After previewing the finalists for Technology Manufacturing and Industrial & Equipment Manufacturing at the upcoming 2023 Colorado Manufacturing Awards, the spotlight is on the contenders for trophies in the Consumer Product Manufacturing and Craft Food & Beverage Manufacturing categories.

Consumer Product Manufacturer of the Year

Buena Vista’s Fading West is modeling growth by meeting the acute need for affordable housing, and as more and more pre-manufactured homes leave its mountain factory, people benefit and great things happen — as they also do at Denver’s mission-driven Mile High WorkShop, a second-chance employment engine that puts light assembly and manufacturing work at the center of people’s lives in support of needy OEMs and brands.

Golden’s Supertramp Campers is doing overland campers right, crafting innovative and eye-opening composite shells — light, strong, and clearly the future. Pueblo’s Boreas Campers is a worthy adversary, fattening up this fast-growth outdoor industry category for CMA judges to sort out.

One of Colorado’s most iconic consumer brands, Denver’s Topo Designs has aptly navigated obstacles that litter the path for gear and apparel brands, and more growth beckons. Another Denver standout, HookFish Manufacturing continues to fill the acute need many apparel brands have for regional contract manufacturing. Louisville’s Quicksilver Scientific just doesn’t seem to slow down, tapping the global boom in health and beauty commerce.

Craft Food & Beverage Manufacturer of the Year

Boulder’s Claremont Foods is a leader among a superlative batch of co-manufacturers that continue to catalyze growth for Colorado’s signature industry. Denver’s Polidori Sausage builds on incredible products and deep ties to the community to sustain success. Boulder denizen Sanitas Brewing Company is widening its community gaze with a key expansion into Englewood.

In Bailey, Aspen Peak Cellars‘ wines are recent Governor’s Cup winners, but the story only starts with wine. Durango’s upstart Farm to Summit is perfecting “gourmet dehydrated meals sustainably.” And Colorado’s cornucopia of food and beverage brands couldn’t go to market without key partners in the supply chain like Colorado Springs-based Packaging Express.

Look for more coverage of the 2023 Colorado Manufacturing Awards finalists in the next CO Mfg. Report.

Join us on the afternoon of Thursday May 11 for the CMA Gala & Winners Reveal to celebrate one of America’s most compelling manufacturing outposts.

America’s defense supply chain is at a crossroads. On one hand, business is booming for defense contractors. On the other, U.S. manufacturing is straining to meet current demands in a trillion-dollar industry that’s certain to ask more and more from domestic suppliers.

We’re on the cusp of a new golden age of advanced manufacturing — or at a breaking point.

Perhaps no person is more qualified to parse the possible outcomes than retired Air Force General Chris Hill. In his “last job with the government”, Hill was commander of the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex, the largest repair station in the Department of Defense (DoD) and United States Air Force, managing a multi-million dollar budget to procure parts and services in support of four DoD product groups: aircraft, aircraft components, and aircraft and weapons systems software — in addition to being the only Air Force depot that repaired engines within the “organic defense industrial base.”

What Hill experienced was eye-opening. “The scope of the challenge in that job, specifically with material availability in engines alone in the 2019 to 2020 period, was about a $200 million impact to production — because we couldn’t get parts,” he explains. “The hardest jobs fell to supply chain leaders.”

Cue the breaking-point narrative.

“When I think about the biggest challenge in the Department of Defense,” Hill continues, “I think about the Defense Logistics Agency. And I think about what they face as a challenge in getting their mission done, which is essentially providing supplies, everything from construction materials to machine parts to uniforms and food. In the last 10 years, they’ve seen a 40 percent decline in the number of small and medium-sized businesses that are participating in their marketplace. And they see a churn in their domestic supplier base of about 25 percent a year in small and medium-sized businesses. And that is a significant concern for them.”

Hill has crossed the street to work on the challenge — to the private sector. Today he’s president and general manager/Federal and Defense, for Sustainment, the upstart technology and software platform efforting to optimize the manufacturing supply chain around the needs of small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs) — including the ecosystem of suppliers and contractors directly supporting America’s defense industrial base.

Why stay in the game? “I think there’s a compelling, urgent national need to get more small and medium-sized businesses into the marketplace,” answers Hill.

The need — and challenge — is real. America’s manufacturing supply chain is a small business ecosystem. SMMs constitute 98.9 percent of manufacturers and employ 70.3 percent of manufacturing employees in the U.S. In 2022, small businesses were awarded about 25 percent of all DoD prime contracts.

But when it once was a given that small manufacturers were a renewable resource, years of offshoring and devaluing of the American industry have diminished the community of companies stepping up and into industry supply chains. Moreover, the rules have changed for SMMs, and the perception among SMMs is that defense business is hard — hard to land, hard to sustain, hard to tool up to meet technical thresholds and process requirements.

