All Features
NIST
The U.S. manufacturing industry is evolving at a rapid pace, driven by new technologies, smarter supply chains, and an increasingly dynamic workforce. This year, small manufacturers will face a mix of opportunities and challenges as they navigate these changes. To stay competitive, small and medium…
Nathan Ginty
In recent years, reshoring—the process of bringing manufacturing back to the U.S.—has gained momentum. Companies are reevaluating their offshore supply chains, driven by rising costs, geopolitical risks, and supply chain disruptions. For smaller manufacturers, this shift also presents a unique…
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
By editing the polymers of discarded plastics, chemists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have found a way to generate new macromolecules with more valuable properties than those of the starting material. Upcycling may help remedy the roughly 450 million tons…
Gleb Tsipursky
New research provides a compelling analysis of the repercussions of return-to-office (RTO) policies on employee turnover, hiring, and the overall talent pool within major corporations. Using data from more than 3 million LinkedIn profiles, Mark Ma, at the University of Pittsburgh, along with other…
Adam Grabowski
Cash is king for manufacturers, from the owner down to the machine operators. If you visit any manufacturer, you’ll see that most have a keen eye on how everything is being used. Machines are generally only running if they are making parts; employees are typically only working if orders are coming…
Eric Linxwiler
Quality management has evolved far beyond traditional checklists and periodic inspections. For complex supply chains, quality is no longer a static endpoint. It’s a dynamic real-time process deeply interwoven with collaboration, transparency, and data-driven decision-making. As supply chains grow…
Siemens USA
Since the early 1980s, the automotive industry has used hydraulically actuated (servo-hydraulic) test systems to simulate operating speeds and road conditions for testing OEM components and fully assembled vehicles. These systems have helped unlock vast improvements in the quality, safety, and…
Yushiro Kato
Artificial intelligence (AI) is gaining momentum across a vast array of fields. Nearly everyone has tried or actively uses a form of AI, whether for personal or professional purposes. Many are finding benefits of the technology in industries that use large amounts of data that must be analyzed,…
Matt Tweedy
In global manufacturing, two key goals—intertwined yet distinct—heavily dominate the industry’s agenda: addressing the growing demand for environmentally sustainable practices, and optimizing operational efficiency. With these priorities in mind, companies are seeking multifaceted solutions that…
Seb Murray
New research co-authored by University of Pennsylvania academics challenges a core assumption in economics: That the most successful companies achieve their dominance purely through superior productivity. Instead, this study highlights the important role of scalability—how well firms can grow as…
Akhilesh Gulati
Paul was sitting in his office staring at production numbers from the past quarter. Despite having a great team, strong customer demand, and state-of-the-art equipment, the factory’s performance wasn’t meeting expectations. There was a bottleneck in the assembly line—a critical chokepoint that was…
Anne Trafton
For many industrial processes, the typical way to separate gases, liquids, or ions is with heat, using slight differences in boiling points to purify mixtures. These thermal processes account for roughly 10% of the energy use in the United States.
MIT chemical engineer Zachary Smith wants to…
Gleb Tsipursky
In the rapidly evolving business landscape, the momentum toward policies mandating a return to the office (RTO) is gaining traction. However, this shift risks overlooking critical segments of the workforce, particularly older employees, individuals with disabilities, and women, whose participation…
William A. Levinson
Recent labor relations controversies and ongoing arguments about the minimum wage have raised questions as to how a supply chain should share the utility it produces.
If we ask the wrong question, however, we’ll get the wrong answer. “What is a fair share?” asks how a supply chain should divide a…
Mike Figliuolo
When it comes to networking, are you a squirrel or a grasshopper? From what I can tell, there are loads of grasshoppers out there but very few squirrels.
You folks know that fable about the squirrel and the grasshopper, right?
The squirrel works his butt off all summer fortifying his little tree…
AMETEK
From electric vehicles (EVs) to renewable energy storage to consumer electronics, lithium-ion batteries are powering the world around us. Over the next decade, the market for these batteries is expected to grow more than five times from what it is today.
Rugged field testing meets real-time…
William A. Levinson
The ongoing relevance of the quality profession requires evolution and adaptation to meet the needs of the 21st century. Remember, the quality profession originated with the need for inspection to prevent poor quality from reaching customers; this was before it evolved to include metrology,…
Akhilesh Gulati
It was another busy morning at the monthly operations meeting. Lindsay, the operations manager at TechElectronics, a growing manufacturer of consumer electronics, called the meeting to order. As usual, they started with the routine updates—inventory levels, production schedules, and customer…
Mike Figliuolo
Everyone has goals these days. The one that causes more disconnects than any other is a sales goal. It’s a number to hit (either units or dollars or both—the better ones are actually measured in profit dollars rather than revenue dollars). They’re problematic because by their very nature they get a…
Marian Merritt
Cybersecurity is a fast-growing field with a constant need for skilled professionals. But unlike other professions—like medicine or aviation—there’s no clear-cut pathway to qualifying for cybersecurity positions. For employers and job seekers alike, this can make the journey to building a team (or…
Rachel Byfleet
In an eco-friendly plot twist that would make Captain Planet proud, the European Union has rolled out the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), a blueprint that’s got big companies talking about more than just profits. Imagine a world where every major company’s reports don’t just…
Patrick Willemson
As sustainability and transparency become increasingly vital to global business practices, the European Union has introduced the Digital Product Passport (DPP)—an initiative that will reshape the manufacturing landscape worldwide.
For manufacturers in the U.S. and other regions, understanding the…
Yushiro Kato, Quality Digest
The state of American manufacturing is in dire need of improvement. For decades, the U.S. economy has been transforming into a service-based model while the manufacturing power we associate with the American postwar capacity of the 1950s and ’60s has dispersed offshore.
This slow degradation of U.…
Anthony Hardy
In a competitive manufacturing industry, meeting high standards is crucial to quality, sustainability, and safety. While it can be challenging to earn customer trust and establish a positive brand reputation, third-party certifications to standards such as IATF 16949: Automotive Quality Management…
Charlotte Sanders
Businesses are always searching for methods to improve supply chain operations and increase customer satisfaction in today’s smart business world. Leveraging third-party logistics (3PL) providers is one of the most effective strategies for enhancing customer satisfaction and supply chain efficiency…