American manufacture sector over the past few decades has been losing market shares to overseas companies due to lower labor and friendly or no environmental regulation.
I have selected to review the article by Helmuth Ludwig and Eric Spiegel “America’s Real Manufacturing Advantage”. The manufacturing sectors in United States has rebounded since 2007 by boosting outputs, increasing exports, building new plants, and creating better paying jobs that require precise skills. The mentally of United States primarily generating revenues through services and finance, without much of manufacturing industry is changing through sustainable manufacturing resurgence which is based on software technology and its profound effect on the entire manufacturing
…show more content…
American manufacturing is moving into new era of proficiency through software based production systems that are qualitatively different than in the past impacting all aspect of manufacturing such as the way companies address customer needs and wants, research and development, the product development and production process, and the platforms and footprints employed in execution, testing, and servicing (Ludwig & Spiegel, 2014).
The new era of virtual to real manufacturing is under way which will increase productivity, efficiency and innovation, speed-to-market, and flexibility, resulting in a powerful new cycle of growth and value creation. The advanced manufacturing facilities of today and tomorrow are clean and replete with robots, computers, lasers, and other ultramodern machine technologies for example the most common tools carried on the new auto plants are not wrench or screwdriver instead it’s IPad (Ludwig & Spiegel,
…show more content…
manufacturing a competitive advantage. According to 2013 analysis done by consultant AlixPartners estimated that cost of manufacturing in China will equal cost of manufacturing in U.S. due to labor cost in China has been increasing in past 10 years. The low cost energy and labor equivalence recently is contributed to 500,000 jobs created in manufacturing sector since 2010 (Ludwig & Spiegel, 2014). Another key driver for resurgence of U.S. manufacturing is supply chain innovation and according to a survey by Supply Chain Digest of 340 supply chain manager in 2012 showed an important decision driver for off-shore manufacturing is speed to market. In order to reduce the time of product to market corporates leaders are locating manufacturing facilities in U.S. which enhances the ability to understand customer requirements and react quickly throughout the entire value chain when requirements change hence favor production that is slated for U.S. consumption (Ludwig & Spiegel,
Continuous improvement (CI) refers to a philosophy consisting of improvement activities that increase successes and reduce failures in a production process (Bhuiyan & Baghel 2005, p. 761). It involves activities and processes that focus on continuous and incremental innovation (Bessant et al., 1994, p.17). CI is a new approach that enhances productivity, performance, and achieves competitive advantage needed in the highly competitive industries. It may also serve as a complementary approach to other quality improvement initiatives such as total quality management (TQM) (Pike, Barnes, & Barnes 1995, p. 23; Larson 2003; Lassen, Gertsen, & Riis 2006; Oakland 2007, p. 227). The purpose of this research is to explore the application of production systems engineering methods in the CI at manufacturing plants.
The U.S. industries have been outsourcing manufacturing for several decades now. U.S. companies thought they were reducing costs by outsourcing development, manufacturing, and process-engineering abilities. Consequently, U.S. corporations’ knowledge, skilled workers, and supply chain, which are the necessities to producing advanced products, have vanished. For example, almost all notebook computers, cell phones, and handheld devices, which were once created in the U.S., are now designed in Asia. When a major U.S. company outsource, it pressures their rivals to do the same thing. They also lose the expertise of process engineering, which would interact with manufacturing on a daily basis. Minor companies and skilled workers go to where the jobs and knowledge networks are no matter where they are geographically in the world. This decline of trade in the U.S. has caused a negative chain reaction to their suppliers of sophisticated materials, tools, production equipment, and components. U.S. industries do not have a way of coming up with new ideas for the next generation of high-tech products...
The Global Manufacturing Revolution: Product-Process-Business Integration and Reconfigurable Systems, Yoram Koren, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. c 11/04/2010, ISBN: 0470583770, ISBN-13: 978047058377
In the 1960s through the 1970s, companies realized strong engineering, design, and manufacturing functions were strong market strategy keys to create and capture customer loyalty. As the demand for new products rose in the 1980s, these market requirements were to increase their flexibility and responsiveness to adapt existing products and processes or to develop new ones in order to meet customer needs. As manufacturing improved in the 1990s, managers began noticing material and service inputs involving suppliers and their major impact on an organization’s ability to meet customer needs. As a result of these changes, organizations now find that it difficult to manage their own organizations. First, they must be involved in the management of their network of all upstream firms that provide directly or indirectly, as well as the network of downstream firms, which are responsible for delivery and market service of the product to the end customer. In order to succeed, managers have to realize that they cannot do it alone and they must work together on a daily basis with the whole organizations in their supply chains. Because supply chain management involves all functions within an organization, managers need to know what a supply chain is, why it is important, and the impact of supply chain management on the success and profitability of their organization. Today, Wal-Mart topped the list of the America’s biggest companies on the Fortune 500 list, “with sales of almost $345 billion — more than a quarter of a trillion dollars” (Forbs). Wal-Mart’s supply chain management is becoming recognized as a core competitive strategy.
