A recent article in The Wall Street Journal (11-16-19) titled “Innovation Should Be Made in the USA” brings home the point that decades of offshoring our production capabilities have served to hollow out the innovation core of our our manufacturing employment base.  As authors Sridhjar Kota and Tom Mahoney of MForesight, a private research consortium on advanced manufacturing note, the notion of “manufacture there” has led to its unfortunate counterpart, “innovate there.”

Beginning in the 1960’s the U.S. began offshoring production of consumer electronics where inexpensive assembly lines combined with modern transistors and standardized shipping containers to “catalyze the Asian manufacturing miracle.”  Since 2000, China’s entry into the WTO coupled with its and other nations’ major investments in production capacity accelerated the pace of offshoring.

In time, as reported by PwC and others, U.S. companies moved their R&D facilities closer to China as well.  Today, over 50% of overseas backed R&D centers in China are of U.S. origin.  Innovation gravitates to where the factories are, and today that’s not the U.S., certainly not in numbers like it used to be.  And to be clear: manufacturing matters — especially in today’s high tech economy.

The article’s authors point out the obvious: “the biggest strategic consequence of this profound decline in American manufacturing might be the loss of our ability to innovate, that is, to translate inventions into production.”  While many companies scale up offshore to get access to production and suppliers, many foreign multinationals at the same time have taken advantage of the U.S.’s federally funded university research centers, then use what they learn in their own factories abroad.

While the U.S. remains best in the world in groundbreaking scientific discoveries, we need to convert that momentum into production.  From lasers to semiconductors, from MRI machines to robots, we’ve lost this translational R&D capability.  To reverse the trend, Kota and Mahoney are calling for a new “Industrial Policy 2.0” that focuses on ensuring that hardware innovations are manufactured in this country.  Among the policies they say must be promoted:

• Creation of a National Manufacturing Foundation to maximize wealth and job creation from our R&D investments that demands that 75% of the results of any value-add of federally funded research be manufactured in the U.S.
• Invest 5% of the federal science and technology budget on engineering and manufacturing R&D and process technologies, creating translational research centers as innovation hubs around the country.
• Encourage public-private partnerships to provide grants, loans and direct investments into a portfolio of  hardware companies (which typically require more time and resources than software companies), focusing on manufacturers, especially at the state level.
• Increase graduate fellowships through greater investment in engineering for qualified domestic students that focus on application and implementation, not just concepts and theory.

Ideas like these might help reverse our long decline in the application of innovation in manufacturing due to decades of offshoring.  One thig is for sure: our current course is not the answer.  Otherwise, as Bruce Springsteen once wryly noted, “them jobs are going boys, and they ain’t comin’ back.”

What do you think?

Do you need help with your manufacturing processes and automation?  We’re here, we’re local, and we’re here to help!  We urge you to contact PSSI directly at 877.273.2444.

PSSI has been implementing ALERE manufacturing software for over 25 years, and we still think it’s one of the best-priced, best-functioning manufacturing software products you can buy anywhere.  Users appreciate ALERE’s flexibility over many other systems. 

TIW Technology President Rod Hatcher reminds us of the power of the PLAN module in their ALERE Manufacturing software system, with a few comments below…

The Plan module is an enigmatic name for a very powerful component of manufacturing. Used properly, this module can save countless hours of time and perform functions that would be impossible to do manually.

Its purpose is to:

• Generate time-phased recommended work orders and purchase requisitions based on the current demand in the system.
• Allow conversion of selected recommended orders into work orders.
• Allow conversion of selected recommended orders into purchase orders when integrated with ALERE Accounting. If not linked, then provide a report listing purchase requisitions.
• Recommend changes to existing work orders and purchases orders by suggesting which ones to change quantities on, pull or push the date needed closer or further out, and to suggest orders to cancel because they are no longer required.

The Plan module is designed to be integrated with inventory, order entry, and purchasing on the accounting side and work orders, scheduling and bills of material on the manufacturing side.

This integration is necessary to fully support all the planning functions. However, integrating with just the Order module in ALERE and an inventory module can support minimal functions.

Approval Tooltips
ALERE provides a structured approach to approving sales and purchases. Up to four levels of approvals can be requested and, once initiated, ALERE will shepherd the process along by automatically notifying the next person or persons whose authorization is required.

Tooltips are used to provide you information on where in the approval process your document lies.

The progress of the approval process can be checked by hovering the mouse cursor over ‘Submitted” on an order and a tooltip will appear. The tooltip contains one line for each required approval. The name of the employee and the time of approval are shown if approval has been granted. Otherwise, the line shows the description of the approval group.

Want to Learn More About ALERE?  

TIW has a 7 minute “Manufacturing Overview Video“ on YouTube that gives a concise summary of what manufacturing software can do for you.  Click the link below to see why ALERE may be a great fit for your manufacturing operations.

• Interested in a trial version for your organization?

PSSI can work with you to understand better what a manufacturing software system can do for you.  For information on obtaining a trial version, contact Larry Lukasik at the number below.

To learn more, call us any time at 877.273.2444, or visit us on the web.