From the Shop Floor — The Week in Manufacturing (6/14/2013)

Thomas Russell, an editor at Furniture Today, says China has developed a new appetite for American manufacturing.

Joe Soucheray of the St. Paul Pioneer-Press rues the tearing down of an old Ford plant.  The problem is, at least from where I’m standing, is that he uses the razing of the building as an excuse to wax nostalgic, rather than an opportunity to look forward or to reflect on how things got to where they are. 

Business Week says ex=pres and now consultant-in-chief Bill Clinton talked about the link between American manufacturing and jobs this week.

Manufacturing technology orders leveled off in April.  Meanwhile, manufacturing profits rose in Q1.

Ohio’s Cooper Tire and Rubber is being bought by an India-based conglomerate.  Not too worry, says Cooper’s CEO, the buyer is committed to maintaining its U.S. operations, all management people in Ohio will keep their jobs,  Cooper’s three plants will remain open.  Really?

The Christian Science Monitor talks about the “twin storms” are now confronting U.S. workers; Chinese imports and technological change.

South Carolina officials are using the results of a recent U.S. Commerce Department report to claim that their state leads the nation in manufacturing growth.

A couple of guys with a dog in the fight wrapped themselves in the flag this week and claimed that our country’s military success depends on a sound industrial policy – which may be true, but I always take editorials by anyone with a financial stake in what he or she is writing about with a grain of salt.

Somewhat floundering computer giant Dell this week opened up a new production plant in China.  And Texas Instruments is expanding its manufacturing capabilities in that country.

The Street wonders, is the U.S. manufacturing revival built to last?

Here’s a fascinating story from the L.A. Times detailing how, at least in the apparel industry, the “Made in USA” label can wear thin.

Industry Market Trends (IMT) offers this terrific series on how the government sequester — which this March, in the pursuit of paring down our national debt, shaved over $85 billion from the federal budget — is impacting manufacturers.  This part of the series talks about how manufacturers are surviving.

Business Insider claims American has way too much manufacturing capacity.

The web site Investor Place details how the new energy boom is helping manufacturing.

NASDAQ TV reports that, at least according to the May numbers, U.S. manufacturing continues to struggle.

To host some 350 Chinese enterprises, including a number of aggressive, deep-pocketed  entrepreneurs, and to serve as the home of the very first U.S./China manufacturing symposium, officials chose — of all places — tiny Dothan, Alabama. 

And finally, from the Clinton Global Initiative this week, Valerie Jarrett, Mark Cuban and Gary Cohn, president of Goldman Sachs, talked about the dynamics of the global marketplace. Among Cohn’s insights were that cheap energy is going to provide a huge boost to and greatly stimulate U.S. manufacturing.  (Though, truth be told, I still wish those at the top would use the sudden preponderance of all this cheap gas and oil, not as an excuse to travel further down the one-way path on which we’ve found ourselves for the better part of a century, but as an opportunity to focus on how we might be able to migrate manufacturing and American industry to forms of energy that are cleaner, less destructive, more sustainable and far less carbon-intensive.) 

Anyway, here is a link to the video of that summit.  Cohn’s comments begin at about the 9:00 mark.