Restoring the Manufacturing Industry with ‘Made in America’ Label

The US economy is almost entirely made up of services like the music industry, restaurants, and banking.

Cities like Nashville are mostly known for their live country music, restaurants, and a good start to a music career. But Nashville is also known for its manufacturing sector in which Nissan, the largest car factory in North America is located in Tennessee.

The young workforce is not interested in working on the factory floor of a manufacturing company and many students agree that manufacturing has an image problem. It might not be the most glamorous of industries, but manufacturing is certainly making a come back with the “Made in America” label.

Skills Shortage

Since 2010, nearly 800,000 manufacturing jobs have been created since the industry lost a staggering one-third of its workers. In order to revamp the manufacturing industry, President Obama announced that federal funding would go towards STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathematics- schools to help support the advanced industry.

With the shortage in skills, funding to support the manufacturing industry will go long way. Funding has already gone towards Oak Ridge National Laboratory to support the development of 3-D printing or additive manufacturing.

As a robotic arm is used to form plastic as a section of a car, 3-D printing like this could very well be the future of car manufacturing.

‘Made in America’ Label Forecasts a Brighter Future

While the US economy is made up of services, 12% of GDP comes from manufacturing accounts compared to 30% in 1950.

However, in the Oak Ridge National Lab, 100 students gathered after school to hopefully reverse the de-industrialization trend. As the students compete to build the best robot, one student put up a sign that said Made in America, translated in Chinese.

A good sign that the China may soon face come serious competition and we no longer have to see Made in China labels in English on product tags.

Source: BBC