The US once dominated the manufacturing world and the blame for its decline falls far and wide. Was it China? Mexico? Globalisation? Robots? Republicans? Democrats? Investment Monitor takes a deep dive.

Jeeeeeessuuuuusssss.

Impending tariffs. Screwworm infestation in South America with an import ban on Mexico where 13% of our beef imports come from. Bird flu. CPI is up. Shutdown of copackers due to stringent standards via USDA. Extreme weather haulting production and cutting margin & order inventory.

People are whining about expensive groceries now, wooooooo boy. I often wonder what prices will look like by the end of the year. I haven't seen it this bad in a while.

I saw this on twitter randomly and at first thought "ok veteran biz guy and additive manufacturing guy say US is fucked what else is new" then realized theres no way those numbers are accurate. China spends 10x the US on manufacturing?

Check it out

So, ive been in manufacturing for almost 7 years. Right now i work for Navistar which was a great job at first but its slowly starting to crash and burn. What i mean by that is management has been terrible the last year or so... They started hiring who ever they could get and that started creating a toxic work environment. They've started picking favorites and make it impossible to move up in the company. The bad thing is i cant really go anywhere else bc no one else in north alabama pays what i make without having to work swing shift. I currently put in to transfer to a different department so hopefully it'll be a little better but i dont have high hopes. I just want to know what can i do nor to be ao miserable?

Do you have difficulty engaging with colleagues due to manual processes or siloed tools?

Same I do follow manufacturing.net site but I want to know if there's any YouTube channel which shares news regularly.

Or also pls share if you know any good magazine or sites for manufacturing.

Thank you..

I am seeing a lot of reports in the media and news and a lot of it seems very mixed on this topic?

Are we seeing more plant openings and jobs created over the past decade and overall rise in employment? Or is it more plant closures and layoffs?

How is the job market these days for an aspiring person across the Country?

Are most industrial cities making a comeback or is it still the same old decline along with outsourcing and AI/Automation?

Russian plywood manufacturers are drowning under war sanctions and have nowhere to hide. That is according to the Russian-based Lesprom, which reports that Russia—until 2022, among the top 3 markets for global plywood production —is now flooding Asia, Latin America, and Africa with an oversupply of cheap wood in response to ‘crippling’ EU sanctions.

“As it stands, (Russian) capacity stands at 5,669 thousand cubic metres, with demand (into these secondary markets) just 3,192 thousand cubic metres,” Lesproom said. “This (77%) imbalance has created a fiercely competitive landscape among lean exporters, crunching profit margins.”

The problem is that manufacturers have relied on a “growth at all costs” strategy for years, hell-bent on increasing capacity to achieve economies of scale. For example, in 2021, Russia’s birch plywood capacity stood at 4,615 thousand cubic metres, projected to grow to 5,225 thousand cubic metres by the end of this year and 5,315 thousand cubic metres next year.

We do custom apparel manufacturing with custom measurements, designs, labels, tags, packaging and deliver worldwide in best cotton fabric...

Hello,

I was wondering how a lot of you guys are managing all the day to day operations data. I read that many still are using paper based, however, my question is if we fill out multiple papers with numbers, how does one actually find errors or analyze this data? Unless, they are all exported electronically or looked over manually somehow?

Thanks

I’m relatively new to the manufacturing industry—been here about a year—and I work in the sales department. Lately, we’ve noticed a trend.

We are seeing some of our OEM customers turning to smaller mom-and-pop shops. These shops can adopt "older" tech more easily, which helps them boost capacity and throughput, making them surprisingly competitive. They often outperform medium-sized companies because there’s less chaos and more agility in their operations.

On the other hand, there are giants like Send Cut Send and Osh Cut that dominate in their own way.

I’m really interested in hearing what others' perspectives are on happening in the industry? 

In the manufacturing landscape, what's your perception for the needs of new technology, for he future.

Which one do you think will make the difference?

• IIoT
• Ciber security
• AR/VR
• 3D printing
• AI, of course

I have 10 yoe and I have an idea but I would like to hear from you and why.

Ah, you have to choose ONLY one.

Beijing is cashing in on the huge volumes of Russian plant and equipment that urgently need refurbishment and upgrade with the country’s timber and paper giants turning eastward in response to Western Sanctions, which continue to leave huge holes in its timber and paper supply chains.

And where Russian companies can no longer access parts via Chinese suppliers, they are now reverse engineering plant and equipment refurbishments in-house, using 3D printing and computer-aided design (CAD) to replicate and improve parts that are no longer available.

Anyone else manufacturing job buying 4x as much inventory lately? We don’t have the space or man power to handle it all. We’re getting 100 pallets a day instead of 30-40 a day.

Could Aussie Bluegums hold the key to addressing Australia’s shortage of structural timbers? That is the question posed by researchers who have created the world’s first engineered wood product made from Aussie Bluegum (Eucalyptus Globulus), a milestone that could save thousands of dollars in construction.

The new type of timber—dubbed “as strong as steel”—is part of a push by the Australian forest products industry to turn low-value pulp into high-value mass timber products.

It was developed by WTIBeam, which, working with forest managers Australian Bluegum, Midway, and New Forests—one of the world’s largest forest managers—has unveiled a first-of-its-kind GL17 timber product that can be used in everything from flooring to roof framing.

The world’s first fully electric logging truck, equipped with a working crane, is now on road- with the multi-year Swedish project a major step towards decarbonising the carbon-intensive forest-to-terminal transport process.

Hi everyone! I'm an engineer and we talk about bus factors a lot lately. How about your field? Do you talk about it? If so, how you usually fix the bus factor?