economic display screens for bussinesses factory

How do you display your metrics? Paper printouts or white boards? LED Scoreboards at each production line? Or perhaps you’ve thought about deploying a manufacturing data display to show your production stats in different areas of your plant. Our Manufacturing Data Display supports your LEAN and paperless manufacturing initiatives with real-time production metrics, KPIs, and inventory figures right on your plant floor.

By communicating directly with your existing database (even data from multiple sources) and displaying it on strategically located screens, our manufacturing data display provides your employees and floor managers with consistent and accurate information when they need it.

Automate — Automated, real-time data provides your employees and floor managers with consistent and accurate information when they need it, from available sources such as SQL, MySQL, Oracle, Excel, HTML, XML and other ODBC compliant applications.

Increase Productivity — Presenting KPI (Key Performance Indicators) to those on the production floor creates a healthy environment of competition and situational awareness that results in increased productivity, efficiency and morale.

Our industrial display touch screen monitors can help your factory personnel and workshops handle complex industrial tasks on intuitive factory grade touch screens. Our wide range of rugged LCD displays with multi-touch and various touch technologies such as resisitive, SAW, optical imaging, projected capacitive and infrared are tough and suitable for virtually any industrial applications. We can help you choose the best touch screen technology and solution that fits best with your needs, and close the gap between your vision and implementation of the digital factory.

Food manufacturing facilities, farms, factories, water processing facilities, and grocery stores have some similar needs when it comes to using digital signage for communication. Not only is the digital signage form of communication pivotal for communication both indoors and outdoors, be it streaming advertising, safety communications, schedules, inventory data, and more, but often these need to be durable digital signage solutions.

Threats like dust, moisture, hot or cold temperatures, flying objects, tampering, and more would pose a threat to the average TV or digital display. So, it is important to know how to protect digital signage. When it comes to food processing facilities and grocery stores, we at Protective Enclosures Company (makers of The TV Shield and The Display Shield) are honored to be the trusted provider of protective TV andfood manufacturing digital displayenclosures across the food industry. PEC even offers food processing touchscreen monitor protection solutions.

Reduces Less Efficient Communication Forms and Reduces Environmental Waste -Considering that 40 percent of workers don’t have access to email, plants often rely on word-of-mouth, print materials, and bulletin boards to get their message across (Digital Signage Today). This is not very effective or efficient. Digital signage paired with software can eliminate or greatly reduce those less efficient communication forms which can also lower environmental waste and save costs.

Saves Time and Improves Efficiency for Workers and Operations -Floor managers need to spend more time on the floor accompanying their plant workers, which has a tendency to boost morale and promote teamwork. Afood manufacturing digital displayallows plant managers to program information and let it run, which saves them time in general which can enable them to get more done elsewhere and be more involved on the plant floor.

Provides Real-Time Information -Food processors want more real-time information out on the floor. They have several lines running and they want to know instantaneously if they have an issue with a particular line.

With innovative digital signage protection solutions like The Display Shield (which is used in facilities by companies such as Pepsi, Tyson, Kellogg’s, Perdue, Land O Lakes, and more), it’s no surprise that manufacturers are actively turning to digital signage as a messaging solution. Digital signage is the future of improving workplace safety and productivity for manufacturing, food processing, and many more industries. What are you doing to improve the safety of your workplace or facility?

We customize The Display Shield food manufacturing screen enclosure for your unique application (dust control, wash-down resistance, etc.), so please call us today at 800-331-2628 or 321-441-9689 to discuss your need.

The TV Shield PRO series offers a popular TV and monitor enclosure solution for certain manufacturing facility needs as well. This series can be paired with our IR Touch frame to produce a protected food processing touchscreen monitor.

The TV Shield®, The Display Shield® and The TV Shield Pro® and their logos are trademarks of Protective Enclosures Company. All other trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners.

Industrial Display Systems provide a wide range of reliable displays from 5.7" to 55" including LCD displays, touch screen panels, outdoor displays and digital signage displays, and a series of industrial monitors including open frame monitors and panel mount monitors, which work perfectly with embedded boards and systems to fulfill various application needs.

Every BoldVu® display is engineered to deliver the highest performance in the intended application and end-use environment. We’re so confident in our displays that we offer the industry’s only guarantee on performance for display brightness, contrast, and color saturation in the outdoor space – a guarantee that’s good for 10 years.

A key factor in our ability to guarantee optical performance is our SmartVu display optimization software which intelligently compiles and autonomously responds to 150+ environmental and operational parameters to optimize image quality and power consumption, thousands of times per second.

