The Internet is among the best-known government-funded inventions, but it is not the only one used by Americans. MRI machines, fiber optics, LED lights and even those yellow barrels we all see on the highways and freeways across the country were created using federal government grants.

The fourth industrial revolution – the revolution that ushered in the Internet of Things (IoT) and Internet of Services (IoS) – has come to be known as Industry 4.0. The initial goals of Industry 4.0 typically have been automation, manufacturing process improvement and productivity/production optimization. The more advanced goals are innovation and the transition to new business models and revenue sources using information technologies and services as cornerstones.

December always seems (to me) to be a great month to reflect on the beauty around us and that of the season. Many beautiful things are thermally processed, so let’s slow down and take a look.

A properly skilled manufacturing workforce is the top U.S. priority for achieving global cost competitiveness and the growth needed for a robust economy. Our growing skills gap threatens to erode U.S. manufacturing competitiveness and thus our economy. A talent pool with a sufficient supply of properly skilled candidates is imperative in meeting U.S. manufacturers’ needs for capacity, productivity and innovation.

Every Labor Day weekend, the current occupant of the Oval Office makes a speech about the importance of American workers and highlights their efforts to support the average family. Some use the opportunity to make new policy announcements.

For those of us who followed the Trump administration closely, the idea of “Infrastructure Week” was a running joke in Washington from February 2017 until the point in 2018 when all sides stopped kidding themselves.

The Shear Assisted Processing and Extrusion (ShAPETM) project shows the potential to increase throughput and reduce manufacturing costs and energy use for aluminum alloy 7075 extrusions. Aluminum alloy 7075 (AA7075) is a high-strength, low-weight metal alloy that can handle heavy mechanical stresses.

Hard lessons learned from the 2020 pandemic taught us that we needed to rebuild and re-establish our U.S. supply-chain ecosystem. The systemic shock to our global supply chains left us with bottlenecks, shortages and an acute awareness of our overdependence on imports.

My last column was a brief introduction to the Reshoring Initiative’s resources and some best practices regarding what companies can do to accelerate reshoring to gain business. Now we would like to discuss in more detail how your company or your customers can use the free online Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Estimator® to more accurately determine the real P&L impact of reshoring or offshoring. Doing so will probably prove that some work should come back.

The mission of the nonprofit Reshoring Initiative is to grow U.S. and North American manufacturing by 40%, eliminating the trade deficit. The objective of this column series is to help you get more than your share of that growth.