Manufacturing & Technology News articles from June 2007

Manufacturing & Technology News archives from June 2007

Michigan professor questions university's ties with China.
June 15, 2007... A professor of aeronautics engineering at the University of Michigan says his university is engaged in transferring sensitive military technologies to China and that the practice is encouraged by the university's faculty and administrators. ...

Rudy Giuliani benefits from sale of U.S. highways to foreign companies.(Interview)
June 15, 2007... The sell-off of American highways to private companies coupled with the controversial plan to build the "NAFTA Superhighway" has become an explosive political subject in many states. The influx of foreign companies involved in becoming owners...

Commerce COO spends most time on trade.
June 15, 2007... There aren't many people who, over the course of a year, can account for every minute they spend on the job. But David Sampson, the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce, has done just that. As chief operating officer for the...

Quotable ...(Quotation)
June 15, 2007... "By 2030, assuming current policy, China's energy demand will exceed that of the United States and will account for 19 percent of the world's total demand. By 2030 we expect the consumption of oil in China to be about 15 million barrels per...

Toyota has won the car competition, but it still could lose.
June 15, 2007... Toyota has won the global competition for domination in the automobile industry, far surpassing GM in profits years ago, and soon to overtake the company in sales volume in the near future. The question isn't the precise day Toyota outsells GM,...

Foreign investors buy existing U.S. companies.
June 15, 2007... Foreigners went on a buying binge in the United States last year, spending $161.5 billion to purchase companies or invest in new production capacity in the United States. The vast majority of that investment ($147.8 billion) was to purchase...

China entry in the WTO is not what promoters promised.
June 15, 2007... China's entry in the World Trade Organization has not worked out the way proponents promised, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute. Kenneth Liberthal, special advisor to President Clinton and senior director for Asia...

Currency manipulation: Congress must step in.
June 15, 2007... The U.S. Department of Treasury has "failed" in its legal responsibility to hold foreign governments accountable for manipulating their currencies. Congress has also either forgotten or ignored its fiduciary duties regarding unfair trade as...

Whirlpool.(PLANTS CLOSING IN THE UNITED STATES)
June 15, 2007... Whirlpool has announced plans to stop manufacturing dehumidifiers and purifiers at its plant in La Vergne, Tenn., laying off 330 workers out of 600 at the facility. It will also stop making cooking ranges at its plant in Cleveland, Tenn., and...

Hanesbrands.(PLANTS CLOSING IN THE UNITED STATES)
June 15, 2007... Hanesbrands, maker of apparel under the brand names Hanes, Playtex and Wonderbra, has announced plans to close its Stratford Road textile manufacturing plant in Winston-Salem and move production to lower-cost plants in the Caribbean basin and...

Gildan.(PLANTS CLOSING IN THE UNITED STATES)
June 15, 2007... Gildan has announced plans to close two sock manufacturing plants in Mt. Airy, N.C., and move its equipment and production to Honduras. The 8,500-population town, the childhood home of American icon Andy Griffith and the basis for his show...

EGS easy heat inc.(PLANTS CLOSING IN THE UNITED STATES)
June 15, 2007... EGS Easy Heat Inc. has announced plans to close its New Carlisle, Ind., manufacturing facility and shift production to Mexico. The company will lay off 47 people. By closing the factory, EGS will be able to "compete in the global market for our...

Magna International.(PLANTS CLOSING IN THE UNITED STATES)
June 15, 2007... Magna International of Ontario, Canada, has announced plans to close its Traer Manufacturing facility in Traer, Iowa, laying off 150 employees. The plant, which makes parts for the automobile industry, is the city's largest employer. "The...

Furniture brands International.(PLANTS CLOSING IN THE UNITED STATES)
June 15, 2007... Furniture Brands International of St. Louis, Mo., one of the country's largest residential furniture companies, has announced plans to close three manufacturing plants in North Carolina, resulting in the elimination of approximately 150...

Southern tool manufacturing.(PLANTS CLOSING IN THE UNITED STATES)
June 15, 2007... Southern Tool Manufacturing in Winston-Salem, N.C., is going out of business. The 50-year-old company sold hardware to the furniture industry and had 60 employees when the furniture industry was healthy. It's now down to 19 workers and those...

