Here's a good bar-bet question: What is the most American-made vehicle in the United States? The Ford F-150? The Chevrolet Corvette? Close, but no cigar.
Back in February, Terry Gou, founder and chairman of contract manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group, said he hopes to automate 70 percent of the company's assembly operations within three years.
While preparing for a recent trip to Ecuador, my wife and I spent hours practicing conversational Spanish. Once we got there, however, it became painfully clear that old dogs couldn’t learn new tricks.
On Feb. 21, West Coast port employers and their union reached a tentative five-year agreement on a new contract. The pact concludes a nine-month standoff that resulted in significant slowdowns at 29 ports from Los Angeles to Seattle.
The U.S. manufacturing workforce is among the most productive in the world. U.S. manufacturing productivity (measured as output per hour) increased 2.5 percent in 2014, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
During the past month, I interviewed several engineers for an article on automatic screwdriving. Along the way, I learned a bit of wisdom that is applicable no matter what process you might want to automate.
In the latter part of the 18th century, the advent of water and steam power enabled manufacturers to transition from manual production to mechanized production. Historians know it as the Industrial Revolution, but let’s think of it as “Industry 1.0.”
If a federal agency helped reduce the trade deficit, increase U.S. manufacturing jobs, and returned a profit to the Treasury, you might think that was a good thing. Unfortunately, it’s not the case in topsy-turvy Washington.