Manufacturing & Technology News articles from April 2005

Manufacturing & Technology News archives from April 2005

Congress wants to know what's really happening to defense industrial base.(Systems Scientist Is Hired To Analyze Superpower Status)
April 7, 2005... The House Small Business Committee has initiated a wide-ranging investigation into the deteriorating health of the industrial base and its impact on national security. The committee, chaired by Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Ill.), has hired Dr....

Standards community develops strategy to keep U.S. competitive.
April 7, 2005... The voluntary and private-sector run system of creating standards in the United States is under stress, due to the growing adoption of standards developed outside the country, says the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). U.S. industry...

It's getting much harder for university researchers to win an NSF grant.
April 7, 2005... The rate of success for those seeking National Science Foundation (NSF) research and education grants suffered its fourth straight year of decline in 2004, when it hit 24 percent, a funding rate the agency said was its lowest in 15 years. ...

Newt to boost engineering career bill.
April 7, 2005... Undergraduates in engineering, science or math who embark on a career in their major could receive help with student loans under legislation set to be introduced in the House on Tuesday, April 12. Designed to steer more young Americans into...

Presidential panel warns IT networks are increasingly vulnerable to debilitating attacks.(Support For Cyber Security Research Has Evaporated)
April 7, 2005... A presidential scientific advisory panel has told President Bush that there is a research and development investment "crisis" leading to the rapid deterioration of the country's information technology infrastructure. The U.S. IT...

Congress coming to the rescue of Advanced Technology Program.
April 7, 2005... The Advanced Technology Program (ATP) run by the National Institute of Standards and Technology may have lost its longtime protector when South Carolina Democrat Ernest Hollings retired from the Senate, but it appears to have picked up a couple...

Tens of thousands of manufacturers have built factories in China.
April 7, 2005... The manufacturing expansion in China continues at a "stunning" pace, says Xu Kuangdi, president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Growth of the country's manufacturing sector should remain at between 14 percent and 15 percent for the next...

China commission provides Congress with recommendations on dealing with China.
April 7, 2005... The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), disputing the Bush administration's contention that progress toward establishing a market-based exchange rate system for China's currency has been adequate, is calling upon Congress...

Mfg. revival meetings grow popular.
April 7, 2005... Reviving the U.S. manufacturing sector is becoming a hot topic at the state level. Manufacturing summits are planned in North Carolina and in East Texas in the coming days and weeks, to discuss ways to keep manufacturers thriving. The...

D.C. think tank to address competitiveness challenges.
April 7, 2005... A nonpartisan think tank created by Congress and supported by both public and private funds is creating a program to address issues regarding the competitive challenges facing America. The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars'...

Innovation meeting at science academy.
April 7, 2005... Top officials from national research and technology programs in Europe, Asia and the United States will address a day-long conference at the National Academies of Sciences on "Innovation Policies for the 21st Century." The April 15 meeting aims...

Electronics Association warns of impending crisis.
April 7, 2005... The United States "is neglecting the factors that sparked the U.S. technology revolution," according to a new report from the American Electronics Association. "Ultimately, this threatens U.S. economic vitality and our competitiveness in the...

Intelligent manufacturing systems program turns ten: another ten to go.
April 7, 2005... The global Intelligent Manufacturing Systems (IMS) manufacturing research and development program has just finished it first 10 years of work, involving more than 1,000 companies, universities and government research organizations in dozens of...

Oceans will rise no matter what, says NCAR.(Environmental Research & Reports)
April 7, 2005... Even if all greenhouse gases were stabilized in the year 2000, the global average surface air temperature of the Earth would increase by 1 degree F. by the year 2100, according to a new study from the National Center for Atmospheric Research...

U.S. gas emissions increase.(Environmental Research & Reports)
April 7, 2005... U.S. greenhouse gas emissions increased by 0.7 percent in 2003, from 6,891 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2002 to 6,936 million metric tons in 2003, according to "Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States 2003," a report from...

The Arctic is changing fast.(Environmental Research & Reports)
April 7, 2005... Temperatures in the Arctic region of the world have increased by as much as 7 degrees F. since the mid 1970s, according to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report. More than 400,000 square miles of ice has melted off the Arctic Ocean....

Media is biased in its enviro coverage, says business group.(Environmental Research & Reports)
April 7, 2005... The network newscasts present a biased view of global warming, according to a report from the Free Market Project. "Show after show emphasize[s] the view that global warming is here and threatens not only our way of life, but our very...

PV shipments going strong. Environmental Research & Reports).(PV shipments going strong. Environmental Research & Reports)
April 7, 2005... Global shipments of photovoltaics should grow at an average annual rate of 23.4 percent from 2005 until 2009, says a market research report from Business Communications Co. In 2004, 973.1 megawatts of PV cells were shipped worldwide, valued at...

