Waupaca Foundry | PartingLINE

SkyWater Technology announced plans Wednesday to build a $1.8 million semiconductor manufacturing and research center adjacent to Purdue University's main campus that's expected to create 750 new jobs within five years of its opening.

All eyes are focused on the situation unfolding between Russia and Ukraine. And this is particularly true when it comes to the supply chain and logistics industries.

The supply chain and logistics sectors have already dealt with numerous hurdles over the last 24 months. The unfortunate events in Ukraine are compounding the disruptions. With 200 million tons of transit potential, Ukraine is a central cog in the global supply chain.

In this April 6, 2021 photo, crew members stand on the bow as the CMA CGM Argentina arrives at PortMiami, the largest container ship to call at a Florida port in Miami. Importers are contending with a perfect storm of supply trouble — rising prices, overwhelmed ports, a shortage of ships, trains, trucks — that is expected to last into 2022.

Lumber futures tanked more than 40% in June alone, suffering their worst month on record dating back to 1978.

The top U.S. maritime regulator said stretched global supply chains pushing ocean-freight rates to record highs may stay strained into 2022. The supply snarls are colliding with a surge in demand for goods as the world’s largest economy heads for peak shipping season — July and August, when retailers build inventories heading into the year-end holidays.

The number of U.S. manufacturing jobs created by reshoring activities and foreign direct investment increased in 2020 – hitting a total of 160,649 – according to the Reshoring Initiative’s 2020 Data Report.

Of this total, 109,000 jobs were directly related to bringing offshoring production to the U.S. It’s the first time reshoring outpaced FDI in seven years. 2020’s activity brings the total number of reshoring and FDI job announcements to over 1 million since 2010.

Apologies for all the semiconductor news. But it’s the topic of the day, with the United States Senate recently approving $52 billion in emergency spending to help bolster domestic chip production and another $190 billion for R&D programs.

Grow Southwest Indiana Workforce Board, Inc. has partnered with Perry Central Commodore Manufacturing and Waupaca Foundry to develop an Industrial Manufacturing Technician Registered Apprenticeship Program.  Apprentices will receive a U.S. DOL approved nationally recognized portable credential at the completion of the 4-year program.

Pundits love to use the term Industry 4.0 to describe the future of manufacturing. But what does the term really mean, and how will the tenets of Industry 4.0 impact day-to-day manufacturing operations?

Industry 4.0 stands for “the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” explains an April 5, 2016 Forbes magazine article.

Spending on services in April was still 3% below February 2020 while spending on goods was 18.2% higher. Aside from the tight driver market, this surge in spending on goods is the most important factor in why trucking is so strong today.

ResearchAndMarkets.com published a new article on the manufacturing industry "Industrial Machinery Manufacturing Could See Lasting Changes due to COVID-19"

The manufacturing industry has been severely impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak and industrial machinery manufacturers are no exception. Many have seen huge disruption to their supply chain and manufacturing operations and many of their customers' operations are facing similar difficulties.