Industry News

Donald Trump promises to bring factory jobs back to the U.S. from overseas, but many blue-collar workers are hurt more by a lack of skills than by globalization.

The U.S. manufacturing industry is rushing to embrace technology as a critical part of its processes and plans to make new technological investments in 2017, but barriers to Industry 4.0 adoption still exist, according to Automation Alley’s 2017 Technology Industry Report. According to the report, 85% of national manufacturing executives said their company plans to increase budgets for technological advancements; nearly a third of them plan to increase their budgets by 10% to 15%.

At Manufacturing Tomorrow, Greg Dyer of Randstad Commercial Staffing writes about “The hottest jobs in manufacturing in 2017.” He notes “new technology, innovative production systems, a growing preference for American-made goods and a decline in offshoring are transforming U.S. manufacturing. There is an increased demand for technology-savvy workers to not only capitalize on the next industrial revolution, but to fill a critical void left behind by retiring workers.” The hottest manufacturing jobs this year are: “production supervisor, maintenance mechanic, driver, machine operator and warehouse supervisor.”

Although toolholders are known to be critical components in the precision machining process, the unique details that differentiate a “standard” toolholder from one that is designed for more precise, high speed work can be subtle. Like the parts they are used to create, precision toolholders are machined to exacting tolerances to create the optimum fit within the spindle, concentricity and balance. The more precise the work, the more these factors come into play.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly employment report, 28,000 new manufacturing jobs were added in the U.S. in February—more than double the January number. Over the past 3 months, manufacturing has added 57,000 jobs. The rate of increase in February marked the fastest pace of manufacturing job creation since late 2014.

Economic pundits anticipate global machine tool consumption will increase 2.1 percent in 2017, reaching a market value of $73.6 billion, according to the German Machine Tool Builders’ Association, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The group released the machine tool business data at a March 9 press conference in Chicago for the EMO trade show, which takes place Sept. 18 through Sept. 23 in Hanover, Germany.

Worldwide manufacturing business conditions showed the largest improvement for more than five-and-a-half years in February, with global trade expanding at the fastest rate for just under six years and optimism about the future continuing to improve. Manufacturing input prices meanwhile continued to rise markedly, albeit with the rate of increase easing slightly during the month. The JPMorgan Global Manufacturing PMI, compiled by Markit, rose from 52.7 in January to 52.9 in February; its highest since May 2011.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and mHUB’s board of directors announced the official grand opening of mHUB, a physical product innovation center and microfactory designed to galvanize the manufacturing ecosystem by generating innovative ideas, attracting world-class talent and fostering collaboration. Born through the combined efforts of Chicago’s leaders in business, innovation and research, mHUB offers Chicago’s burgeoning product manufacturers access to state-of-the-art facilities, along with resources to develop and bring new products to market.

Mastercam 2018 Public Beta is now open to all currently maintained Mastercam customers. Shops all over the world, from small job shops to Fortune 100, get a chance to test-drive Mastercam 2018 before it is released and provide valuable feedback to help shape the final product. Participants in the Public Beta get an early look at dozens of powerful new tools for simple to complex jobs.

Economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded in February, and the overall economy grew for the 93rd consecutive month, say the nation's supply executives in the latest Manufacturing ISM Report On Business. The February PMI registered 57.7 percent, an increase of 1.7 percentage points from the January reading of 56 percent. The New Orders Index registered 65.1 percent, an increase of 4.7 percentage points from the January reading of 60.4 percent. The Production Index registered 62.9 percent, 1.5 percentage points higher than the January reading of 61.4 percent.

To a certain extent, other countries have taken advantage of the United States since the turn of the last century. Beginning with World War II and the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after much of it was destroyed, the United States insisted in promulgating our version of democracy and continued to fund economic assistance to underdeveloped countries, and not-so-underdeveloped nations as well.

Cerasis, a transportation-management company that works with the manufacturing industry, recently shared a list of manufacturing-technology trends that it says are growing in importance. Among them are green manufacturing, IIoT and computer analytics.

It’s no secret that shop owners and managers frequently bellyache about the difficulty of attracting skilled workers and poach staff from other manufacturers by offering better pay.

Looking at the variety of certificate programs available at Sheridan College, Sheridan Media’s Judy Hagerott offers a report on the Machine Tool Technology Program at Sheridan.

According to newly released figures by industry analyst EDA, new machine tool equipment sales jumped from 1,288 units in November 2016 to 1,744 in December—its highest number of the year and just slightly under 2015’s highest monthly number of 1,825 units, also in December. Used machine tool equipment sales also jumped at the end of 2016, from 762 units in November to 1,241 in December. That’s still well below its 2015 peak month of 1,637 units sold in October of that year.

In a recent article, a few Forbes Technology Council members examined what jobs they think will be automated in the next five to 10 years. But what about the flip side of the issue: What kind of positions or work will be safe from the automation process?

While the Trump administration focuses on trying to bring back coal-industry jobs, the outlook for renewable-energy employment, including in manufacturing, has increased. Solar showed bright prospects in 2016 and the wind industry is picking up.

Automated inspection equipment can offer advantages, such as enabling lights-out machining, but manual methods are typically less expensive and can provide quicker results. One example is a manually operated gage for inspecting round cutting tools.

Georgia will see an influx of more than 500 new aerospace manufacturing jobs at Columbus-based Pratt & Whitney, which reportedly will invest $386 million into expansion.

A joint research project known as “Scaling Ultrafast Laser Productive Precision Processing Technology”, or ScULPT, was conceived to develop an efficient, powerful, ultra-short pulsed laser system with a tenfold increase in throughput on the machining of different types of glass and metals.