Entries by Bart Taylor

OEMs, brands, contract manufacturers: Connect with local and regional companies to source and supply

We’re inviting OEMs, brands, contract manufacturers, and key suppliers to communicate production and product updates in light of coronavirus-related disruptions. There is no fee for a 250-word submission with photography. All submissions will become part of CompanyWeek’s new searchable supply chain directory — SCoP. Use this form to create a directly listing, post to the […]

We’re expanding the Supplier Bulletin: Get involved with SCoP, manufacturing’s new Supply Chain Portal

Two powerful forces are reshaping U.S. manufacturing in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis: Broad support, finally, to fortify U.S. industrial supply chains to reduce the vulnerability of offshore disruptions, but more, to ensure investments in people, equipment, and technology are made in U.S. communities. A seismic shift in the way companies do business. In-person […]

Why supply-chain matchmaking is a crucial next step, and how to accomplish it

As gratifying it is to watch the country rally around manufacturing, new laws that would incent companies to reshore jobs, or require companies to source domestically, will run headlong into issues that force companies offshore in the first place, including the most obvious: an inability to find qualified, cost-effective suppliers in the U.S. It’s why […]

Sent packing by the PPP

My Payroll Protection Program (PPP) experience was over before it started. On the evening before the April 3 opening of the program, I’d gathered information for the application and documented payroll expenses per the language in the CARES Act, that stated: “Payroll costs include the total amount of any compensation to (1) employees in the […]

Fool me twice: Why COVID is the wakeup call that tariffs weren’t

In August of last year, as tariffs were buffeting U.S brands, I wrote, “There may never be a better opportunity to rally the nation around a moonshot-like goal to reconstruct our manufacturing commons, our national means of production.” I was wrong. COVID-19 is even a more compelling reason. For years, consumer spending has powered the […]

How Colorado manufacturers are managing pandemic-related disruptions

I reached out to several manufacturers last week to ask about COVID-19-related disruptions and assess — to the extent we can at this early stage — any long-term effects on operations or supply chains that support regional manufacturing. Companies managing global operations have been dealing with COVID-19 fallout for many weeks. A redundant or diverse […]

Coronavirus brings an end to unconditional globalization. Here’s how to compete for manufacturing jobs moving out of Asia.

As the human tragedy of the novel coronavirus unfolds here, the impact on China compounds for the worse, in loss of life and now in the increasingly dire consequences for its mighty manufacturing base. If tariffs forced U.S. companies to look harder at manufacturing in China, coronavirus will only accelerate the exit of American brands. […]

The ruinous result of shuttering small businesses

To label any business “nonessential” has always been a non-starter. It’s anything but to founders, employees, and customers, and to suggest there’s any daylight between working and living for stakeholders in America’s vast engine of small businesses is naive at best. It was only fitting that in Colorado, nonessential beer and cannabis forced a reversal […]

Here’s the first wave of CMA finalists

The Colorado Manufacturing Awards reach a milestone in 2020 — five years of celebrating companies and people reimagining manufacturing in this most unlikely industrial outpost. Surprising or not, Colorado’s sector is today a national model of diversity and innovation, and the 40+ companies and people selected from a record number of nominations represent the best-ever […]

Here’s the second wave of finalists for the 2020 Colorado Manufacturing Awards

As Denver flashed its diversified manufacturing economy in the first wave of CMA finalists announced last week, a Colorado Springs-based contingent emerges in this second group of industry finalists, even as Northern Colorado continues to make its case as the the most growth-oriented manufacturing community in Colorado. Colorado Springs’ Titan Robotics and Montrose’s Mayfly Outdoors […]