All Features
Aaron Krol
As plastic pollution continues to mount, with growing risks to ecosystems and wildlife, manufacturers are beginning to make ambitious commitments to keep new plastics out of the environment. A growing number have signed onto the U.S. Plastics Pact, which pledges to make all plastic packaging…
Chip Reavley
The business challenges of the past few years—labor shortages, supply chain disruptions, and inflation—have accelerated the long-term trend toward automated packaging operations. All types of manufacturers and distributors, including food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, automotive, and e-commerce…
William A. Levinson
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) is growing in popularity as a metric to guide investment decisions. What does ESG have to do with productivity, quality, or stakeholders, aka relevant interested parties? The answer is—with the exception of generally accepted practices for workplace…
Gleb Tsipursky
Shortly before the layoffs at Salesforce, Marc Benioff, co-founder and co-CEO of Salesforce, sent a companywide Slack message complaining about the low productivity of recent hires made during the pandemic and asked, “Are we not building tribal knowledge with new employees without an office culture…
Rick Gould
The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting last month saw the launch of new guidance to support the logistics industry on its journey to net-zero emissions. Davos attendees got a first glimpse into how companies can better understand and track their logistics emissions. Released by the Smart Freight…
Zeyi Yang
The year ahead is already shaping up to be a hard one for semiconductor businesses. Famously defined by cycles of soaring and dwindling demand, the chip industry was expected to see declining growth in 2022 as the demand for consumer electronics plateaus.
But concerns over the economic cycle—and…
Mark Hembree
When I started working from home in 1998, it wasn’t by choice. I was writing for a major record label that decided—in so many words—that I was like a painting that didn’t go with the furniture. (Fine. Know what you get when you play New Age music backward? New Age music.)
My panic-stricken…
Costas Xyloyiannis
During the early 2000s, I was a recent software engineering graduate. Along with a friend and fellow graduate, I landed some project work with a major pharmaceutical company. The CEO, who had just signed up to the U.N. Global Compact, needed to know how sustainable the company’s supply chain was.…
Bryan Christiansen
The U.S. utility industry, a cornerstone of modern infrastructure, is undergoing a significant transformation. Recent trends, primarily the shift toward renewable energy, are reflected in the sector’s changing statistics.
Strategic asset management in the utility sector is essential for…
Chirag Rathi
Two years later, the perfect storm of pandemic-related disruptions is still a major source of irritation for manufacturers. Those disruptions have been major contributors to the inflation we are now experiencing worldwide. Will that inflation lead us into a recession? A lot of very smart people say…
Joshua Sadlock
Yup, that’s me in the photo. You’re probably wondering how I ended up hanging under a bridge over the Mississippi River. I’m a certified bridge safety inspector.
If you have questions after seeing people hanging under a bridge, in a basket suspended from the long arm of a truck, or have seen…
Bryan Christiansen
Every day, manufacturers rely on a large number of tools, machinery, and infrastructure to produce their goods. And while all of those assets help you generate profit, they are a significant expenditure—both in terms of the purchase cost and ongoing maintenance costs.
When deciding which…
Anton Ovchinnikov
In the age of mass production, the demand for customization is increasing. Customers prefer products catered to their individual needs and preferences over standard items—albeit at a cost.
Fortunately, recent advances in information technology, logistics, and advanced manufacturing processes such…
Dirk Dusharme
In 2010 a medical device scandal in France set the stage for a new European Union medical device regulation that, according to most experts in the medical device community, may cause more damage than the problem it was intended to address. An unreasonable deadline, lack of notified bodies to…
Henrik Hulgaard
The phrase “supply chain” became part of the everyday vernacular during the pandemic, as supply chain issues seemed to affect everyone's life—from toilet paper to automotive components. Supply chain problems are well known to cause disruptions with product delivery, particularly in the complicated…
Leeza Garber, Allison Jegla
In late spring 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged an elite investment adviser for “misstatements and omissions” about environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations related to its managed mutual funds. This same financial firm has also faced myriad…
Matthew Inniger
The inability to gather good data has challenged many food manufacturers for decades. But not anymore. As sensor technology has improved, and technology platforms have become more accessible and affordable to small and medium-sized manufacturers, the food industry is poised for transformation. Food…
Ula Chrobak
Thirty miles east of Reno, Nevada, past dusty hills patched with muted blue sage and the occasional injury-lawyer billboard, a large concrete structure rises prominently in the desert landscape. When fully constructed, it will be a pilot for a business that entrepreneurs envision as a major facet…
Ben P. Stein
Right after the pandemic hit, I bought a new vacuum cleaner. I wanted to step up my housecleaning skills since I knew I’d be home a lot more. I was able to buy mine right away, but friends who wanted new appliances weren’t so lucky. My relatives had to wait months for their new refrigerator to…
Michael Okrent
Want a new car? You may have to wait as long as six months, depending on the model you order. Looking for a spicy condiment? Supplies of sriracha hot sauce have been running dangerously low. And if you feed your cat or dog dry pet food, expect empty shelves or elevated prices.
These aren’t…
Kevin Kanimyar
Amidst the rise of conscious consumerism, corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs are fast becoming an essential part of any business. With about $20 billion spent every year by Fortune 500 companies alone, businesses around the world are working to integrate CSR programs into their business…
Morris Cohen
Billions in federal spending to boost production of computer chips is an important step toward making the U.S. more competitive in the global marketplace. But it doesn’t guarantee that a manufacturing boom will follow, says Wharton expert Michael Cohen.
“I think it will have an incremental effect…
Ho-Yin Mak, Christopher Tang, Tinglong Dai
Two recent electrifying moves have the potential to ignite electric vehicle demand in the United States. First, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, expanding federal tax rebates for EV purchases. Then California approved rules to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035.
The…
Jennifer Lauren Lee
As mechanical objects, gears have been around for so long that people generally take them for granted. But gears are sophisticated parts that play a vital role in cars, airplanes, construction and mining equipment, food processing, clock making, and more. Companies are still trying to make them…
Abdul Salam
Water is the most essential resource for life, for both humans and the crops we consume. Around the world, agriculture accounts for 70 percent of all freshwater use.
I study computers and information technology in the Purdue Polytechnic Institute, and direct Purdue’s Environmental Networking…