Industry Trends & Analysis

President Trump has signed an executive order that formally ends U.S. participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 12-nation trade agreement negotiated by former President Obama but never ratified by the U.S. Congress.

GM has announced that it will invest an additional $1 billion in U.S. manufacturing operations, creating a total of 7,000 new jobs here. Is it a case of "If I tweet them, they will come?" After the announcement, incoming US President Donald Trump was quick to tweet about "all of the jobs I am bringing back into the US." Not so fast, say GM and industry watchers.

U.S. manufacturers spent $168.69 million on cutting tools in November 2016, according to the Cutting Tool Market Report by the U.S. Cutting Tool Institute and AMT – The Association For Manufacturing Technology. This was 0.2 percent lower than October's $168.99 million, but was up 9.3 percent from November 2015's $154.28 million.

Government concerning itself with manufacturing? What would the Founding Fathers think? We know the answer: December marked 220 years since Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton submitted his "Report on the Subject Manufactures" to the House of Representatives. In it, he argued in favor of manufacturing as a contrast to the Jeffersonian vision of an agrarian society, and that action from the federal government was necessary if U.S. manufacturing was to thrive.

While rumblings of a jobless economy may be increasing, the biggest problem facing the U.S. jobs market is a lack of applicants—skilled or otherwise, according to a Bloomberg Businessweek report.

While manufacturing technology sales were down in October compared to September (and the high order volume that came along with IMTS), the latest U.S Manufacturing Technology Report from AMT - The Association For Manufacturing Technology shows October sales were 0.2 percent higher than October 2015.

The Wonkblog, a regular business feature on The Washington Post website, tackled the need for skilled labor among U.S. manufacturers in its Dec. 15 post. The news item features the plight of the Mursix Corp., an Indiana company that produces seatbelt buckles and bed frames, and has had trouble finding skilled workers to help keep up with the company's growth. It's a story that's been repeated throughout the news media on a fairly regular basis for the past couple of years. What caught my eye with this particular article, however, was a comment from Michael Hicks, a business professor at Ball State University in Muncie, which is where Mursix is located.

Industry experts predict better, if not yet spectacular, times for manufacturers in the coming year.

A group of long-term unemployed men last week received high-tech manufacturing training certificates from the Central Massachusetts Workforce Investment Board and MACWIC (Manufacturing Advancement Center Workforce Innovation Collaborative) at the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MassMEP) in Worcester, Mass.

Have a great idea for a machine tool but lack the cash to fund its commercialization? Crowdfund it! That's what Matthew Hertel did when he leveraged a Kickstarter campaign to raise more than $355,000 for the development and creation of his Pocket NC 5-axis milling machine. And then there's the WAZER, the world's first desktop waterjet cutter, which runs $4,499 on Kickstarter, and is expected to be affordable to hobbyists and small businesses.