Manufacturing & Technology News articles from October 2004

Manufacturing & Technology News archives from October 2004

Applications redefine markets: get ready, here comes nanotechnology.
October 6, 2004... Companies in virtually every industrial sector should start paying close attention to developments taking place in the fledgling field of nanotechnology, says Dr. Iwona Turlik, corporate vice president of Motorola and director of Motorola Lab's...

Scientists prioritize nanotech for energy independence.
October 6, 2004... Nanotechnology will be the linchpin in helping the United States achieve energy independence, according to scientists attending a Department of Energy "Grand Challenge" workshop earlier this year. "The development of nanoscale materials, as...

Mfg. assistance centers will create new trade group in Washington.
October 6, 2004... The Modernization Forum, the trade group representing the nation's manufacturing extension centers, is closing its doors in Livonia, Mich. It is adopting a new name, merging with another group and is moving to Washington, D.C. The board of...

Another group exalts benefits of outsourcing.
October 6, 2004... Offshore outsourcing of U.S. service sector jobs is good for the economy and the trend should not be feared by "populist politicians, protectionist pundits and uninformed journalists," says a study from the National Taxpayers Union. "Periods of...

New leadership at NAM tells membership to start exporting products to China.
October 6, 2004... The National Association of Manufacturers has changed its leadership. Jerry Jasinowski has officially retired from his post as president. Former Mich. Gov. John Engler has taken residence in his NAM office on Pennsylvania Ave. And John Luke,...

Presidential campaign heats up in the industrial swing states.
October 6, 2004... Given so much negative publicity over offshore outsourcing and mounting job losses among manufacturing workers, it looked like President Bush would have a tough time convincing voters in swing states like Ohio and Pennsylvania that he was...

National Academies tells U.S. Army to develop new energy storage systems.
October 6, 2004... The U.S. Army must start a more robust program to develop longer-lasting, lighter, cheaper and more reliable sources of energy for equipping soldiers on the ground, according to the National Research Council. The military must look "beyond...

Distributors feel the pinch of manufacturing moving to China.
October 6, 2004... The shift of U.S. manufacturing capacity to China is forcing industrial distributors to rethink their business strategies "as profits and customers become scarce," says an analysis by Pembroke Consulting on behalf of Industrial Distribution...

Feds create anti piracy project.
October 6, 2004... The Office of the United States Trade Representative has announced a "major" new government-wide initiative aimed at combating the growing trade in pirated goods. The Strategy Targeting Organized Piracy (STOP) will involve the Departments of...

Renewable energy lab being built.
October 6, 2004... The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has awarded a contract to build a $28-million science and technology center, the mission of which is to accelerate the commercialization of renewable energy laboratory...

Tight budget year for NASA.
October 6, 2004... The Senate has approved a budget of $15.6 billion for NASA, $201 million greater than the agency received last year, but $664.5 million less than President Bush's request. The "current federal fiscal environment is not favorable to supporting...

Dozens of new science and technology centers to open across the country.
October 6, 2004... The National Science Foundation (NSF) has was busy awarding large grants before the end of the 2004 fiscal year on September 30. The agency provided $250 million for nanotechnology research including the creation of six major Nanoscale Science...

Lack of enterprise integration standards costs industry billions.
October 6, 2004... The automotive industry is losing 1.25 percent of the total value of all shipments due to the incompatibility of supply chain information systems, according to a study commissioned by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The cost...

Planned job cuts surge in September.
October 6, 2004... Planned job cuts announced by employers "rocketed" to an eight-month high of 107,863 in September, 41 percent more than a year ago, says Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. "The September surge in job cuts was made worse by the fact that...

Interactive plan for mfg. technologies.
October 6, 2004... The Next-Generation Manufacturing Technologies Initiative (NGMTI) has created a new Internet forum aimed at helping restore the U.S. industrial base. Working with the Department of Defense, NGMTI has launched a "communities of practice" to...

Letter to the editor.(Letter to the Editor)
October 6, 2004... I would like to point out that the 17 September article on the Alliance for Materials Manufacturing Excellence (AMMEX) had a misleading title. We did not create the organization to combat the administration's "desire to kill DOE R & D Program."...

Shifting production to foreign locations costs United States hundreds of thousands of jobs.
October 21, 2004... The United States is losing far more manufacturing jobs to low-cost countries than official government statistics currently indicate, according to research conducted for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. In the first...

Goodyear says U.S. is not a good place to manufacture.
October 21, 2004... Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. will survive over the next five to 10 years by adopting a strategy to "eliminate North American capacity and bring [tires] in from offshore," according to Lowell Dunckel, senior vice president of global product...

Small manufacturers do not export much, according to Census Bureau analysis.
October 21, 2004... A few large companies account for most of America's exports to the rest of the world, according to the Census Bureau. In 2002, more than 45 percent of the total export value of the manufacturing sector was accounted for by the top 50...

AFL-CIO tracks job losses and finds that many result from International Trade & Globalization.
October 21, 2004... The loss of tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs in Ohio is not the result of improved productivity and a "normal" business cycle, according to the AFL-CIO's Industrial Union Council. There is "growing evidence that the real roots of the...

China's currency peg remains a prickly political issue.
October 21, 2004... The Department of Treasury's inability to meet an Oct. 15 deadline to submit its annual report on foreign exchange rate policy to Congress was due to the "scope and complexity" of the subject, says Treasury spokesman Tony Fratto. Additional...

Another tough month for manufacturing workers elicits different levels of concern.
October 21, 2004... The latest government employment report released Oct. 8 showed a decline of 18,000 manufacturing jobs in the country during September. For some in the manufacturing community, this number was a temporary setback. For others, it's another...

U.S. trade secretary says he needs new trade laws to deal with China.
October 21, 2004... Last year, during its cross-country fact-finding tour to determine what the Bush administration should do about the manufacturing crisis, the Commerce Department's Undersecretary of Trade Grant Aldonas met with manufacturers in Columbus, Ohio....

GAO says uncle Sam does not know why jobs are disappearing.
October 21, 2004... The federal government does not have reliable data to monitor the shift of service sector jobs to foreign nations, according to the General Accountability Office. In a report prepared for five democratic members of the House of Representatives,...

HR managers worry about rising costs.
October 21, 2004... Human resource managers expect the rising costs of health care to start having a growing impact on workers. HR managers say high costs will lead companies to decrease salaries, reduce benefits, cut training programs, stop hiring new staff and...

Congress wants a defense offset policy.
October 21, 2004... The House and Senate have told the Secretary of Defense to figure out how the country should deal with foreign government demands upon American companies to supply them with defense "offsets" when buying weapons systems. Offsets, which are...