To round out the enterprise solution, we operate a global monitoring and support network to offer remote and on-site service for every display we deploy. Because of our proactive approach to display monitoring and our intelligent display software, we are able to resolve most incidents before the display owner is even aware that something went awry.

Digital signage is one of the most dynamic ways to engage your employees and customers. Our solutions and content can be customized to your industry and audience, elevating your brand image and communicating relevant information in new, powerful ways. Visit our digital signage gallery and get inspired for your next project.

So many businesses are discovering the endless possibilities of digital signage. In today’s digital-first world, outdated methods of communication are quickly dismissed in a quest for more meaningful and engaging experiences. Kiosk & Display can help deliver them every day.

Digital signage works by applying a video signal to a large screen with the goal of clear, easy-to-understand visual messaging to visitors, customers, and employees. Digital display boards use different screens like LED, projection, and LCD to display images, menu options, safety protocols, informational text, weather, videos. They are common in

Take your client relationships to the next level with creative and relevant content. By engaging your current and potential customers when and where your brand is top-of-mind (in your space), our customizable digital signage can help you make the most of every opportunity. Also, digital signage has the power to transform your space and redefine the customer experience, whether it’s with one or hundreds of screens.

Communication is essential to any business’s success. Whether it’s clearly defining company values and goals, enhancing safety initiatives, or simply keeping employees up-to-date on relevant news and events, digital signage engages your staff consistently, efficiently, and effectively. The way we communicate with each is evolving, and Kiosk & Display’s digital signage has the technology and custom content to keep you one step ahead.

Digital signage is an easy way to share information with visitors, customers, and employees. Digital signs are meant to inform, advertise, and provide direction. It can also be used for wayfinding, promoting events, welcoming guests, and advertising specials. Digital signage is used in lobbies, waiting rooms, manufacturing areas, and employee-facing signage in break rooms. Digital signage messaging complements and reinforces your other communication and marketing strategies. Digital signage is beneficial because it allows you to display one message to your audience at a time. By making your message visual, your target audience is more likely to remember it. Digital signage is an ideal way to make customers aware of your product or service. You can easily explain product features, how to use your product, limited-time-only specials, and new products coming soon. Content development is an ongoing consideration that must be delivered by internal resources or a digital signage partner.

Daily standup meetings are usually limited to 10-minute blocks and focus on immediate concerns. Standup sessions are rarely employee-focused; instead, workers are told which machines are operating, which jobs are in progress, etc. In addition, manufacturers regularly hire temporary and seasonal staff who often don’t feel like “part of the team.” Digital signage offers employers an opportunity to engage all staff throughout the facility—including the production floor and other high-traffic environments. Use digital signage to recognize workers and teams for meeting goals, and create an inclusive work environment by acknowledging everyone’s contribution.

Workplace accidents cost companies an average of $75,000 per occurrence. Digital signage communicates safety information to help limit workplace injuries. Simple reminders to wear personal protective equipment, urgent messages about hazards and health and safety tips can be broadcast through digital signage platforms. Evacuation plans, emergency alerts and other life safety notifications displayed through digital signage reach employees in a timely manner. Companies can also use digital messaging to assist HR and key stakeholders by announcing health screenings, flu shots and other benefits.

One of the things that sets us apart from other touchscreen display manufacturers is the level of customization we offer. Our product portfolio includes a wide range of TFT & Monochrome LCDs, OLED, touch sensor and glass technologies, which we can provide stand-alone or integrated into complete assemblies.

Our custom display, touch and cover lens solutions are used in a variety of end-user applications. For example, our touchscreens are used in many vehicle infotainment systems and dashboard controls. We also provide custom touch displays for popular marine applications such as watercraft navigation screens and fish finders. For consumer electronics, we manufacture custom touchscreen display solutions and smartphone screen protectors. Whether your application will be used in the great outdoors, a construction site, or a hospital operating room, we can build a custom, all-in-one solution for your needs.

Our strength as a custom display company comes from the extensive technical expertise of our engineering team. The approach our engineers take is always based on experience and data-driven decisions that help you find the right solution for your application. In addition, our extensive manufacturing capabilities enable us to deliver quick design cycles, cost-effective solutions, and high-quality products that will meet your specifications even in the harshest conditions. To learn more about what makes us the display manufacturer for your needs, get in touch with us today.

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“In their fascinating new book, The Titanium Economy, Asutosh Padhi, Gaurav Batra, and Nick Santhanam show that manufacturing is in the midst of a renaissance in the US. The stage is set for a resurgence in America’s industrial prowess, but getting there will require some critical changes in both business and government. The Titanium Economy provides the necessary playbook.”

