Of Interest to Manufacturers

The Germans have a model the United States could use to revive manufacturing and its middle class. They value and nurture vocational training for future job holders as much as they do an academic tract...and with less societal prejudice. Read it at Manufacturing News.

The U.S. remains a global manufacturing powerhouse, accounting for one-fifth of the world’s manufacturing output. The problem is that all this activity doesn’t create as many jobs as it used to. There is hope as some factory work is returning to the U.S., thanks to a narrowing wage gap with low-cost countries and to the rising risks posed by long supply lines. Read the full post at Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

In the not-too-distant future, environmentally benign manufacturing will become one of industry’s greatest strategic challenges, not only from an engineering perspective, but from a business and marketing perspective as well. Manufacturing News reports.

Raytheon Co. is one of the world’s major suppliers to the aerospace, defense, and homeland security markets, and its global supply chain is correspondingly complex. In an interview conducted at the annual Gartner Supply Chain Executive Summit, Vivek Kamath, vice president of supply operations, talks about the unique challenges that Raytheon faces today, and how it is addressing such issues as supplier consolidation, the need for cost cutting, and the imminent retirement of so many skilled workers.