Modine manufacturing co.(PLANTS CLOSING IN THE UNITED STATES)
June 15, 2007... Modine Manufacturing Co. has announced its fourth U.S. manufacturing plant closing in the past year. The Racine, Wisc.-based maker of automotive parts told its work force in Jackson, Miss., that its factory there will be closing as part of the...

The bilco co.(PLANTS OPENING IN THE UNITED STATES)
June 15, 2007... The Bilco Co., has opened a 77,000-square-foot factory in Zanesville, Ohio, making polyethylene products including basement doors and window wells. The New Haven, Conn.-based company was previously making the equipment through an outsourcing...

Murphy engineered wood products.(PLANTS OPENING IN THE UNITED STATES)
June 15, 2007... Murphy Engineered Wood Products is building a new $61-million veneer lumber plant in Sutherlin, Ore., at the site of a former Murphy facility that was destroyed by fire in 2005. The 215,000-square-foot plant will employ 80 employees, far less...

Roche Carolina inc.(PLANTS OPENING IN THE UNITED STATES)
June 15, 2007... Roche Carolina Inc. has announced plans to invest $60 million in expanding its Florence, S.C., pharmaceutical manufacturing facility. The company expects to add 25 to 30 new positions. "The decision to invest in Florence is a reflection of our...

Polatis inc.(PLANTS OPENING OVERSEAS)
June 15, 2007... Polatis Inc., of Billerica, Mass., has announced plans to open a new factory to produce ultra-low loss optical switches in Poland. The plant will produce high-volume "standard products" for the telecommunications and instrumentation markets,...

Alcoa.(PLANTS OPENING OVERSEAS)
June 15, 2007... Alcoa has completed expansions at 10 manufacturing facilities worldwide for products used in aerospace propulsion, fastening and structures. The company has increased capacity of its heat-treated sheet and plate manufacturing by 50 percent in...

Brady Corp.(PLANTS OPENING OVERSEAS)
June 15, 2007... Brady Corp., a Milwaukee-based manufacturer of identification, specialty tapes, graphics and safety products, has expanded its operations in Southern China with a new manufacturing, warehouse and office facility in Dongguan, Guangdong Province....

Kyocera Corp.(PLANTS OPENING OVERSEAS)
June 15, 2007... Kyocera Corp., will invest $250 million to expand its global annual solar module manufacturing capacity from 240 megawatts to 500 megawatts by the end of March 2011. The company has secured supply contracts with silicon producers that will...

Flowserve Corp.(PLANTS OPENING OVERSEAS)
June 15, 2007... Flowserve Corp. has announced plans to build a 100,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Coimbatore, India, to make pump products for the chemical, power, oil and gas industries. The facility will be built on 14 acres and employ 200 people....

Larsen & Toubro.(PLANTS OPENING OVERSEAS)
June 15, 2007... India-based Larsen & Toubro has announced plans to build a new super-critical boiler manufacturing facility and engineering design center with Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in New Delhi. The facility will produce boilers for electric...

Abbott.(PLANTS OPENING OVERSEAS)
June 15, 2007... Abbott has opened a new $450-million manufacturing facility in Puerto Rico to produce biologic agents. The company received FDA approval in February to sell its HUMIRA human monoclonal antibody for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis in the...

Hynix Semiconductor.(PLANTS OPENING OVERSEAS)
June 15, 2007... Hynix Semiconductor has broken ground on a new $4-billion wafer fabrication facility in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, Korea. The company will produce 12-inch, high-density NAND Flash memory devices using a sub-48 nanometer processes at...

The truth comes out about outsourcing.
June 15, 2007... On January 6, 2004, Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and I scandalized the economics profession and Washington policymakers with our New York Times article, "Second Thoughts on Free Trade." We noted that the two conditions on which the case for...

Patent 'Reform' is anything but.
June 29, 2007... Ironically, Congress is now threatening China with harsh remedies if it does not quickly stiffen its patent protections, even as Congress marks up legislation that will dramatically weaken U.S. patent protections. This bill is the Patent Reform...

China creates a massive foreign investment fund.
June 29, 2007... China is creating a new $200-billion to $300-billion "sovereign wealth fund" to diversify its foreign holdings away from U.S.-dollar denominated debt securities and to make large-scale equity investments in companies overseas. The money will...