“The Titanium Economy formally recognizes a sector that has long punched above its weight—and one that should be at the vital core of the US economy for years to come. This book should be required reading for anyone passionate about the future of manufacturing. An excellent roadmap for how to win in the twenty-first century.”

“Industrial technology is crucial to sustaining American innovation and competitiveness. The Titanium Economyprovides a roadmap for how to breathe new life into the sector and assure its growth long term.”

“This book not only amplifies how important manufacturing is to national success, but it also inspires the reader to innovate for customer and stockholder value while advocating for a more adaptive, sustainable planet.”

“The Titanium Economy illustrates the tremendous possibilities advanced technology brings to our world. The sector presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to redefine what it means to deliver value to our customers, communities, employees, and stakeholders. As this book proves, tech-enabled industrial businesses have an opportunity to lay a new cornerstone as we build America’s economic future. We’ve only begun to scratch the surface of our collective potential to make communities more livable, strengthen national security, and advance human discovery on Earth, and beyond.”

“America, take note: it turns out the invisible, mid-cap industrial technology sector is an engine for jobs, innovation, growth, and high returns. The Titanium Economy makes a compelling case and provides a prescription for regaining US-manufacturing leadership. It is a call to action and a great read!”

“Innovation in manufacturing has been the backbone of the American economy. This is a timely, compelling, and practical exploration of the underappreciated and arguably misunderstood sector—one that is critical to driving inclusive economic growth for the future.”

“Technology is more than headline-grabbing Silicon Valley founders, viral smartphone apps, and sleek products. Technology is the driving force behind a renaissance in many sectors—including manufacturing. The Titanium Economy artfully explores the ways technology and manufacturing are intertwined, and the investments needed—especially in a diverse workforce—to help the sector actualize its potential.”

“Manufacturing could become the next great driver of economic growth. The Titanium Economyoffers a wonderful recounting of the opportunity at hand and a step-by-step guide for turning potential into reality.”

What if a group of companies could consistently outperform the market? What if they could create millions of high-quality American jobs and lead technological innovation while building a more sustainable future?

over the past decade. Most are privately owned, small- to mid-cap companies that don’t have consumer-facing brands. And for many Titanium companies, their performance has rivaled that of Silicon Valley’s tech darlings over the past decade.

Like their namesake metal, these companies are resilient and essential to many of the products that we use every day. Winners in the Titanium Economy offer a simple playbook that America’s manufacturers—and many others—can learn from: digitalize your operations, respond to external shifts, execute programmatic M&A, upskill your workforce, and prioritize sustainability.

One example is Qorvo, the only company in the world that manufactures a critical part for mobile phones at scale. Another is NXP Semiconductors, whose innovations in precision manufacturing have allowed machine learning to be applied to nearly every industry, from retail to pharmaceuticals. The company is projected to generate more than $1 trillion of value by the mid-2030s. Behind the scenes, companies like these have been innovating and turning consistent growth for decades.

Despite their propensity to create value, the companies that make up the Titanium Economy are underappreciated, undervalued, and misunderstood. Qorvo, for instance, is not a name you are likely to hear at your kitchen table.

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The idea is simple: when industrial companies build manufacturing plants, they create jobs with good wages, often for those without a college degree. With these higher wages, people pump money into their local economies: they buy houses, they go out to eat, and they visit local shops. This allows their communities to flourish. There’s money to open businesses, to take care of parks, and to support schools, which in turn attracts more diverse people to the area, sparking new ideas and innovation. Local universities and education systems start training the local workforce to fill the growing need for talent. These new cohorts of workers, along with increased public and private investment in research and innovation, accelerate economic growth and attract new companies and new talent. And so the cycle begins again.

From Blacksburg, Virginia, to Simpsonville, South Carolina, communities around the country have thrived in recent decades because of this economic chain reaction. More could follow in their footsteps by fostering strategic collaborations among industrial companies, education systems, and local governments.

the Titanium Economy is “the secret weapon of American industrial revival—the key to ensuring the country’s economic vitality as the Fourth Industrial Revolution progresses and the United States faces steep competition from global rivals.” But this can happen only if enough people embrace its potential to be a significant part of America’s future economic engine and to usher in a new era of sustainable and inclusive growth.

This article is the first in a series about the Titanium Economy. In future articles, we will dive deeper into inclusive growth and the imperative to attract talent, the sustainability imperative and opportunity for industrials, and current trends that are disrupting the industry.