For SMMs, it’s a maddening paradox. As much as the DoD needs SMMs, and is legislatively required to hire them, the system seems rigged for larger companies able to initiate and support DoD work.

The dissonance for SMMs was evident to Hill. “I have to say straight up that doing business with the government is not easy. I mean, it’s administratively cumbersome. The workforce is organized in a way that isn’t always a mirror to industry. And the nomenclature, the lexicon, the language are confusing. I found since retiring that the government and commercial industry used the same words to describe different things and different words to describe the same things. And that lends itself to be confusing. I think that also contributes to why it’s hard to do business with the government today.”

But Hill’s appreciation for small business runs deep, shaped by his experience in hiring, retaining, and managing SMMs.

“Since I retired [from the military], I worked for a $37 million dollar manufacturer, and I worked for a $37 billion dollar manufacturer,” he recounts. “I saw a $37 million dollar company compete head-to-head with Tier Two OEMs. And they did great. As a matter of fact, they could do things that those OEMs couldn’t do, because they were agile, hungry, and didn’t have to cover broad G&A costs of a larger firm. Most importantly, they delivered on their promises — quality products, on time. So, effectively, competition priced the small and medium-sized business into the market.”

“I also think there’s a gap between what’s available on the market and what’s presented to the DoD. I mean, I was at a small manufacturer in December with the Assistant Secretary of Defense [Deborah[ Rosenblum, who leads industrial base policy for the Department of Defense. And she came to visit this vendor, specifically, because they were a small sized manufacturer, and they provide a capability that’s one-of-a-kind in the nation. And she came by to see what was happening, what they were doing, and all the different products that they made. And to say ‘thank you’ for participating in this market. We need to work harder to uncover this type of capability.”

Hill’s messaging to SMMs? “I would suggest that the nation’s national defense is worth their time. We’re working to generate interest and connect a capability and capacity in a marketplace with opportunities. That’s why I joined the Sustainment team. I think that this company is doing a lot to get after it.”

In part two, we’ll talk with Chris Hill about specific opportunities and how SMMs can more effectively engage the DoD ecosystem.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Email him at btaylor@companyweek.com.

I’ve argued, along with Harry Moser and others, for a new industrial policy that picks U.S. manufacturing “to win.” As contrarian a view this was a decade ago, there’s consensus today that we should do just that.

The list of desired outcomes reads like an economic manifesto:

• Protecting key domestic manufacturing industries and nurturing new or reimagined sectors — like semiconductors

• Providing incentives to localize manufacturing supply chains from offshore outposts, via new investments in domestic supply chains, or both

• Accelerating the pace of automation in small manufacturers to overcome workforce shortages but more, to improve their global competitiveness

• Aligning underutilized economic zones — including rural economies — with high-potential manufacturing opportunities

There’s more, but the big takeaway is that “free trade” is dead. The staggering loss of middle-class jobs, the transfer of wealth and expertise and infrastructure to offshore outposts, today underscores the hard lesson that nothing was free about free trade. Time to complete the policy scaffolding to protect and subsidize U.S. manufacturing.

Here are suggestions to update the protectionist playbook in light of recent events:

> Work to roll back the value of the dollar

As tariffs or BATs (border adjusted tax) are used to level the domestic playing field, we should also work to improve the competitiveness of U.S. companies manufacturing at offshore locations in support of local consumers. America’s stalwart dollar is a problem. As the Wall Street Journal‘s Bob Tita notes, “For U.S. manufacturers operating overseas factories, their sales in foreign currencies are worth less in dollars now because of the unfavorable exchange rates caused by the strengthening dollar.”

The fix is straightforward: jettison “market-based” thinking and intervene to manage the value of the dollar. Robert Blecker of the Economic Policy Institute outlines the path forward: “The dollar has not fallen compared to the currencies of the developing nations that now account for more than half of the U.S. trade deficit. Some of these nations, especially China, maintain fixed exchange rates and intervene heavily to prevent the type of market-driven adjustment that is now occurring between the dollar and the euro. As a result, relying on financial markets to bring the dollar down is not enough. More active management of the dollar’s decline including cooperation with major U.S. trading partners and action to end foreign manipulation of currency value is vital to ensure that the dollar falls in a comprehensive and sustainable fashion.”

> Focus grants and loan programs on uptooling small manufacturers

Economic development can be a miasma of local and regional assistance for business that lacks focus or operates at cross-purposes. Whatever the case, well intentioned efforts often fall flat.

