How has the COVID Pandemic Affected Makerspaces?
In the past several years, I have visited four makerspaces in southern California, and I recently decided to see how the COVID pandemic had affected these facilities. Makerspaces play a role in reviving the entrepreneurial “maker spirit” necessary to rebuild and grow American manufacturing.
Read moreIn April 2017, the Manufacturing Leadership Council published its “Vision 2030: The Factory of the Future, which was a Frost & Sullivan White Paper sponsored by General Electric and Intel. In their vision, the factory of the future “will look like an integrated hardware and software system and “is highly automated and information-intensive… fueled by vast quantities of information from every corner of the enterprise and beyond, moderated by analytical systems that can identify and extract insights and opportunities from that information, and comprised of intelligent machines that learn, act, and work alongside highly skilled human beings in safe and collaborative environments.”
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The final reason that manufacturing is important is that manufacturing ensures that the U.S. has a strong industrial base to support its national security objectives. We need to preserve our national and homeland security to be able to produce the goods that allow us to defend our national sovereignty.
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The fourth reason why manufacturing is important is that American manufacturers are responsible for more than two-thirds of all private sector R&D, which ultimately benefits other manufacturing and non-manufacturing activities. Nearly 60 percent of new patents derive from the manufacturing sector and the closely integrated engineering and technology-intensive services.
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The third reason why manufacturing is important is that the United States is still a top leader in generating manufacturing exports.
The U.S. was the world’s largest exporter until 1992, when Germany took over this position. The U.S. maintained a position as the second-highest exporter, until China surpassed it in 2008. Germany remained number one until 2009, when China surpassed it to become the world’s top exporter. The U.S. overtook Germany as the second-highest exporter in 2014. The latest data for world exports is from 2019 when China’s exports totaled $1.8 trillion, down from $2.49 trillion in 2018; the U.S. exports totaled $1.24, down from $1.66 trillion in 2018, and Germany’s exports were $1.12, down from $1.55 trillion in 2018.
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This week’s article begins a series of short articles on why manufacturing is important to the American economy. Our country’s Founding Fathers recognized the importance of developing a domestic manufacturing base instead of continuing to rely on imports from England, France, and the Netherlands. They established the U.S. patent system and protected the developing manufacturing industry with tariffs to discourage imports. This allowed the United States to be the world’s number one manufacturer for more than 100 years, accounting for as much as 25 percent of global manufacturing output in 2007. In 2010, China overtook the U.S. to become the world’s top manufacturing country by output.
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Ford is investing $1 billion, adding jobs at Chicago factories as it makes cuts overseas. They are investing about $1 billion in assembly and stamping plants in Chicago. The automaker is expanding production of the new Ford Explorer, Lincon Aviator, and Police Interceptor. Read more
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