Take the fl at-screen TV. In the 1950s, General Electric came up with the original engineering proposal for the idea, which stemmed from its manufacturing work in another area. GE was exploring how to convey radar information to an airplane; its plan consisted of miniature components and closely spaced wire grids that would reproduce a transmitted image in a picture frame. Any number of life-improving technologies originated in ways such as this, and today, that is a reason for concern. “The loss of manufacturing competencies should deeply worry Americans,” Pisano and Shih wrote. “The United
Manufacturing matters: If it can’t be made, it’s just an idea.
States has been losing its competitive advantage in those sectors and technologies that it needs to drive growth in the twenty-fi rst century.” Their book implored US leaders to “abandon the grand experiment in de-industrialization before it’s too late.”
The US is an Importer of Manufacturing Technology Just a few decades ago, the US was a leader in manufac- turing technologies. But today, a sobering number of manu- facturing technologies come from other countries, usually Germany, Japan, China, Italy, South Korea and Switzerland. This unhealthy trend was summarized in an October 2014
report from The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), an esteemed group that includes thought leaders such as Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Google Inc. “US strengths in manufacturing innovation and technologies that have sustained American leadership... are under threat from new and growing competition abroad,” it wrote. Ed Morris, the Director of America Makes, also known as the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, was more blunt. His NNMI manufacturing hub is focused on 3D print- ing technologies, and although that technology
20 40 60
In 1991,
-120 -100 -80 -60 -40 -20 0
+$38 billion Advanced Technology Products
In 2014, -$86 billion
1989 1994
arguably originated in the US in the 1980s—Colorado native Chuck Hull is widely regarded as its inventor—it is now seri- ously debatable whether the US or Europe is regarded as the current leader in this technology, and China is investing aggressively in it. “We’ve forfeited our manufacturing strengths,” Morris said, “and it is imperative to recapture. … We’re playing catch-up.” Consider this: In 2014, the US imported $11.4 billion in metalworking machine tools, which are used to craft everything from planes and tanks to medical devices, ac- cording to international trade data from the U.S. Census
Bureau. At the same time, the US exported just $7.5 billion, a decrease of about $189 million from the prior year. That’s largely because America has just a handful of major machine tool makers left—such as Haas Automation Inc.; Gleason Corp.; Hardinge Inc.; and Hurco Companies Inc., among a few others—after a large number went out of business or were reorganized during the last century. Machine tools are just one area of manufacturing tech-
nology. In all, the US trade defi cit for “advanced technology products,” a category that includes robots, semiconductors and more, has been in decline since the late 1990s, when the US enjoyed a trade surplus. By 2014, the US trade defi cit in this category was $86 billion. The challenge in industrial robotics is particularly striking because this technology plays an increasingly important role
The United States Has Gone From a Trade Surplus to a Trade Defi cit in Advanced Technology Products
In 2001, +$4 billion
1999
2004
2009
Source: United States Census Bureau, Trade in Goods with Advance Products, February 2015. Note: Advanced technology products include robots, semiconductors, laser printers, and other sophisticated electronic goods.
2014
June 2015 |
AdvancedManufacturing.org 7
Trade Balance (Billions)
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