Stevens Institute of Tech. Creates a 'modern' research university.(Interview)
June 29, 2007... Technology transfer from universities is no longer providing the United States with a competitive advantage and a new model must be introduced in order for the country to remain on the leading edge of innovation, according to Hal Raveche,...

More than 20 million single-person firms.
June 29, 2007... The number of "Lone Wolf" businesses--those that are run by one person, the owner and no employees--increased by 4.4 percent in 2005 to 20.4 million, according to the Census Bureau. A daily average of 2,356 people went into business for...

Quotable ...(Quotation)
June 29, 2007... "The Agenda for Shared Prosperity will offer alternatives to the failed conservative economic policies that assume that the best thing government can do is enrich the wealthy. We challenge the pervasive argument that Americans must rely solely...

GAO describes federal programs aimed at manufacturing.
June 29, 2007... The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has identified all government programs that could possibly be helping U.S. manufacturers. It identified 254 federal programs that provide services available to manufacturing companies, but of that...

Europeans fall behind U.S. in R&D intensity.
June 29, 2007... Research and development intensity in Europe is stagnating, posing a "major threat to the European knowledge-based economy [by creating] a structural growth handicap," says the European Commission. The 27 member countries of the European Union...

Senators seek increased funds for defense manufacturing.
June 29, 2007... Fifteen members of the U.S. Senate have asked the chairman and the ranking minority member of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee to fund three new programs aimed at improving the manufacturing industrial base of the United States....

U.S. leads in wind installations.
June 29, 2007... The United States had the world's fastest growing wind market last year, according to the Department of Energy in its first annual assessment of the industry. It was a record year in 2006 for the installation of wind turbines greater than 50...

Letters to the editor.(Letter to the editor)
June 29, 2007... I am the owner of a mold shop and the large companies of this country are more to blame for our trade imbalance than other countries. The problem is there are a lot of groups that want to fight their own battle rather than join with others to...

Letters to the editor.(Letter to the editor)
June 29, 2007... In the words of a Janie Fricke country song from a few years back--"It Ain't Easy Bein' Easy" when it comes to the immigration and offshoring fight. The opponents of the foreign worker programs such as the H-1b, L-1, TN etc. visa programs are...

Letters to the editor.(Letter to the editor)
June 29, 2007... The idea that the outsourcing of American jobs to countries like China is good for the American economy is absurd. But I guess mainstream economists deal only in absurdities--the kind of absurdities that their paymasters in the corporate world...

Letters to the editor.(Letter to the editor)
June 29, 2007... I question your statement that China has surpassed the U.S. in exports. We export over $1 trillion per year, and China is currently in third place behind the U.S. and Germany, respectively, as suggested by the Organization for Economic...

Letters to the editor.(Letter to the editor)
June 29, 2007... Out here in California thousands of aerospace engineering and manufacturing jobs, even in the defense industry, have been moved to China and India. Wall Street knows nothing about manufacturing and technology and cares even less. The parties...

Letters to the editor.(Letter to the editor)
June 29, 2007... History will prove the U.S. has in the last few years given away our wealth to a nation that will prove to be our mortal enemy. Why do we let our politicians get away with this? When are we as a people going to wake up and realize we are...

Letters to the editor.(Letter to the editor)
June 29, 2007... I recently came to an important conclusion. The only way American workers have a chance in hell to stop the bleeding of American jobs to the Chinese is to form a coalition similar to what the Blue Ribbon Coalition did to counter the rabid...

Letters to the editor.(Letter to the editor)
June 29, 2007... Maybe the way to fix the political decision-making process is to hold the politicians accountable for their decisions where it will hurt them the most. Take away their free medical insurance and cut their pay by 60 percent. Take away...

Letters to the editor.(Letter to the editor)
June 29, 2007... The Washington, D.C., junta is tearing apart the U.S. economy, society and international goodwill. America deserves, and urgently needs, a new social contract based on the notions of fairness, sustainability and international cooperation. The...

China's rise is not a matter of great concern worldwide.
June 29, 2007... Most people in the world believe China will catch up to the United States economically and that it would be a good thing if it does, according to a survey conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and WorldPublic Opinion.org. "In no...