Smart Manufacturing Sidebar: A Focus on Competitiveness
Taking steps to secure the U.S.’s role as a worldwide leader in manufacturing
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Nola Lopez
Is the U.S. losing its manufacturing know-how? That’s the question being addressed by the Council on Competitiveness, an organization composed of leaders in organized labor, academia and business — including Rockwell Automation Inc. CEO Keith Nosbusch — that has been looking at America’s most pressing competitive challenges for the past 25 years.
As technology drives greater productivity and innovation on factory floors, the ability of U.S. manufacturers — and their workers — to keep up is critical. In 2009, IHS Global Insight, a forecasting and consulting division of IHS Inc. (IHS), estimated that U.S. manufacturing output accounted for 20 percent of the world’s total, whereas Chinese manufacturing represented 19.6 percent. Recently, however, the group announced that China surpassed the U.S. in 2010, accounting for 19.8 percent of global production compared with the U.S.’s global share of 19.4 percent — a difference of $43.8 billion. This marked the first time in more than a century that America was not the world’s biggest producer of manufactured goods.
Seeking Skilled Workers
Creating a pipeline of workers who are prepared for prepared for 21st-century manufacturing jobs is key, says John Heywood, an economist at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. “There’s still this idea that manufacturing is metal-bending and blue-collar work,” says Sujeet Chand, Rockwell Automation’s chief technology officer. To counter that impression and encourage next-generation talent, the company supports FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), a nonprofit that aims to inspire young people’s interest and participation in scientific and technological pursuits. “There are as many computers in plants and factories today as there are in any tech company,” Nosbusch points out. “How we create this skilled manufacturing workforce is one of the most pressing questions this country faces.”
As a member of the steering committee of the Council on Competitiveness, Nosbusch is working with other industry executives to develop a plan to keep U.S. manufacturing competitive well into the future. The group will present it at a national manufacturing summit in Washington, D.C., in December.
Deborah Wince-Smith, president and CEO of the Council on Competitiveness, encourages all stakeholders to focus on ways to bring about new thinking, training and collaborations to keep America in the game. “If we lose our know-how to manufacture things,” she says, “then we will lose our ability to develop and design products, along with our ability to innovate, attract investments, improve our standard of living and protect this country’s national interests.”