The cost advantages related to raw materials may be explained by better negotiated agreements with suppliers (perhaps due to the larger volumes of purchases – comp. Fig. 5) and possibly less shipping and distribution costs that stem from the fact that Samsung’s fab facilities are geographically collocated (while competitors’ facilities are spread world-wide). In terms of labour productivity only Chinese SMIC outperformed Samsung, but that came hardly unexpectedly: low labour costs in China had been and were to remain unbeatable for some time yet.
The reason why we need to discuss this issue, is mainly because the problem may be deeply rooted to the modern business & entrepreneurial attitude and philosophy, which hasn’t changed much since industrial revolution: human economic thinking (competitiveness), technological progress and productivity. Europe and United States are two, most affected parts of the world by mechanization and automation, as both are on a similar level of economic and technological development and wealth, however, in present globalized world the less developed countries will likely to follow soon, if they have not already. According to Jeremy...
Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2011). Race Against the Machine: How Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity and Ireversibly Tranforming Employment and the Economy. Lexington, Massachusetts: Digital Frontier Press.
We say that we are heading toward a more global economy because of the fact that competition in today’s markets is global. This means that corporations in the United States can compete in foreign markets and vice versa, therefore U.S. corporations and foreign corporations become interdependent and thrive off each other. This can have a good impact on the United States because it allows U.S. corporations to seek materials and labor outside of the U.S. in countries such as China, India, and Mexico, where workers are paid a lot less money than U.S. workers, thus allowing them to sell their products for significantly cheaper than if they were produced in the U.S.; however, the tradeoff is that many American workers in the industrial sector lose jobs due to this shift of labor to overseas. In the long run this will be beneficial for the U.S. and although some percentage of workers are losing work, new jobs in the services sector, in fields such as computer technology, telecommunications, and language skills are opening up and experiencing growth because of this change.
INNOVATION IN INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION Topic Innovation in Industrial Production-Forbes News Main Theme Tesla’s Innovation are transforming the auto Industry Main World Region America Subthemes Desirable Electric Vehicles (EV) and Transforming Auto Industry from ICE vehicles to electric vehicles Introducing Main Theme The main theme in this article is how Tesla’s innovations are transforming the auto industry. The company has innovated and produced desirable electric cars like Model X doors. The proponent of this argument hold that the losses that Tesla has had are just short run and hold that Tesla is producing extremely needed electric automobiles. These vehicles have fast speed and go long distance over other rechargeable cars (Gregersen, 2016).
The modem assembly line pours out finished products faster than Taylor could ever have imagined. This production "miracle" is just one legacy of scientific management. In addition, its efficiency techniques have been applied to many tasks in non-industrial organizations, ranging from fast-food service to the training of surgeons.
Throughout the history of modern civilization, there have been a number of inventions, contraptions, and processes to have made profound impacts on everyday life, and redefine the world, as we know it. With effective quality management, measures American industrialist and innovator Henry Ford used the assembly line to streamline the automotive manufacturing process and transform the American Industry. With the implementation of the assembly line in his manufacturing process Ford was able to offer the American consumer an affordable automobile, while at the same time cutting costs to his company, therefore maximizing his overall productiveness and profit while ensuring his customers’ needs were met.
After WWII, the industrial revolution began to decline and economic focus was being shifted from manufacturing to service. Deindustrializatio...
The business environment is increasingly becoming competitive and challenging. In the recent past, manufacturers have found themselves facing the threat of dwindling profit margins due to unfortunate global events such as the 2007 global financial crisis and the on going Europe economic crisis. The need to improve operation efficiency so as to ensure current and future investment yield the highest rate of return has therefore become extremely important. Manufacturers are now actively engaged in, managing their costs, Research and Development, adopting best procurement strategies, among other Actions. While such actions might eventually lead to positive results, additional business value can be achieved through proper management of the supply chain (Waymer, Ivanaj & Mussa 2009; Krivda 2004).
In this report we want to know how process in manufacturing is done, what they consider in this manufacturing process and different organizations in production process.
Currently in the global environment, there is a strong sense of competition that must be achieved through better performance, almost all firms are competing in international markets due to the reduction in barriers for capital and tariffs. With the new changes in both communication and technology, the consequences faced are that production processes are no longer within national boundaries but spread across (Debrah & Smith, 2002).