Top 20 Facts About Manufacturing

I'm putting this in the Global Meltdown forum because of the fact that we have and are losing manufacturing jobs still. However, according to statistics manufacturing has in fact been making a small comeback. So anyway.......

National Association of Manufacturers

1.) In the most recent data, manufacturers contributed $2.17 trillion to the U.S. economy. This figure has risen since the second quarter of 2009, when manufacturers contributed $1.70 trillion. Over that same time frame, value-added output from durable goods manufacturing grew from $0.86 trillion to $1.17 trillion, with nondurable goods output up from $0.84 trillion to $0.99 trillion. - See more at: www.nam.org...

2.) For every $1.00 spent in manufacturing, another $1.40 is added to the economy. That is the highest multiplier effect of any economic sector. - See more at: www.nam.org...

3.) The vast majority of manufacturing firms in the United States are quite small. In the most recent data, there were 256,363 firms in the manufacturing sector, with all but 3,626 firms considered to be small (e.g., having fewer than 500 employees). In fact, three-quarters of these firms have fewer than 20 employees. - See more at: www.nam.org...

As I prepare myself for a degree in Engineering and Manufacturing #3 is what I find the most hopeful and interesting of these statistics. It means theres a lot of opportunity for people to open up shop and create their own small business and get into manufacturing on a ground floor level.

It's not all just giant companies with huge plants you know.

There are 12.33 million manufacturing workers in the United States, accounting for 9 percent of the workforce. In addition, manufacturing supports an estimated 18.5 million jobs in the United States—about one in six private-sector jobs. - See more at: www.nam.org...

I also find #5 to be very interesting... manufacturing creates many high paying jobs on top of the income it produces for its employees itself. This is in my opinion the true economic impact that we've felt over the years from NAFTA.

Over the next decade, nearly 3.5 million manufacturing jobs will likely be needed, and 2 million are expected to go unfilled due to the skills gap. Moreover, according to a recent report, 80 percent of manufacturers report a moderate or serious shortage of qualified applicants for skilled and highly skilled production positions. - See more at: www.nam.org...

And this is exactly why I'm choosing to get into the field I'm getting into.

Anyway, anyone who is looking at future potential career opportunities may want to take some of this into consideration and some of you may want to show this to your children.

Enjoy.

a reply to: onequestion

It's pretty well known that the very small specialist engineering firms are on a roll in new tech and retro engineering. The keyword there is quality. I think the days of built in obsolescense, while not quite over, are on the way out as we more and more realise how necessary the timescales of durability goods for instance need to become. Those timescales were pretty exponential in the IT business for instance, I have a plug and play motor and it is now 13 years old, a rust free steel body, the same engine, the same lighting, while many of the other mechanical friction parts have been replaced elsewhere in the car.
Engineering is the big thing, no doubt about that, but I do see a meld between engineering expertise, and IT knowledge, and design as part and parcel of the same thing.

a reply to: smurfy

Well.. robotics are going to take over and they will become symbiotic or already are symbiotic.

Machine mind and computer all one thing.

That's the direction I plan on going in.

a reply to: onequestion

Just wanted to drop by and tell you this is another great thread!
Thank you!

a reply to: Quantum12

Thanks, I appreciate it.

And, then.. along came the next generation of 3D printing machines. They will be affordable, ubiquitous and the most disruptive element ever introduced to the manufacturing landscape. It will result in the total elimination of job fields (not just in manufacturing sectors). 3D printing will be used in bio-tech to nano-tech and everything in-between. It will drastically alter individual perceptions of value and global economic models of production.

a reply to: Argosnaut

What I wouldn't do for a real matter replicator. I'd eat amazing food from around the World every day, the only problem would be my waistband and my health.

Lowering our absurdly high corporate tax rate would help attract more high-end manufacturing jobs here which in turn, as the article points out, creates and supports other non-manufacturing jobs.

