WASHINGTON--The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported that the United States added 196,000 factory jobs in 2017, including 25,000 jobs in December. Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, says that factory jobs are growing at a faster rate than jobs in the overall economy.

WASHINGTON--New orders for manufactured goods fell 0.1 percent in October from the month before, according to a report from the Commerce Department on Monday, but that was better than the 0.4 percent decline expected in a consensus estimate from analysts. This latest performance followed an upwardly revised September hike of 1.7 percent.

For the past several years, the Reshoring Initiative has been helping manufacturers reshore production or keep existing work here through total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis. However, calculating TCO is only part of the overall competitiveness equation.

WASHINGTON--The U.S. manufacturing sector has weathered a bumpy road over the course of the past two decades, but successfully righting the country's industrial ship would mean an economic windfall of $530 billion, according to a new report from The McKinsey Global Institute.

Most challenges manufacturers face involve the assembly process of one or more of their products. Sometimes, though, a company struggles with where to locate its headquarters or build another plant for market expansion.

Additive manufacturing has become a buzzword in manufacturing today. It has improved tremendously over the past few decades, and it is evolving from a technology for simple prototyping to one that can be used to make actual parts and tooling.

Designing a new medical device is a bit more complicated than designing a toaster or an automotive cooling system. Besides the issues common to any product—feasibility, usability, and design for manufacture and assembly—there are also issues of biocompatibility, sterilization and FDA regulations to deal with.

New plastics and coatings are giving automotive engineers a wealth of options for interior design. These materials offer the promise of additional functionality beyond just decoration or passenger protection.

Mergers, acquisitions and partnerships are risky endeavors for managers, as well as workers. Sometimes these transactions favor one group over another, or end up being disastrous for both groups. Other times, however, the deal turns out great for everyone.