10 Signs Your ERP is Killing Your Business

Most manufacturers look to their enterprise resources planning (ERP) system to enhance the organization’s overall performance. In many cases, the original drivers that led to an ERP selection were to streamline and simplify business processes for a sustainable competitive advantage. So why do so many ERP systems fall short of these goals? In case after case, implementations miss the mark, and instead of delivering promised cost reductions, business agility and performance improvements, ERP systems create complexity, duplication of effort, and in the worst cases, poor quality and customer service and a dangerous lack of visibility into the business. More

Factory Production Rises in October

Industrial production grew in October, after September produced the worst dropoff in factory output in 62 years, according to a report released Monday by the Federal Reserve. Industrial production grew a seasonally adjusted 1.3 percent from the previous month, surpassing the economists' consensus estimate of a 0.2 percent increase, according to Briefing.com. It was the largest monthly increase in factory output since October 1999. More

Why Michagan Offshore Wind Farms Are Inevitable

The answer: it's all about global energy economics and windmill physics. It's simply a matter of time before offshore windmills appear in Michigan: our appetite for energy is too big, and our off shore wind resource is just too huge to ignore. More

Shop Rat Foundation Endorses SME Youth Programs

The Shop Rat Foundation, Pleasant Lake, Mich., an organization dedicated to the advancement of the skilled trades industries offering hands-on skilled trade education to young people, has endorsed successful national youth programs offered by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Education Foundation. The broader educational goal of these industry collaborations is to address the need for a skilled workforce by offering a full-range of technology-based curriculum designed to appeal to young people and increasing their career potential. Initial plans are to introduce new curriculum at youth-based engineering programs offered by the SME Education Foundation. More

Honda’s Assisted Walking Tech Includes Motor, Gears, Onboard Computer

Offering up a completely different take on cutting-edge technology contributing to the advancement of human mobility assistance, Japanese car manufacturing titan Honda has revealed a wearable solution that users ride while walking. Appearing much like a bicycle seat standing atop a futuristic pair of oddly angled mechanical legs, the experimental assisted-walking gadget attaches to the user’s shoes and provides support through the seat for both body weight and joint stress reduction. Unveiled this past Friday, Tokyo-based Honda Motor Company sees the gadget as being potentially viable for workers on its car-making production lines, or by workers at a wide variety of other manufacturing facilities. Case in point, to demonstrate the assisted-walking technology in action, Honda showcased a video of employees wearing and walking the contraption in order to navigate a production line and even peer beneath cars. More

Top Republican Senators Oppose Auto Bailout

Top Republican senators said Sunday they will oppose a Democratic plan to bail out Detroit automakers, calling the U.S. industry a "dinosaur" whose "day of reckoning" is coming. Their opposition raises serious doubts about whether the plan will pass in this week’s post-election session. "Companies fail every day and others take their place. I think this is a road we should not go down," said Shelby, the senior Republican on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. "They’re not building the right products," he said. "They’ve got good workers but I don’t believe they’ve got good management. They don’t innovate. They’re a dinosaur in a sense." More

Why General Motors Must Be Saved

The following is being issued by Automotive News: If Congress thinks a bailout of General Motors is expensive, it should consider the cost of a GM failure. Let's be clear. The alternative to government cash for GM is not a dreamy Chapter 11 filing, a reorganization that puts dealers and the UAW in their place, ensuring future success. No, even if GM could get debtor-in-possession financing to keep the lights on (which it can't), Chapter 11 means a collapse of sales and a spiral into a Chapter 7 liquidation. GM's 100,000 American jobs will die. Health care for a million Americans will be lost or at risk. Hundreds of GM's 1,300 suppliers will die. Their collapse could take down Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC, perhaps even North American transplants. Dealers in every county of America will close. More

Environmentalists Tout Green Jobs to Save Manufacturing in Indiana

Environmental activists invigorated by President-elect Barack Obama's push for the nation to generate more of its power from the wind and sun are trying to get the word out that Obama's initiative could bring thousands of new jobs to Indiana. A report released earlier this year by the Blue Green Alliance, a national group formed by the United Steelworkers union and the Sierra Club, concluded that Indiana should be able to create nearly 40,000 new jobs through wind, solar, geothermal and biomass power sources. More