"Want to come out to St. Francisville this Saturday and take a tour of the plant?" my dad asked me one night during dinner back in 1986.
Knowing that such a visit would cut into my sleep time over the weekend, I declined with the grace and panache of a teenager. "Not really," the response might have come out.
I still wince when I recall that short-lived conversation.
Sometimes you wonder if North American metal manufacturers got the memo.
Europe is struggling with countries teetering on the brink of financial collapse. China is no longer seeing its GDP grow by double-digit percentage points. Other once-hot economies in the world, such as Brazil, have cooled considerably. Meanwhile in the U.S., unemployment remains above 8 percent, and economists fret that the federal government may be headed off a "fiscal cliff" at the end of the year, when automatic budget cuts take place and Bush-era tax cuts end.
So what happened as the International Manufacturing Technology Show 2012 opened in Chicago on Sept. 10? Show organizers announced that they were expecting its most well-attended show since 2002. (Preregistration alone stood at 86,000.) Simultaneously, AMT—The Association For Manufacturing Technology announced that U.S. manufacturing technology orders in July were up 5.4 percent overall compared with the same time in 2011. U.S. manufacturers continue to move forward no matter what craziness occurs around them. (more...)
I wonder if the average voter really knows what a jump back to a tax rate of 39.6 percent from the current level of 35 percent might mean. The underinformed might view it as a slight financial inconvenience for the Wall Street button-down types and the owners and management of large corporations. Unfortunately, many of the folks that are going to get hit with the higher tax rate at the end of the year—if Congress doesn’t complete a Hail Mary pass to renew the Bush-era tax cuts—will be owners of manufacturing firms. (more...)
Who do you believe the Mayans or the political pundits?
If the Mayans' ancient beliefs are correct, you shouldn't plan anything after Dec. 21 because that's supposedly the end of the world. For those that have their doubts about the prognostication power of ancient people, all they have to do is look ahead to the end of the year as the U.S. government approaches the dreaded "fiscal cliff," the time when a combination of tax cuts suddenly end and $100 billion in federal government spending cuts are enacted. Pundits believe that'll bring any U.S. economic growth to a complete stop and cause a slump that makes the Great Recession look like spring break.
Will it be the end of the world as we know it by the start of 2013?
Positive thinkers make me nervous, and motivational speakers make me roll my eyes. I'm a self-motivated individual who has a clear understanding of the reality around him. I believe in the ability to scale mountains, but those that believe they can move them through sheer will deserve to have Tony Robbins take their $350 in exchange for an autographed book and an afternoon of self-help babble.
So back in 2008 I laughed as manufacturers tried to convince me that the media was causing the economic downturn initiated by the collapse of the real estate market. So if everyone had ignored the facts around them, the economy magically would have improved overnight? Reality wasn't going to cooperate. (more...)
Needless to say, working with aluminum is not the same as working with steel.
"I think I lost a large portion of my hair trying to make that [first aluminum] job work. I must have spent weeks fighting splits and wrinkles. It wasn't long before I came to the conclusion that drawing and stretching aluminum were not as easy as I had thought," wrote Art Hedrick, STAMPING Journal's tool and die expert, in a 2007 column.
Will Ford's manufacturing operations experience the same frustration? (more...)
The rain fell so hard on June 18 in my hometown of Crystal Lake, Ill., that the power went out because broken tree limbs snapped power transmission wires. It was a great night.
Forget any perceived sarcasm. I'm totally serious. Like other states, northern Illinois is in dire need of rain. It's been a brutally dry and hot summer.
Of course, I have to take care of just six tomato plants, four pepper plants, two cucumber vines, and my ever-growing pumpkin plant. I don't have to worry about an entire farm. (more...)
Is the U.S. manufacturing slowdown a speed bump or a sink hole? Honestly, the answer really doesn't matter.
The June 2012 Institute for Supply Management™ Manufacturing Business Survey—the Purchasing Managers Index—declined 3.8 percentage points from the May numbers, falling to 49.7 percent, which typically means U.S. manufacturing went into contraction. This is noteworthy because the retrenchment comes after almost three years of consecutive months of growth; the last time the survey came in under 50 percent was in July 2009.
Enlightened manufacturers might show some concern, but they are looking ahead because they know U.S. manufacturing is about to undergo a big change. The work is going to be there for those that can deliver quickly and be cost-competitive. (more...)
At the Salvagnini dealer gathering, Meet-In America, in Hamilton, Ohio, in last week, the company's sales representatives got a reminder of how the company has evolved in recent years. It's no longer just thought of as a major supplier of flexible manufacturing systems; people are recognizing the company for its laser cutting machines as well.
Pierandrea Bello, a Salvagnini product manager, offered several statistics to stress that point, but perhaps the most telling was the 300 percent rise in laser cutting machine production just in the last two years. Fiber lasers are driving that growth, and Salvagnini remains one of the few companies that offer only a solid-state laser cutting machine, not the more traditional CO2 lasers commonly found in metal fabricating shops. (more...)
In a day when class action lawsuits centering on such things as asbestos, concussion injuries, or tobacco seem to be in the news quite often, don't expect to be reading about suits targeting welding rod manufacturers. Attorneys targeting those welding consumable manufacturers appear to have given up.
That point of view comes from Michael Degan, who works with the Gas and Welding Distributors Association and is a partner with the law firm of Husch Blackwell LLP. "… [R]umors have been floating that the steering committee for plaintiffs [in these suits against welding companies] has been negotiating a proposal to terminate all currently pending welding fume cases. Such an agreement would effectively end welding fume litigation as a mass tort," Degan wrote. You can read the synopsis here. (more...)
