Week 29 in Manufacturing News

Much Is at Stake for American Manufacturing in 2021; New Low-Cost Solutions Help UK Manufacturers Go Digital; Semiconductors: Europe’s Expensive Plan to Reach the Top Tier of Chipmakers; Australia: New Gold Coast Manufacturing Hub Opens in Nerang.

Much Is at Stake for American Manufacturing in 2021

Since U.S. business interests have settled into opposing camps and cannot seem to find compromise, legislators will have to decide strategic issues.

America’s trade problems have become polarized and our economy is now based on two contrasting ideologies.

1. The supporters of domestic production, reshoring and exports, who are advocates of reindustrialization 

2. Big importers (like Amazon and Walmart) and Wall Street, who participate in deindustrialization.

Article source: IndustryWeek

New Low-Cost Solutions Help UK Manufacturers Go Digital

Cost-effective, off-the-shelf technologies are helping manufacturing SMEs to transform into highly efficient, digitally enabled businesses. Elizabeth Tofaris, IfM Engage, explains more about the Digital Manufacturing on a Shoestring project.

The innovative project, which involves a range of small manufacturers and technology partners (including the Raspberry Pi Foundation and Siemens) together with manufacturing networks such as the Scottish Manufacturing Advisory Service (SMAS) and Make UK, exploits low cost, commercially available technologies in mobile computing, sensors and analytics software.

Article source: The Manufacturer

Semiconductors: Europe’s Expensive Plan to Reach the Top Tier of Chipmakers

The EU wants to enhance ‘strategic autonomy’ in a sector facing shortages but the risk is that it squanders public money.

The baroque splendor of Versailles, a lavish monument to European power, provided a suitably resplendent backdrop for a discussion over what is arguably the continent’s most ambitious, and costly, high-tech manufacturing project.

Article source: Financial Times

Australia: New Gold Coast Manufacturing Hub Opens in Nerang

The Queensland Government has officially opened a new Gold Coast hub that will provide local manufacturing businesses with access to development programs and specialized training.

Minister for Environment and the Great Barrier Reef and Minister for Science and Youth Affairs said that as well as the targeted support and training, the hub would also deliver a grants program for local manufacturers focusing on the production of marine vehicles and transport equipment, food processing and technology, and metal fabrication.

Article source: Australian Manufacturing