There should be no confusion today about what U.S. manufacturers need from development funding: targeted manufacturing-related grants, awards, and loan programs that facilitate automation and tech-fueled upgrades. Full stop. Uptooling U.S. manufacturers today achieves a rare trifecta of outcomes: improved processes that result in better products, relief from a tight labor market, but also workforce development, as technology attracts a new generation of employees.

> Tap in to manufacturing’s nerd appeal

As the “tech wreck” leaves STEM grads uncertain about a career in tech, manufacturing is today poised to fill the career void for this wave of nerdy talent. The timing couldn’t be better. Investments in technology provide manufacturers with a calling card for talent that’s long eluded them.

But the latest wave of technology layoffs this fall has been met by a tepid response from manufacturing brands and associations who otherwise should be coordinating a full-blown recruiting campaign to attract this generation of STEM talent.

At its core, the dissonance between what should be done and what is being done can be chalked up to what Glenn Plagens, CEO of Colorado MEP Manufacturer’s Edge, called the need for “community players coming together again to determine what the next steps are.” In other words, the ongoing challenge of developing a more connected manufacturing community.

Nevertheless, developments today are trending toward alignment. If a concerted national campaign that emanates from Washington D.C. is a bridge too far, coordinated local efforts that highlight manufacturing’s tech stars is an important next step.

It’s a straightforward tactic that, in addition to the others, will work to protect U.S. manufacturing at this important time.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Email him at btaylor@companyweek.com.

Machinists, fabricators, and brokers fueling a manufacturing boom along Colorado’s Front Range gathered in Denver last week wasted no time getting to the topic du jour — workforce development. Speakers at the 2022 Rocky Mountain Machining & Tooling Association (RMTMA) Fall Conference parsed workforce topics throughout the day, from retention to recruitment to change management, in response to the sector’s acute workforce need.

But a dearth of employees did little to dampen good feelings here about prospects for growth and new work. Demand for U.S.-manufactured products is strong — generationally strong. A decade or so removed from an historic crash, U.S. brands and contractors have refocused on domestic manufacturing. Domestic supply chains are in. Outsourcing is out.

For suppliers here, it means that as prospects for growth are high even as most pursue opportunity with one hand tied behind their back. Focused on Machining‘s Justin Quinn, the outgoing RMTMA chapter president, summed it up: “It’s easier to find a customer than a good employee.”

Angela Rose’s summary this week of challenges, opportunities, and needs of the manufacturers we’ve profiled so far in 2022, bears out the challenge of pursuing new business that’s there for the taking. Managing growth is the third-most cited challenge behind manufacturing’s two steady and pervasive headaches: supply chain and workforce.

Still, the need for human capital is this time framed against a backdrop of opportunity for domestic machine shops and OEMs that’s fundamentally different from anything we’ve seen.

I sum up this generational opportunity in three macro-trends powering a new golden age of domestic manufacturing:

1. Offshore supply chains are irrevocably broken. Among the factors: We’re decoupling with China. It may happen over time. It may happen overnight.

2. With business leaders joining the “Made in America” consumer movement, there’s enthusiasm economy-wide for U.S.-made products. Domestic production options are more competitive as companies see brand value in manufacturing here.

3. We’re nearer to solving the workforce problem than we think. Automation and technology are set to catalyze manufacturing employment, not diminish it.

We’ll report on all the above in future editions, but today nothing is more important than funding a new wave of technology and automation in manufacturing. Outcomes would work at once to improve processes and products that would keep more work in the U.S., but also work to attract a new generation of STEM employees.

Eric Peterson’s report this week on automation and the manufacturing workforce alludes to the possibilities, including this from Summit Peak Manufacturing CEO Ken Curry in Murray, Utah:

“As we grow this business, we don’t want to just grow it by employees,” he says. “We want to grow by automation, by use of robots, and different things we’re interested in doing.”

That makes for different prerequisite skill sets, and a pair of employees in their twenties are up to the task. “They’re really adaptable to automation,” says Curry. “A lot of the challenge is to keep them challenged. That’s a big thing for us: We want to give them opportunities to be challenged.”

Imagine manufacturers competing for engineering and technical talent graduating from the university system. It would fuel exponential employment growth in the sector, through a generation of new companies. We’re nearing that point.

How to accelerate the momentum? For starters, it’s crucial to align the vast ecosystem of money — grants, opportunity funds, and the like — toward helping small manufacturers automate.

And quickly: The Hill recently quoted Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, who “noted that over the past decade, the number of small businesses in the defense industrial base shrank by over 40 percent. ‘The data shows that if we continue along the same trend, we could lose an additional 15,000 suppliers over the next 10 years.'”

Tooling up small manufacturers is a vital step to stop the slide.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Reach him at btaylor@companyweek.com.