Manufacturing Operations Management Talk

Attracting Future Engineers and Future Business

Nice article yesterday at The Hill by Boeing CEO, Jim Albaugh.

Jim believes we can do great things once more. Aerospace has lead the way before and can do it again. There is a dynamic global market that companies such as Boeing are working to win.

Jim follows echoing some of the thoughts we have heard from other US manufacturers...

We need Congress and the president to adopt tax and regulatory policies that encourage companies to invest and innovate here at home.

We need them to address what I call the intellectual disarmament of our nation. To lead in high-tech industries like aerospace, we must have a skilled workforce. About half of Boeing’s engineers will be able to retire by 2015. The same is true for other aerospace companies, and we simply are not producing enough engineers in this country to take their place. Addressing this issue is less about spending more money on education than about inspiring students with great missions and giving them challenging projects.

American businesses and workers need rigorous enforcement of international trade rules. Unfair trade practices must end. We need Congress to pass the free-trade agreements that are pending, as well as to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank. Exp-Imp loan guarantee programs are crucial for the competitiveness of U.S. exporters.

Finally, we need significant new investments in public infrastructure. To most people, infrastructure means roads and bridges, but let’s not forget our woefully out-of-date air traffic management system.

The full article at:
Great Achievements Begin with Bold Ideas http://thehill.com/opinion/op-ed/182797-great-achievements-begin-with-bold-ideas

 

At This Girls’ Camp they Take to the Drill Press

Forget tie-dyed shirts, lanyards and water games. At summer camp this year, Nautika Kotero, 13, learned to use a drill press, solder electrical wires and build a lamp.

Just over a quarter of the 11.7 million workers in manufacturing are women. But Gadget Camp, a workshop for girls in this suburb west of Chicago, is part of an effort to change that.

Check out this article on Gadget Camp which is exposing girls to an occupation they might previously have considered unappealing, if they considered it at all.

This page has a video fast forwarding through one of the projects.
http://jezebel.com/5832510/gadget-camp-where-girls-learn-to-build-things

Full New York Times Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/business/a-summer-camp-to-draw-girls-into-manufacturing-careers.html?_r=1

These are great examples of proactive projects to promote manufacturing.

 

Great article - Manufacturing Wake-Up Call

I like the stats in this nice balanced article on the state of manufacturing in the US and ideas to boost it going forward. It is based on data published in a recent Booz & Company and University of Michigan report.

Don't let the pessimists scare us to believe that the US has permanently lost its manufacturing edge. However, there is reason to be concerned. If manufacturing continues to be neglected, the US capabilities could erode to a point of no return.

Some of the points in the article that caught my attention:

* Currently, U.S. factories competitively produce about 75 percent of the products that the nation consumes.

* Manufacturing should be viewed in the future as a regional business. There might not be room for a single global manufacturing provider. The factories must locate close to their markets.

* A strong manufacturing base is essential to reducing the U.S. trade deficit.

*  In 2008, 67 percent of all private-sector R&D was conducted by manufacturing companies, according to the National Science Foundation.

* US Manufacturing's decline did not start in to 70s, it started around 2000. The ratio of exports to imports fell and the number of manufacturing jobs fell as well. Capital investments in factories also declined.

* US Industries that still lead globally include Aerospace, Medical Equipment, Machinery, Chemicals, and Semiconductors.

* Four considerations drive manufacturers’ choices about where to place factories: (1) The skill level and quality of factory employees, (2) The presence of high-impact clusters, in which many companies can learn from one another and innovate more readily, (3) Access to nearby countries with emerging consumer markets and lower-cost labor (for the U.S., this means building a future with Mexico) (4) A reasonably competitive regulatory and tax environment (for the U.S., this means simplifying and streamlining the current tax and regulatory structure).

Some of the ideas in the report include building a competitive edge and revitilizing education for manufacturing.

Great article:
http://booz.com/media/file/sb64-11306-Manufacturing's-Wake-Up-Call.pdf