Supply Chain Management Review (April 27)
“Global manufacturing and supply chains were severely disrupted by the COVID-19 global pandemic, forcing companies to adapt and plan for a new business reality.” This year, however, the industry “is already quickly rebounding with investments in digital transformation aimed at improving speed, resilience and sustainability. While areas of concern persist, most report that lessons from the pandemic have paved the way for new innovations.”
Tags: Adapt, COVID-19, Disrupted, DX, Investments, Manufacturing, Pandemic, Rebounding, Resilience, Speed, Supply chains, Sustainability
Reuters (April 1)
“Global equity markets surged on Thursday, with U.S. and European benchmark indexes hitting record highs, as the strongest manufacturing data around the world in decades and a drop in bond yields drove investor optimism.” Support is strong with “multiple tailwinds— stimulus, expectations of record earnings, vaccines—driving stocks higher.”
Tags: Benchmark, Bond yields, Earnings, Equity, Europe, Global, Indexes, Investor, Manufacturing, Markets, Optimism, Stimulus, Surged, Tailwinds, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (May 15)
“It is always hard anticipating successful drugs, but those wagering on coronavirus treatments face unique challenges. Some of the most innovative and promising approaches are wholly unproven. Companies are competing with foreign nations and not-for-profit organizations determined to achieve their own breakthroughs. Successful drugs or vaccines may run into pricing, manufacturing and distribution difficulties.” Issues like these explain why “big investors aren’t betting it all on a coronavirus cure.”
Tags: Breakthroughs, Challenges, Coronavirus, Distribution, Drugs, Innovative, Manufacturing, NPOs, Pricing, Unproven, Vaccines
Chicago Tribune (December 17)
“Chicago-based Boeing said Monday that it will suspend production of the Max starting sometime in January.” The 737 Max is the largest U.S. export product. “Shares of major manufacturers that supply Chicago-based Boeing with critical elements of the 737 Max fell Tuesday” and the “ramifications are likely to ripple beyond the factory floor and across both the aviation and manufacturing sectors. The decision could affect the country’s trade balance.”
Tags: Aviation, Boeing, Chicago, Export, Manufacturers, Manufacturing, Production 737 Max, Ripple, Shares, Suspend, Trade balance, U.S.
Barron’s (October 1)
“The thing to worry about in global bond markets isn’t what the Bank of Japan is doing, but what’s happening to U.S. manufacturing.”
Tags: Bank of Japan, Bond markets, Global, Manufacturing, U.S., Worry
Boston Globe (September 8)
“President Trump’s trade war with China isn’t just about how much the next pair of running shoes will cost American consumers…. Its impact is spreading like a virus to all segments of the US economy, affecting the manufacturing supply chain, with the potential to whack consumer confidence.”
Tags: China, Consumers, Economy, Manufacturing, Supply chain, Trade war, Trump, U.S., Virus
Financial Times (September 4)
“The US manufacturing sector has contracted for the first time in three years as the US-China trade war weighted on the industrial economy and added to fears over slowing domestic growth.” While one quarters manufacturing results do not necessarily lead to a US recession, “the details of yesterday’s ISM report were ugly, with new orders, production and employment sub-indices all contracting.”
Tags: China, Contracted, Fears, Growth, Industrial economy, ISM, Manufacturing, Orders, Recession, Slowing, Trade war, US
Inc (May Issue)
“The world’s most ubiquitous manmade material is also one of the atmosphere’s arch foes: Between 4 and 7 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions come from cement production.” This may be changing. A “new cement-making process that subs out some of the traditionally used limestone for a synthetic version of the mineral wollastonite” cuts emissions by approximately 70%. Moreover, “Solidia’s manufacturing process can be done in existing facilities and costs about the same as–and, perhaps soon enough, less than–traditional cement-making methods.”
Tags: Atmosphere, Cement, Costs, Emissions, GHGs, Limestone, Manufacturing, Solidia, Synthetic, Wollastonite
The Economist (February 9)
Foxconn is scaling back its plans to build a giant plant in Wisconsin. “At first glance, the Foxconn reversal confirms that American manufacturing is in trouble.” Other “recent wobbles” have included a Tennessee plant closing by Electrolux and Caterpillar’s disappointing results. “A closer look, however, suggests manufacturing is undergoing a revival, especially among agile smaller firms and those using advanced techniques.”
Tags: Caterpillar, Disappointing, Electrolux, Foxconn, Manufacturing, Plant, Revival, Tennessee, U.S., Wisconsin
CNN (January 3)
“Evidence is mounting that the US-China trade war is dealing a blow to the American stock market. Stocks plunged on Thursday after Apple (AAPL) blamed a big sales miss on slowing growth in China and rising trade tensions. China’s massive manufacturing sector… has tumbled into contraction. And trade trouble helped fuel the biggest one-month decline in US factory activity since the Great Recession.”
Tags: Apple, China, Contraction, Decline, Evidence, Great Recession, Growth, Manufacturing, Plunged, Stock market, Tensions, Trade war, U.S.
