The United States Remains High In Manufacturing Superiority
Since its conception as a nation, the United States has been an innovation leader in developing and using manufacturing to lead the world through the industrial revolution. With people from all nationalities and talents forging forward to make a better life for themselves and future generations, they have worked to make the U.S. the world leader. They say necessity is the mother of all invention. We have seen the needs and developed manufacturing and technology to build a new nation into a powerhouse of manufacture and supply.
According to Wikipedia, the United States is the second largest manufacturer of goods in the world. With the advent of China joining the World Trade Organization, and the desire for cheap labor and low prices on the rise, manufacturing operations moved beyond our borders with China moving into the number 1 spot.
Manufacturing Leads In U.S. Industry
Practically everything we use today is manufactured. Go to any store and see thousands of available items that went through a manufacturing process. Whether handmade or machine processed, items begin as a concept, and based on whatever engineering process used, are developed beyond the imagination. Natural resources are then used to create an end product. Incredible amounts of calculations have to be performed to develop the instruments and create the machinery to simplify the actual manufacturing process. Telstar Instruments is an example of a company combining technology, instruments, measurements, and implementation of strategies to increase and improve the manufacturing processes.
Take a plastic bowl as an example. A concept or idea was formed to determine the material, size, and shape of the bowl. Precise measurements were used by an engineer to take the concept and develop a prototype. In today’s manufacturing process, crude oil had to be converted to a liquid plastic. A machine was created to inject the hot liquid plastic into a metal model to create the plastic into the form of the bowl. A method to quickly cool the plastic and remove the bowl had to be determined. The process then repeats numerous times to produce the quantity desired. Of course, this is a simplified process requiring complex calculations to produce the machinery, create the plastic, color the plastic, create the original mold, to develop instruments, and to complete the process from the beginning to the end-manufactured product, a simple bowl.
Another example is a computer motherboard. Motherboards are essentially a combination of plastic and conductive metal engineered in very specific patterns and organizations to cause the computer to function to expectations. Computers are the product of many innovations combined over the years. They utilize a number of manufactured products working ingeniously together. Components are designed to work with other components and to integrate new components not yet even past the idea stage. Computers are a great example of the complexity of the development of instruments used to create many products and innovations, to manufacture an individual product consisting of other manufactured product components.
Technology, Financial Markets, Real Estate, and Professional Industries
With the advent of computers and the internet linking the world together in a massive global market, the technology and computer industry grew in leaps and bounds. Financial markets, real estate, and professional industries have seen remarkable growth. Manufacturing growth and employment has fallen in comparison to the expansion of these industries. Is it any wonder? If not for the efficiencies and improvements of manufacturing processes, these other industries would not enjoy the simplifications to grow, or even exist. The reason almost every home and business enjoys inexpensive computer networks is because the manufacturing process has developed to such a point to allow these industries to enjoy increasing benefits.
Return Of Manufacturing Growth To The U.S.
Previously, manufacturing facilities relocated to China and elsewhere because of reduced labor costs. Today that trend is reversing. With increased efficiencies at home, labor costs rising abroad, transportation costs increasing, and taking longer to deliver with added tariffs, it is becoming more desirable to manufacturer products in the United States. Add in Americans’ desire to purchase products made in the USA, and soon expectations are that the U.S. will again be the number 1 manufacturer in the world.
