Eight years of employment growth brings the future of California manufacturing into focus. California manufacturers are writing the next chapter in a storied century that’s already, in 20 short years, been a blockbuster tale of bust to boom to high anxiety. Consider a recent report that documents “that since 2001, when China joined the World […]
The answer is no, the party’s not over. But as we begin the decade, I think factors have aligned to create some stiff barriers. Manufacturing will have to work harder for its gains. Here’s why 2020 is shaping up to be a tough year: A trade deal will still leave manufacturing investment lacking Last week’s […]
As CompanyWeek Editor Eric Peterson recaps some of the standout manufacturing companies featured in 2019, it’s also a good time to look forward. Much has been made recently about U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) employment data. We summarized Colorado’s numbers here. What to make of California’s 2018 and 2019 data, but more importantly, the […]
As we look back this week at a great 2019, it’s also time to forecast the storylines shaping 2020 manufacturing in Colorado and the region. 1. Food’s undersized brand gets a lift Before publishing last week’s manufacturing employment report, I asked a handful of respected manufacturing executives and development officials to name Colorado’s largest manufacturing […]
Conventional wisdom holds that manufacturing’s recent job surge is an aberration, that automation and robotics, combined with cost savings from offshore production, will diminish the need for U.S. workers and the importance of manufacturing at the same time. It’s not a trivial conclusion. Jobs matter. People starting a career or business, or developing a city […]
There was a time when American manufacturing’s most effective promotion was products Made in the U.S.A. Today, products designed in the U.S. but made offshore tend to capture the imagination of consumers. “I design it, you build it” is still a rule of thumb for industrial designers, and the build is often “over the wall” […]
A reader in California took us to task last week for “promoting” O’Neal USA, a sports apparel company we featured in CompanyWeek. A legend in the powersports market, Jim O’Neal’s jerseys are a motocross staple. He also moved apparel manufacturing offshore, a reality not lost on our reader. Instead, the reader said, “highlight and promote […]
1. Is manufacturing dead or a leading indicator for the economy? Whenever the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) from the Institute for Supply Management lands under 50, as it did last week, manufacturing naysayers proclaim the sector irrelevant or worse. This time around pundits are struggling to explain how manufacturing also seems to be a bellwether […]
Ten years ago, Coors’ stunning cut-and-run from Denver would have been analogous to Microsoft leaving Redmond, Apple leaving Silicon Valley, or Ford leaving Detroit. We’d have been left at a loss for words. Today, things are different. Today, the move is no more than a final capitulation to a regional craft brewing industry that’s buried […]
Last month I acknowledged I’d been overly optimistic about the outdoor industry’s appetite to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. Just days later, Utah-based Black Diamond stunned employees by announcing 70 layoffs as part of plans to move manufacturing back offshore, reversing a decision made in 2015 to reshore manufacturing to Utah. Bad timing. As […]