Jan 4, 2019

By Jason Margolis, Public Radio International (PRI) President Donald Trump once named his style of elocution “truthful hyperbole” — what he described as a form of promotion to get people excited. One area the president currently likes to pump up is foreign jobs coming back to the United States. “We have literally hundreds of companies moving back,” President Trump said in November, repeating a statement that’s become a major talking point.   But is this another instance of truthful hyperbole? Are hundreds of companies indeed shifting production back to the US? “I’d say 300, 400, at least, announced in 2017,” said Harry Moser, president of the Reshoring Initiative, a nonprofit that tracks jobs coming back to the US.  OK, score one for the president.  But is a few hundred companies significant? “I would call this movement right now a trickle,” said Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing. There’s considerable debate over how to measure any reshoring trends and very little data available. It’s often not as simple as a company closing a factory in China and reopening it in Ohio. Moser, for example, includes “partial shifts” of jobs, whereas some other research only includes shifts of entire businesses, and thus, have reached less optimistic conclusions about reshoring trends. What is clear, however, said Paul, is that the US is seeing more companies that rely on cheap energy — now in abundance in the US — coming back. “That includes some types of chemical processing, some types of plastics,” said Paul. “I’ve also seen jobs come back in everything from auto parts to textiles in jeans.” Paul said this trend began about a decade ago. Moser, who also assists companies with information about the benefits of shifting work to the US, said President Barack Obama got the ball rolling. “He [President Obama] used to call it ‘insourcing,’” said Moser. “He started a program of increasing our skilled workforce of apprenticeship programs and certificates. He did many useful things.” According to Moser’s research, things have picked up under Trump, with work largely shifting away mostly from China and other parts of Asia. “In 2017, companies announced 170,000 manufacturing jobs coming back from offshore, up 50 percent from 2016.” (This includes both reshoring and foreign direct investment jobs.)  So, what’s driving this? Let’s...

Dec 17, 2018

Industrial robots are driving improvements in productivity, quality, and flexibility that are helping U.S. manufacturers to compete globally. At the same time, they’re spurring the growth of a new ecosystem of jobs, from mechanical design to AI-based computer vision. By Mark Shortt, Design-2-Part Magazine The robots are coming—that much is true. But manufacturers, by and large, don’t see them as the job-stealing invaders of the workplace that many people have imagined. It’s not that robots don’t excel in performing many tasks formerly done by people. It’s just that people also excel in certain areas where robots aren’t up to the task. And  in the manufacturing realm, industry leaders and company officials who have integrated robots into their plant’s operations say that their impact stretches well beyond the work that they’ve proven to do so well.   “These machines are going to have a huge impact into the broader economy,” said Tom Galluzzo, founder and chief technology officer of IAM Robotics, in a presentation at MIT Technology Review’s EmTech Next Conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in June. “They’re going to empower people to do the things that we’re innately better at—the creative thinking skills. And I think that’s where our employers have to take responsibility—to educate people and to empower them to do those kinds of creative thinking.” In manufacturing, people can focus on higher-level work because industrial robots are known to perform repetitive tasks with greater precision than their human counterparts. Manufacturers who use robotics in printed circuit board assembly, for example, often report greater peace of mind knowing that the robots are maintaining high quality while increasing the productivity of their operations. Sam Hanna, president of Quality Manufacturing Services, Inc. (QMS), a provider of electronics manufacturing services in Lake Mary, Florida, said that QMS has added robotics to its operation when a reasonable return on investment has justified the investment. The company has invested heavily in late-model surface mount pick-and-place equipment, a key contributor to quality as electronic components and packages continue to shrink in size. “We get consistent output, the machines never get tired, and they’re certainly faster than humans,” said Hanna. “The precision we can get out of machinery is far better than we can get out of...

