ATLANTA—Adidas will be opening a factory in Atlanta in 2017 where shoes will be produced entirely by robots. In a press release, the company outlined how the factory, dubbed the Speedfactory, will allow the company to manufacture shoes faster while bringing production closer to U.S. consumers.
Our government could do a lot more to level the playing field for manufacturing. While the Reshoring Initiative does not support individual candidates, we do recommend policies that will bring manufacturing back from offshore, and we try to document candidate positions on these issues.
GUANGZHOU, China—Police have seized some 33,000 counterfeit automotive parts at a factory here. , Collectively worth $1 million, the parts were destined for Toyota’s assembly plant in Australia.
My first column talked about why manufacturing matters most for our country. This month, I want to discuss how chasing cheap prices is not only hollowing out domestic manufacturing but, in many cases, it’s making the companies that offshore less profitable. For decades, consultants and MBAs have told companies to focus on their core competencies—mostly R&D, finance and marketing—and outsource manufacturing offshore. Now, companies are discovering that strategy was often wrong.
NEW YORK—The United States sits just behind China in terms of manufacturing competitiveness in 2016, and is expected to overtake the country by 2020, according to a study by consulting firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.
It is too little and too late to keep writing “manufacturing matters.” Everything else in the economy is secondary to manufacturing, mining and farming. Only these activities build wealth.
GREENSBURG, IN—Honda Manufacturing of Indiana is investing $52 million and creating 100 jobs at its assembly plant here. The jobs and investment will support the production of the Honda CR-V, which the company announced in January would be moved to Indiana from Mexico.
BOSTON—More manufacturers are bringing production back to the U.S. in an effort to cut costs and move closer to customers, according to the latest figures from the Boston Consulting Group. Seventeen percent of manufacturers are moving operations back to the U.S., up from 13 percent in 2013.