph that tell's how on his first day as Vermont Castings new General Manager, Fred Howe said an employee walked up to him and announced " I have this idea to shorten the time it takes for this job" and an eight-hour process became a 25-minute one. To read the complete article go to employee involvement.
President Obama's carbon cap-and-trade plan. A return to his campaign promise of climate change or another tax to be levied against U.S. manufacturers? Environmentally sound perhaps but will it put U.S. traders at a disadvantage if other countries do not impose similar costs on their manufacturing companies. To learn more read the following link Climate bill. MEI wants to hear YOUR opinions, email your thoughts to mwatson@mfgexecutive.com.
Manufacturing continues to lose jobs at an unprecedented rate. For years, we have read that the North American economy needed to shift from a manufacturing base to a service base. We were told that prosperity would come from a service economy and not from an economy driven by converting cash to inventory and back to cash, creating real value at each step. Of course, none of us in the manufacturing world ever believed this silly notion. We easily saw that serving one another doesn't produce value, it only moves it. In the last 8 years, manufacturing has lost OVER 7 million jobs in the U.S. More have been lost since the economic crisis started. To learn more about why this has occurred, read the following link: Worst Year of Job Loss Since '45.
Will the Lockheed Martin built F-22 Raptor manufacturing continue? The administration is under extreme pressure to continue manufacturing this magnificant warbird, but can America afford it in these difficult economic times? Another question might be, "can America afford to lose 95,000 MORE job in 44 states if this program is cancelled." and what about the combat superiority this plane brings to the United States? For more, read: Raptor In Dogfight For Its Future.
Will Congress pass the Main Street Manufacturing Communities Reinvestment Act of 2009? This act is a bill to amend the Economic Adjustment Assistance grant program to improve assistance for areas affected by long-term economic deterioration and severe economic dislocation relating to the manufacturing industry sector which was to amend the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 to expand the national emergency grants program. To read more about this legislation, go to S.341.