MRO Today - Visions of the future

Squeaky wheels

by Tom Hammel, editor

The stories in this issue deal with product innovation, green technologies, tooling advancements, material handling safety and more. But an underlying theme has emerged, too, about how manufacturing will survive in this country in coming decades, and why it must.

If there is a silver lining in the residential housing debacle, it is that manufacturing has suddenly reasserted its presence, strength and viability as a buoy for our troubled national economy.

However, manufacturing must also reassert its need for help. Although manufacturing jobs have declined in America since the 1990s, that unfortunate trend shows signs of stabilizing. The mad (and foolish) rush to outsource is being supplanted by more sensible global sourcing partnerships which take advantage of cost efficiencies abroad to support manufacturing industries — and jobs — here at home. And legislators are finally awakening to the need to address failed trade policies that have rewarded the few while robbing the many of their livelihoods.

This “rediscovery” of manufacturing as the source of more than 10 percent of all jobs here in the United States — and more than 12 percent of the total U.S. GDP — has come as a surprising ray of hope to many.

And its footprint is even larger. U.S. manufacturing had gross output of $4.5 trillion in 2005, making it by far the most important sector of the U.S. economy in terms of output.

Additionally, the weak dollar makes U.S. exports more competitive on the world market — more good news for domestic manufacturers.

But all is hardly well on the plant floor. Recession threatens to derail manufacturing just when we need it most, healthcare costs are berserk, and a generation of skilled workers is nearing retirement with no replacements.

Help, in the form of solid legislative stimulus packages for manufacturing, not just band-aid rebate checks in the mail, must come now. If lubrication teaches us anything, it’s that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. We all need to get very squeaky right now.