It’s happened to most manufacturers at one point or another. A defective
product comes back from a customer in
need of repair. Perhaps a bearing or a
gear drive has failed, and the customer
simply needs a replacement. Upon further
examination, the company realizes it was never one of its products in the
first place, but a fabricated copy that
snuck into the market. The manufacturing
community has been dealing with
counterfeit products for decades, but
used machinery dealers and Internet
shoppers seem to continuously get hit
by scam artists.
Easily one of the central issues
affecting U.S. manufacturing is what one might call the exports deficit—the inability of American companies to sell products to, for instance, Asian markets, developing countries and other ports of call—due to what they perceive to be unfair trade agreements and or policies.
A review of "A Nation on Borrowed Time," a book by Joe Arvin and Scott Newton about the decline of America's ability to create wealth through manufacturing, and its effect on the overall economy.
Although typically considered a late bloomer in the call to wind energy arms, the United States is now the
number one wind power producer in the world with over 25,000 MW installed by the end of 2008, according to the Global Wind Energy Council in January 2009.
The global wind energy market has seen average growth rates of 28 percent over the last 10 years, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), creating major challenges for the component supply industry. GWEC also forecasts an average growth rate of 22 percent for the next five years, which if realized, will continue to put pressure on suppliers of turbine components.
In October, Gear Technology conducted an anonymous survey of gear manufacturers. Invitations were sent by e-mail to thousands of individuals around the world. More than 300
individuals responded to the online survey, answering questions about their manufacturing operations and current challenges facing their businesses.
If anyone should ever need convincing
that the state of American manufacturing is in ongoing decline, consider this: the state of Michigan has the highest concentration of engineers in the country, yet also has the highest unemployment rate. But there are ripples of hope out there as grassroots and otherwise organized groups are fighting the good fight in an attempt to reverse that trend.