The reports on Wednesday came as millions of Americans have been thrown out of work, and were the most solid pieces of evidence yet that the economy was in deep recession and potentially at risk of a depression. States and local governments have issued “stay-at-home” or “shelter-in-place” orders affecting more than 90% of Americans to curb the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus, and abruptly stopping economic activity in the country.

“Economists have long imagined over the years what a new Great Depression would look like, but today they can stop thinking about it,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG in New York. “Things will plainly never be the same again for consumers and factories where everyone in the country will have to make do with less.”

Retail sales plunged 8.7% last month, the biggest decline since the government started tracking the series in 1992, the Commerce Department said. Data for February was revised slightly up to show retail sales slipping 0.4% instead of falling 0.5% as previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales tumbling 8.0% in March. Compared to March last year, retail sales dropped 6.2%.

The Federal Reserve said on Wednesday in its April “Beige Book” report of anecdotal information on business activity collected from contacts nationwide that “economic activity contracted sharply and abruptly across all regions in the United States as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Despite March’s increase in core retail sales, economists are forecasting consumer spending plunging at an annualized rate of at least 17.0% in the first quarter, which would be the weakest performance since record keeping started in 1947.

Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity. It grew at a 1.8% pace in the fourth quarter, with the overall economy expanding at a 2.1% rate over that period. Economists see no respite for consumer spending in the second quarter, with estimates as deep as a 41% rate of decline, despite a historic $2.3 trillion fiscal package, which made provisions for cash payments to some families and boosted unemployment benefit checks. About 16.8 million people have filed claims for unemployment benefits since March 21.

Economists believe the economy entered recession in March. The National Bureau of Economic Research, the private research institute regarded as the arbiter of U.S. recessions, does not define a recession as two consecutive quarters of decline in real gross domestic product, as is the rule of thumb in many countries. Instead, it looks for a drop in activity, spread across the economy and lasting more than a few months.

“The economy is almost in free fall,” said Sung Won Sohn, a business economics professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. “We will see the bottom when the coronavirus infection rates stabilize. It’s going to be a pretty deep bottom from which to come up.”

Japan’s factory output shrank for a third straight month in November as cooling demand overseas pushed production levels further below pre-pandemic levels.

Industrial production edged down 0.1% from October, dragged lower by falls in output of conveyor belts, cranes and equipment for making chips and flat panel displays, according to data released by the industry ministry on Wednesday. Economists had forecast a 0.2% decline. Output also fell 1.3% from a year ago, compared with analysts’ expectations of a 1.5% drop.

The central China city of Taiyuan saw its GDP grow by 10.9% year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2022. Pictured here is a screen displaying details of a new factory in the city.

In the last month, Beijing suddenly ceased many of the lockdown measures and Covid testing requirements that had weighed on economic growth over the last 18 months. Analysts warn of a bumpy road to full reopening, but they now expect China"s economy to bounce back sooner than previously forecast.

The digital economy category includes communication equipment, information transmission and software. Green economy refers to industries that need to invest in order to reduce their carbon emissions — electric power, steel and chemicals, among others.

While much of the world struggled to contain Covid-19 in 2020 and 2021, China"s swift control of the virus helped local factories meet surging global demand for health products and electronics.

"The rapid deceleration in exports also means China needs to tap into domestic markets for growth over the foreseeable future," said Hao Zhou, chief economist at Guotai Junan Securities in a Dec. 15 note. "With the easing of Covid restrictions, consumption is likely to see meaningful and sustainable recovery from next year."

Goldman Sachs analysts raised their 2023 GDP forecast from 4.5% to 5.2% on the economy reopening sooner than expected, with consumption as the main driver.

Spending among poorer Chinese isn"t keeping pace with how much wealthy Chinese are spending — a contrast to greater uniformity between the groups prior to the pandemic, according to a McKinsey survey this year.

Set in the rust belt state of Ohio, it highlights the devastation wrought to Moraine by the closure of the General Motors plant in 2008, the town’s economic lifeline.

Unfortunately, Moraine’s story was all too common. Between 2000 and 2010, nearly six million jobs in US manufacturing were lost, with the sectors most prone to globalisation displacement, such as textiles and furniture, taking the biggest hit,according to researchby Bonvillian and MIT’s Peter L Singer.

Other metrics tell the same story. The fixed capital investment of manufacturing (plant, equipment, information technology, and so on)actually declined in the 2000s– for the first time since data collection began in 1947.

Suzanne Berger, an US political scientist at MIT, and author of ‘Making in America’agrees that Trump harnessed that drama for votes.“Jobs were killed by [China’s cheaper manufacturing goods],” she says. “Their cheaper imports. That struggle won the election for Trump, [because it was felt by working class Democrats and Republicans].”