ITA completes major study of Airbus, Boeing subsidies.(Recent Studies--Resources Of Interest)
April 7, 2005... The European Union's argument that Airbus is not subsidized suffers from "factual and methodological errors," says the International Trade Administration in major new assessment of subsidies in the large civilian air transport manufacturing...

Demographics: immigrants flooding into the country.(Recent Studies--Resources Of Interest)
April 7, 2005... The number of foreign-born people living in the United States topped 33 million and accounted for nearly 12 percent of the population in 2003, its highest share since 1930, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis. Half of these...

More factories are closing than are opening in U.S.(Recent Studies--Resources Of Interest)
April 7, 2005... "Outsourcing, offshoring and restructuring are not the primary cause of the shrinking manufacturing base," says a report from the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI. Instead, it is the lack of new plant openings and plant expansions that is causing...

California risks losing one million manufacturing jobs.(Recent Studies--Resources Of Interest)
April 7, 2005... "California's manufacturing economy is at a crossroads," says the California Bay Area Economic Forum. There are 1.5 million workers employed in California's manufacturing sector, and one million of those jobs "are up for grabs." They can...

Chemical industry is set for a rebound.(Recent Studies--Resources Of Interest)
April 7, 2005... The U.S. chemical industry is emerging from the doldrums. The industry is expecting to see operating income increase by 25 percent this year, despite high energy costs, says the American Chemistry Council in its "Economic Survey: Outlook for...

WTO invites a 10-year public assessment.
April 7, 2005... The World Trade Organization will hold a public symposium from April 20-22 in Geneva entitled "WTO After 10 Years: Global Problems and Multilateral Solutions." The objective of the meeting "is to have a stimulating public debate on where we are...

USBIC and AFL-CIO study health of defense industrial base.
April 7, 2005... The U.S. Business Industry Council (USBIC), a trade group representing small- and medium-sized U.S.-based manufacturers, has teamed up with the AFL-CIO's Industrial Union Council to conduct an examination of the U.S. defense industrial base....

NIST completes WTC analysis.
April 7, 2005... The National Institute of Standards and Technology has released its analysis of how the World Trade Center towers collapsed. It outlines how people above the crash zone could not escape because there were not enough stairways. The most detailed...

Defense Science Board tells military to develop a grand strategy to save the U.S. semiconductor industry.
April 22, 2005... The rapid migration of semiconductor manufacturing plants to locations outside the United States is an "alarming" trend that must be addressed in a forthright, immediate manner, according to a long-anticipated report from the Pentagon's Defense...

China's currency peg moves from being a monetary nuisance to a national security concern.
April 22, 2005... China's practice of pegging its yuan to the dollar has become a national security issue worthy of the legislative attention of House Armed Services Committee chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.). Hunter has co-sponsored the "Chinese Currency Act...

Foreign direct investment floods into India & China.
April 22, 2005... India is threatening to displace the United States as a more desirable place for foreign direct investment, according to the AT Kearney FDI Confidence Index. In its list of top 25 FDI destinations for 2003, AT Kearney's FDI Confidence Index...

MAPI index rises again in March.
April 22, 2005... The country might be feeling a little economic gloom, but the manufacturing sector isn't, according to the latest Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI business outlook survey. The index, which edged up one point to 71 in March, "remains at a high level...

Quotable.
April 22, 2005... "I am suggesting that the nascent field of the social science of science policy needs to grow up, and quickly, to provide a basis for understanding the enormously complex dynamic of today's global, technology-based society. We need models that...

Successful global companies pay close attention to supply chains.
April 22, 2005... The majority of global manufacturers are being overwhelmed by the complexity of their operations and are not taking advantage of their global networks, according to Peter Koudal, director of Deloitte Research. Having spent two years studying...

Effective IP protection in China starts from a basis of distrust.
April 22, 2005... Companies moving into the Chinese market must become better at managing their intellectual property, according to analysts working for KPMG in China and Eastern Asia. Companies must pay close attention to how they structure their legal...

Foreign governments require more 'offsets' when purchasing U.S. weapons systems.
April 22, 2005... U.S. arms producers selling weapons overseas were required to provide foreign countries with "offsets" that were worth 122 percent of the value of their sales in 2003, according to the latest tally of offsets compiled by the Bureau of Industry...

Alcoa chairman says boom times are here again, they're just not here.
April 22, 2005... In the late 1990s, Alcoa determined that the company that had the best strategy for global success was Toyota. It looked at Toyota's "lean" production and business practices and decided that what was good for Toyota was good for Alcoa. Alcoa...

After a generation, a new DSB report on semiconductors; awaiting response.
April 22, 2005... The release of the Defense Science Board (DSB) report "High Performance Microchip Supply" describing the shift of semiconductor plants offshore was greeted with hope that it would not be ignored. So far, there has been little coverage of the...

DSB says DARPA has left revolutionary tech business.
April 22, 2005... The historic role of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in funding revolutionary new technologies that change the fundamental dynamics of weapons systems (like stealth) and the economy (like the Internet) has changed, and not...