Jul 16, 2018

By Harry Moser, Modern Materials Handling New research -as well as incentives like lower corporate tax rates – suggest that it is. It’s hard not to pick up a newspaper or listen to a news report without hearing that U.S. manufacturers are reshoring production, and jobs, back to the U.S. It’s a cause we have been dedicated to at the Reshoring Initiative. There are a number of reasons why we believe that 2018 is the right for companies to re-evaluate their offshoring decisions. Among them are the reduction in U.S. corporate tax rates and regulatory costs and the approximately nine percent decline in the USD from Jan. 2017 to Jan. 2018. Recent academic research provides useful detailed insight into how and why some organizations have reevaluated their offshoring decisions, leading to decisions to reshore. The results are generally consistent with the analyses of data collected by my organization, the Reshoring Initiative, based on a larger population of reshorers. In a recent article entitled “Why in the world did they reshore? Examining small to medium-sized manufacturer decisions,” John V. Gray, Gökçe Esenduran, M. Johnny Rungtusanatham, and Keith Skowronski looked at four small-to-medium-size enterprises, or SMEs, with headquarters and demand in the U.S., that had moved their manufacturing operations from low-cost locations in Asia back to high-cost countries. Two of the companies are located in the Midwest and two are in the West, with product categories ranging from power transmission equipment to measuring and controlling devices, to fabricated metal products to apparel. The authors found that these reshoring decisions are driven by factors beyond changing location-related costs. The Reshoring Initiative and John V. Gray, one of the co-authors and a professor at The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business, have discussed the reshoring phenomenon for years. This article is an effort to compare the results from the in-depth academic research of a small number of firms by Gray and his colleagues, and the larger-scale survey data collected by our organization. To differentiate between their work and ours, any numerical results related to the work of the Reshoring Initiative are italicized. Lessons Learned 1. Remedying the Unintended Consequences  SMEs are correcting the unintended consequences of initial offshoring decisions...

By: Antonio Regalado, MIT Technology Review Bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. is politically savvy and can make economic sense. At a dinner for Silicon Valley big shots in February 2011, President Obama asked Steve Jobs what it would take to manufacture the iPhone in the United States. Apple’s founder and CEO is said to have responded directly: “Those jobs aren’t coming back.” In December, Apple reversed course, saying it planned to assemble a line of Mac computers in the U.S. With that, Apple joined a wave of companies that say manufacturing in this country makes sense again. Companies that say they’ve brought back jobs include General Electric, Michigan Ladder, and Wham-O, which in 2010 hired eight people to make Frisbees in Los Angeles instead of China. An MIT study in 2012 found that 14 percent of companies intend to move some manufacturing back home.The idea is known as “reshoring.” Although Chinese wages are a fraction of U.S. labor costs, rising shipping rates, quality problems, and the intangible costs of being far from headquarters all add up. That’s why some companies have begun to rethink the manufacturing equation. MIT Technology Review interviewed Harry Moser, head of the Chicago-based Reshoring Initiative, about the trend. Moser, a former industry executive whose family has been involved in American manufacturing for a century, says he grew up “experiencing the glory of U.S. manufacturing.” He created the initiative to help companies compare the real costs of manufacturing at home and abroad, and to track the experiences of those who are returning. Why are people talking about reshoring all of a sudden? It’s actually been happening over the last few years. The obvious answer is that Chinese wages are doubling every four years. The consultants who five years ago were helping people offshore are now helping them inshore. And then you have President Obama making a big deal over how to reduce imports and start making stuff again. How much of Apple’s plan to manufacture in the U.S. is real, and how much is window dressing? There’s a lot of speculation about that. Some people say it’s politics. From what I can tell, the units Apple produces in the U.S....

By: Michele Nash-Hoff, Can American Manufacturing Be Saved? The International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) 2012 was held last week (September 10-15, 2012), in Chicago, IL. IMTS is one of the largest industrial trade shows in the world, averaging 1,800 exhibitors and more than 80,000 visitors. The event is held every two years in September at McCormick Place in Chicago. With more than 1.2 million square feet of exhibiting space, the attendees have access to more than 13 miles of aisles showcasing all of the latest technology trends that will be driving the industry through the next decade. New technologies such as additive manufacturing and “cloud technology” were featured at the 29th IMTS as manufacturers pursue new capabilities and efficiency. Plant Engineering reported, “The 2012 event brought manufacturers from all over the world to Chicago’s McCormick Place for the biannual event. The four halls were filled with manufacturers looking for innovations in machine tools, electrical systems, robotics and, for the first time at IMTS, a pavilion devoted to industrial automation.” The 2012 IMTS was the most successful manufacturing show in the U.S. in more than a decade. The more than 100,000 attendees topped 2010 figures by almost 20%. Prior to the show, Douglas Woods, president of the Association for Manufacturing Technology, which sponsored the event, said, “The tens of thousands of attendees who will descend upon Chicago in September for the five-day show are coming because they are looking for production solutions to help maintain that momentum. They want to buy this stuff and put it on their factory floors here in the United States. These people are positive and excited about increasing their manufacturing capabilities.” The Association For Manufacturing Technology represents and promotes U.S.-based manufacturing technology and its members-those who design, build, sell, and service the continuously evolving technology that lies at the heart of manufacturing. Besides owing and managing IMTS, AMT engages the federal government in support of public policy consistent with AMT’s Manufacturing Mandate priorities, business consulting services, and networking events. The show started with an Opening Ceremony on Monday, September 10th with a special appearance from Acting U.S. Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank along with Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, Douglas Woods, President...