Since the BIL passed, state and local capital investment has rebounded and returned to pre-pandemic levels. The two-year increase in state and local capital investment as a share of state and local spending—1.6 percentage points—is the largest since 1979.

Developing the next generation of manufacturing engineers requires new types of hands-on education. That’s why Purdue Polytechnic’s School of Engineering Technology (SoET) recently built a state-of-the-art facility that features cutting-edge production equipment.

With the calendar turning to December and the countdown to 2024 almost upon us, I wanted to recap my articles from the past year and their key takeaways.

A new “direct joining” method recently developed at the University of Michigan can be used to attach a variety of plastic and metal components.

Companies involved in creating the products and components that are critical to our everyday lives face an urgent need to make their supply chains less vulnerable to events that could interrupt their businesses.

Effective configuration management enables organizations to navigate change, update configurations, and maintain the identity and integrity of complex systems.

The growth is being driven by a U.S. policy push to boost domestic clean-energy manufacturing, by global supply chain risk, and by the total cost of ownership (TCO) equation.

Engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are using aluminum to improve lithium-ion batteries.

Because automation can produce more with less, it can help domestic manufacturers compete with low-cost overseas labor. It’s certainly a valid premise. But, like golf, dancing, baking bread or cutting dovetails by hand, implementing automation is harder than it looks.

The hazards of supply chain gaps and the advantages of domestic manufacturing became painfully clear during the pandemic. Unprecedented pressures are compelling companies to innovate and reshore production back to the U.S. to mitigate global risk and augment resiliency.