March 22, 2012
Every time I take a walk in the woods around Boston now, I'm going to be looking over my shoulder for giant robot dogs.
I've just been watching videos of Boston Dynamics' BigDog, which is aimed at supporting American troops in the field by, among other things, carrying heavy loads over rough terrain. As the videos show, it...
March 15, 2012
I wanted to understand how the U.S.'s failing infrastructure is affecting our economy, so I called Eric Spiegel. He's president and CEO of Siemens Corporation, the U.S. arm of the global technology, energy, healthcare, and infrastructure company. He also has 25 years of experience consulting to the energy, manufacturing, and utility industries. Here are his thoughts on what the U.S. needs to do to address our...
March 5, 2012
Following up on his pledge to provide greater support for manufacturing in his State of the Union address, President Obama has announced a proposal to cut the effective tax rate for manufacturers to 25%.
A number of economists howled against...
March 1, 2012
The U.S. competitiveness debate too often devolves into a cry for more Apples and more Ciscos on American shores, when what the country really needs is more Hospiras.
More what?
Hospira is an advanced contract manufacturer. A freelancer, if you will. It's a private, independent company in the Chicago area that handles biopharma production for a number of partners. Hospira began life when Abbott Laboratories spun off its production division, and it is now the world leader in...
February 21, 2012
Having a strong domestic manufacturing base is vital to the United States maintaining its world leadership in innovation. That is because advanced manufacturing provides an important institutional foundation for learning and developing process skills and capabilities that are increasingly intertwined with core R&D in some of the industries most important to the country's economic future. These include advanced and specialty materials, biologics, nanotechnology, and precision mechanical...
