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Yule Heibel's Library tagged manufacturing   View Popular

07 Jul 09

Finally, A CEO Speaks Up on How to Renew America - HBR Editors' Blog - Harvard Business Review

Timely.
QUOTE
Immelt exhorted Americans to give up the notion that the U.S. can make it as a services-led, consumption-based economy, where "a mortgage broker is pulling down $5 million a year while a Ph.D. chemist is earning $100,000."

The country must refocus on manufacturing and R&D and must strive to be a leading exporter, he said. He announced that GE was opening an advanced manufacturing and software technology center outside of Detroit near the headquarters of Visteon, the auto parts maker that recently sought bankruptcy protection.

Coincidentally, "Restoring American Competitiveness," an article in the July-August special issue of the Harvard Business Review makes the same case about the importance of manufacturing. It warns that the erosion of the U.S. manufacturing base is seriously undermining the country's ability to innovate. (So much for the idea that we can succeed by letting other countries manufacture the products we invent!)

In his speech, Immelt offered a vision for how the business and government together can revive the economy and solve grand challenges such as clean energy and affordable health care. "We should welcome the government as a catalyst for leadership and change," he said, calling for a "real public-private partnership." (This from a self-described "Republican and free market guy.")
UNQUOTE

This article fits nicely with Konrad Yakabuski Globe & Mail article, "Canada's Innovation Gap." http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/canadas-innovation-gap/article1203108/

blogs.harvardbusiness.org/...ly_a_ceo_speaks_up_on_how.html - Preview

harvard_business steve_prokesch america economy renewal innovation manufacturing video

18 Nov 08

Ponoko – Buy Make and Sell Jewelry and Everything Else

Amazing - I had no idea this was available yet: Ponoko lets you submit your design, and, bang, they build it and ship it out to you. Or let you sell it to your customers. It's manufacturing 2.0 or manufacturing-for-everyone.

www.ponoko.com - Preview

diy web_2.0 ecommerce ponoko design rapid_prototyping manufacturing

05 Aug 08

Protein® Feed | Could Globalization Be Going In Reverse?

"The world is flat" or "the world is spiky" or ..."the world is complex," maybe? At any rate, this article questions the idea that outsourcing will continue to continue, spreading outward in some sort of new and flattened topography (akin to a downward spiral insofar as the search for ever cheaper labor and laxer labor laws continues, but not wholly downward because economically, there's an upward trend associated with it, too - hence perhaps the "flat" topography). And it presents some interesting data as well as suppposition for why this might be so. It's not just the huge up-tick in transportation costs (although that's a key factor), it's also the logistics -- including "reverse logistics." For example, consumers *want* to do better, and are becoming more aware of the "carbon footprint" of the products they buy.

proteinos.com/...balization-be-going-in-reverse - Preview

globalization trends economic_development manufacturing transportation factories shipping

  • For the first time in recent decades, it seems there are now real reasons to question the logic underlying the official future of ever-increasing global trade.
  • The biggest, of course, is the rapidly mounting cost of transportation. As oil prices rise, reports the New York Times, shipping costs are driving decisions to shorten supply chains:
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