Week 3 in Manufacturing News

U.S. Manufacturing Rebound Carries Over to 2021; Accelerating the Adoption of Advanced Manufacturing Technologies to Strengthen Our Public Health Infrastructure; Manufacturers Outperform Other Sectors, Expecting Growth in 2021; Industrial Internet Consortium and The Smart Manufacturing Institute Announce Strategic Partnership.

U.S. Manufacturing Rebound Carries Over to 2021

Expansion of U.S. manufacturing growth that began trending upward last summer is expected to continue through 2021, along with growing capital spending and rising capacity utilization, according to the Institute for Supply Management.

ISM’s semiannual economic forecast released this week predicts U.S. manufacturers will record a healthy net increase in revenues totaling 6.9 percent this year, reversing a 1.3 percent decline during pandemic-plagued 2020. Fifteen of 18 industry sectors tracked by ISM are expected to record increases, including the computer and electronic products segment.

Source: EE Times

Accelerating the Adoption of Advanced Manufacturing Technologies to Strengthen Our Public Health Infrastructure

Remember in-person meetings? A year ago, would you have thought our world, our homes and offices would be upended and changed so rapidly? Seemingly overnight businesses were adapting to a new reality.  We at U.S. Food and Drug Administration adapted as well – we had to. Our mission is so critical, we couldn’t fall behind because too much was, and still is, at risk. At the start of this 21st year of the 21st Century, businesses, manufacturers, the FDA, and patients, are all adjusting to the changing times and adopting new trends. For the day-to-day work of the FDA those changes are focused on advanced manufacturing technologies, digital industry and “Industry 4.0.”

Source: FDA

Manufacturers Outperform Other Sectors, Expecting Growth in 2021

Manufacturers helped push the UK’s economic recovery ahead of the global benchmark in December, according to the latest Lloyds Bank UK Recovery Tracker. The Tracker, compiled working with IHS Markit, provides unique insight into the shape and pace of the UK’s recovery following the huge disruption caused by Covid-19. The latest data was compiled between 4th and 21st December 2020, ahead of the introduction of tighter lockdown restrictions at the end of the month, which should impact January’s results in certain sectors such as hospitality and tourism.

Eight of the fourteen UK sectors monitored by the Tracker were ahead of the global index in December, up from six in November. Firms in the manufacturing industry, which posted a seven-month run of growth and helped slow falling UK GDP in November, were the biggest contributors to output growth in the final month of the year.

Source: Manufacturing and Engineering Magazine

Industrial Internet Consortium and The Smart Manufacturing Institute Announce Strategic Partnership

The Industrial Internet Consortium® (IIC™) and CESMII – The Smart Manufacturing Institute have agreed to a liaison to accelerate the development, adoption, and monetization of Industrial IoT (IIoT) technologies, infrastructure and solutions to deliver transformative business value for manufacturers through digital transformation. The adoption, at scale, of Smart Manufacturing (SM) will truly benefit from the strategic harmonization of reference architectures, testbeds, knowledge, and several key SM technologies, like the SM Innovation Platform, SM Profiles, and the SM Marketplace that these organizations bring to the table. This will help accelerate the democratization of Smart Manufacturing across all industries, including small and medium enterprises.

Source: Automation