In 1980 my grandmother worked at Crystler. I remember her telling me that robots were going to take over at the auto industry and there wouldn't be any jobs left. I worked on a auto assembly line with robots manufacturing car doors for the Lincoln. After that I went into sheet metal work. I was metal finishing and hammer forming exterior body parts for the Dodge Viper and Ford GT. In 2005 there was a mass exodus jobs from the area. Of the companies that were left there were 50 applicants for ever opening. My aunt worked at a auto supplier and she said they had a stack of applications 2 feet tall. Manufacturing is a tough business to survive in. Every time the economy takes a dump the sector get hits hard. It's usually the first to get hit and the last to recover. Everyone I know is in manufacturing. My grandmother retired from Crystler. She was an inspector and climbed in and out of trunks all day. My grandfather retired from Crystler also. My other grandmother retired from Holly carburetor. I have a bunch of family and friends that work at Ford Mo Co. If you can get into one of the big 3 that's the way to go.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

Lowering our absurdly high corporate tax rate would help attract more high-end manufacturing jobs here which in turn, as the article points out, creates and supports other non-manufacturing jobs.

Corporations already have low to no tax rates in many cases, not only do they have low to no taxes they get subsidized.

I don't think taxes are the issue I think it's the cost of doing business ie hidden cost, unemployment insurance, environmental laws, energy cost and thinks like Ovamacare. Social security yada yada

originally posted by: onequestion
Corporations already have low to no tax rates in many cases, not only do they have low to no taxes they get subsidized.

That is due to tax law loopholes. A low rate with no to very few deductions is the way to eliminate that.

I don't think taxes are the issue I think it's the cost of doing business ie hidden cost, unemployment insurance, environmental laws, energy cost and thinks like Ovamacare. Social security yada yada

I feel tax reform should be the primary focus, after that is addressed other issues can be reviewed.

a reply to: onequestion

Didn't see this thread, a couple weeks ago I was flying back home and got to spend a 3 hour flight sitting next to a defense contractor who basically took the public sector route of what I'm in school for. We talked quite a bit about manufacturing since he deals with it a lot in his work (though he's not directly building the physical products). Basically, what he told me was something I had already assumed was the case. The biggest jobs in manufacturing these days are in 3d printing, the main holdup in that technology though is material engineering. We can only make items as good as the material that's being printed off.

I took a look through the program you linked, my suggestion to you is that if your school has one when you get there, get as much time with a 3d printer as you can. It's getting to be pretty common for engineering programs to have them. Learn how to create the models and how to build them. That sort of rapid prototyping and eventually production is where it's at these days.

a reply to: Aazadan

I'm getting into cnc which is similar to 3d printing accept it reduces instead of adds and has a higher degree of accuracy.

Better for making robots. Someone has to make the robots.

originally posted by: Argosnaut
And, then.. along came the next generation of 3D printing machines. They will be affordable, ubiquitous and the most disruptive element ever introduced to the manufacturing landscape. It will result in the total elimination of job fields (not just in manufacturing sectors). 3D printing will be used in bio-tech to nano-tech and everything in-between. It will drastically alter individual perceptions of value and global economic models of production.

3d printing doesn't create something from nothing. It's a wonderful technology, but for every item it wants to build it creates many jobs in material sciences trying to create new substances and new printing techniques. It also creates numerous legal jobs in trying to legislate the concept of copyrights in a digital medium when these patterns are going to be shared and downloaded. Last, it creates A LOT of jobs in building models, and probably a lot of jobs in people building redundant parts.

It's actually going to be a pretty big engineering challenge when individuals have something like 500 different similar yet slightly off models of the same screw to download and print, and then use in their item. It takes the concept of replaceable parts to a whole new level if done successfully.

There are other jobs too using AutoCAD. I've done it with Maya/3ds but AutoCAD is just as capable to take a housing blueprint, build it virtually, and then show off the 3d model inside of AR (hololens) or VR (vive). Lots of cool applications there, letting people virtually see a product before building it.

originally posted by: onequestion
a reply to: Aazadan

I'm getting into cnc which is similar to 3d printing accept it reduces instead of adds and has a higher degree of accuracy.

Better for making robots. Someone has to make the robots.

It would still be a good idea to mess with a 3d printer if you get the chance, I guarantee you'll be using them in the future. A lot of the fundamentals also cross over, for example if you're beveling or chamfering your model, just the same as if you're doing that in gcode for your cnc, you still need to know how it works to communicate to either device.