Have you noticed new buildings under construction during your drives around your areas? I have observed for many years. The purpose was often from the point of view of sales. I was looking at potential clients.
Over a period of 40 years I have noticed the change from large manufacturing sites to large warehousing sites to large healthcare sites.
Reports of sales and jobs from the US manufacturing sector have been depressing. First we had off-shoring. We have had many years of successful “reshoring” that seem to have yielded little momentum for US manufacturing.
I see that in the reduced emphasis for user group meetings in the US from Emerson, Siemens, ABB, Yokogawa, Schneider Electric, and yes even Honeywell. Rockwell Automation remains a mainly US-centric supplier, and its recent successful Automation Fair reflects that.
This report from the US Manufacturing USA Strategic Plan recently came my way. I’ve worked with people from a variety of US government agencies. All bright and knowledgeable people. I’ve always wondered to what degree the work gets translated into actual work.
[Note: I am definitely not baiting for Trump’s DOGE effort. All organizations get bloated over time. I did a paper in grad school on the topic. I’m a pragmatist. I wonder what works.]
The Strategic Plan for the Manufacturing USA Program describes the program’s vision, mission, goals, and objectives. It also outlines the program’s technology investment strategy, how investments made by federal agencies will be coordinated, and how the program will be assessed.
The vision for the Manufacturing USA program is U.S. global leadership in advanced manufacturing through the development and transition of innovative technologies into scalable, cost-effective, and high-performing domestic manufacturing capabilities.
I would actually like to see leadership and vision from the President and Congress people. But I’ll take what I can get.
To support this vision, the mission of the Manufacturing USA Program is to connect people, ideas, and technology to solve industry-relevant advanced manufacturing challenges, thereby enhancing industrial competitiveness.
Connecting people is vital. I just listened to an interview with Iceland’s new president. She sees this as one of the most important tasks of her presidency.
Four Goals:
- Goal 1 Increase the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing.
- Goal 2 Create and facilitate the transition of innovative technologies into scalable, cost-effective, and high-performing manufacturing capabilities.
- Goal 3 Accelerate the development of an advanced manufacturing workforce.
- Goal 4 Promote a network of institutes that build long-term support for and within their communities.
It has been several years since I caught up with John Dyck, CEO of CESMII. I went to the part of the report that listed successful work being done by various groups under this Manufacturing USA umbrella. I garnered this from the report:
Successful Smart Manufacturing Workforce Model (CESMII): The project team of El Camino Community College (ECCC), California State University Northridge (CSUN), UC Los Angeles (UCLA), and UC Berkeley (UCB) leveraged existing education and workforce training systems to deliver the workforce needed for the adoption of smart manufacturing (SM). Their work resulted in: launching a SM certificate program at CSUN in Advanced Professional Development – Smart Manufacturing that is comprised of four 36-hour courses and an 18-hour project; incorporation of SM modeling and process control into existing UCLA chemical engineering classes that resulted in six journal publications; commitment from five California high school districts and colleges to adopt a new SM Career Pathway Program; and ECCC training of its incumbent workforce that resulted in engaging 53 manufacturers, training 2,017 employees and training-the-trainers with 17 colleges.
I realize that probably 35% of my readers are not in the USA, maybe a bit more. I see problems with manufacturing innovation and growth also in Germany and Italy. I would like to challenge all the readers to consider actions you can take to promote and improve manufacturing in your areas.
