Entries by Bart Taylor

Why Utah and Colorado are collaborating to accelerate defense-industry diversification

Two regional developments promise to infuse much-needed expertise into the manufacturing supply chain. This week we report on the Mountain West Advanced Manufacturing Network. Next week, we’ll review Colorado State University’s National Science Foundation grant to study supply-chain dynamics in emerging clusters of small manufacturers. For the first time, higher education and industry from Utah […]

2017 Colorado Manufacturing Awards winners showcase innovation, teamwork

The 2017 Colorado Manufacturing Awards celebrated innovation in manufacturing at The ART, a hotel, on April 13. Out of 30 deserving finalists across 10 categories, awards went to 10 winners for work in advancing the industry. Emcee and CompanyWeek Publisher Bart Taylor called Colorado “a model for national manufacturing.” Noted Taylor to the event’s 240 […]

Made in China 2025: Menace or model for U.S. industry?

American voices have been quick to denounce China’s ambitious Made in China 2025 manifesto, but would manufacturers here benefit from a national manufacturing strategy? Made in China 2025 is a sweeping plan designed to transform the nation’s sector from the global epicenter of low-tech manufacturing to a self-sufficient, high-tech behemoth, where Chinese computer chips, aircraft, […]

Why the U.S. is now winning the fight to keep manufacturing jobs onshore

New research from the Reshoring Initiative confirms what many have been speculating: Rising costs for overseas labor and services and important brand considerations are now compelling U.S. companies to reshore jobs or create new jobs domestically. From the new report: “In 2014 and 2015 parity was reached between offshoring and returning jobs, indicating that the […]

Industry’s big shots must go small to rehabilitate manufacturing’s brand

How important is it to rehabilitate manufacturing’s brand? Last fall, I wrote that manufacturing had a media-fueled PR problem, but that grassroots growth in super-charged industries like food and beverage would overtake the dated, national narrative. Manufacturing is cool again, especially in its innovative early-and-middle stage companies, and for a sector searching for talent, an […]

Moving Outdoor Retailer out of Utah carries risk for OIA

If Utah’s political leadership was under the impression that any short-term damage relating to its opposition to Bears Ears National Monument would fade away, Amy Roberts, executive director of Boulder-based Outdoor Industry Association, put that notion to rest last week. In a memo to OIA stakeholders, Roberts said OIA would move Outdoor Retailer from its […]

Is manufacturing great again? Don’t ask. We stopped counting.

Media coverage of manufacturing has become Groundhog Day, a series of recurring headlines and stories as unpleasant for manufacturers as it was for Phil Connors, the Bill Murray character who relived the film’s titular holiday again and again until he got it right. It’s a relentless loop of bad press that in one week last […]

Colorado’s Top 5 manufacturing communities, redux

In June 2015, having profiled over 300 Colorado manufacturing and supply-chain companies, we ranked the state’s Top 5 manufacturing communities. Today, 700 companies in, and armed with a regional perspective, here’s our 2017 ranking. Our criteria: a growing, compelling industry or cluster of maker industries, supported by purposeful public/private efforts to build a robust manufacturing […]