Over the past 50 years, manufacturing’s share of gross domestic product in the US has shrunk from27% to 12%, and the starting point of this decline began well before this time period.

In short, coming out of the Second World War, the whole focus for the US innovation system was on early-stage R&D, not manufacturing. “Production was the last thing we worried about, since we were the king. Nobody was remotely close to us,” adds Bonvillian.

By resting on its laurels, therefore, the US lost its lead. Meanwhile, post-war Germany and Japan were rapidly rebuilding their industrial bases to counter mass unemployment. This meant their innovation systems were focused on manufacturing, leading to the creation of Germany’s much-vaunted Fraunhofer model (industry and universities working hand in hand) and Japan’s quality production revolution. These were dramatic innovations in the production process, much of which were funded, ironically, by US post-war reconstruction money, such as the Marshall Plan.

“This imbalance explains why, for many decades now, the US has been innovating new technologies that get built elsewhere, beginning with Japan in the 1970s and 1980s, and then China later on,” says Bonvillian. “More recently, we have been trying to pick up the Fraunhofer model. But guess what? China did the exact same thing.

“So, what has been going on in the US for the last five years or so is a growing awareness of the problem and of the relationship between the production and R&D. Both are very creative stages and are better done together.”

That production and R&D work better in unison is evidenced by the fact that it is becoming increasingly common for US companies to move from ‘innovate in the US and produce abroad’ to ‘do both abroad’.

“We are seeing more US companies having to send their innovation teams to Shenzhen, for example, for months at a time to work on the product improvement. If this shift accelerates, it is a big risk to the US’s innovation capability,” contends Bonvillian.

Technological innovations have made the US the economic behemoth that it is. The move towards ‘innovate there, produce there’ could have very serious consequences for the whole US growth model.

These risks are especially salient in light of the US-China trade war, which has catalysed the need for US policymakers to redress the US’s manufacturing imbalance.

Companies such as Texas Instruments, Alcoa and DuPont had been examples of this all-encompassing model that had been commonplace in US manufacturing before the 1980s financial crash hit.

In reality, manufacturing was paying a brutal price. “[Before the decline], if you were making semiconductor wafers, the engineer who had drawn the circuits had to be next to the technician who actually was cutting out the circles that were going to be produced, and etched onto the wafers, the two men had to work together,” says Berger.

As technology adapted, it allowed for the engineer and technician to be stationed further apart. “Once you were able just to send a digital file from California to Taiwan, once you were able to break up the activities that previously had had to be conducted in proximity, you could basically execute that transformation that financial markets were demanding,” adds Berger.

With the absence of a foot on the gas pedal to grow manufacturing workforces – and to do so with innovative practices at its heart – the US was unknowingly put on the back foot.

The words ‘Bring our jobs home!’ were universalised by Trump more than they were any other political figure – but home from where? First and foremost, China and Mexico.

The feasibility of reshoring factory jobs aside, Trump was in fact reacting to a very real issue. As already highlighted with the likes of DuPont and Apple, the heady combination of globalisation and economic progress has been a double-edged sword for the US economy (and all countries for that matter).

It is easy to forget that the reduction in global equality has occurred alongside a rise ininequality within advanced economies. In this natural transition from old to new economic growth, people in the old economy have been ‘left behind’, for one, as manufacturing jobs moved towards China and South East Asia.

Washington’s increasingly fierce and acrimonious competition with China is being played out in numerous sub-sectors of manufacturing, especially semiconductors (which are used in a vast plethora of electronic devices). “That is a sector that developed in the US and that the US historically has led – and is still a major export sector for the country – but China is throwing an ocean of money to try to dominate it, because it is such a core technology,” says Bonvillian.

For all of Trump’s bluster, hehad little successin bringing factories home. In this regard, Covid-19 hasbeen more impactful, since it has highlighted the vulnerability of long supply chains. However, this will not necessarily bring back the millions of lost US manufacturing jobs.

Meanwhile, the white-collar college dream only grew stronger, with the preference largely being for young people to go into what was considered to be the more academic fields of medicine, law, accounting and services.

“[A lot of US manufacturers] are not looking for skills, because they themselves have plants with very old equipment,” says Berger. “What they have to be able to do is teach people how to use their old equipment. They don’t have robots or things like 3D printing. They need somebody to come in and learn by ‘watching Joe’ (that is looking over the shoulder of some experienced worker). So I think we need to be focusing on technology acquisition by these firms.”

So the lack of desire to see young people go into manufacturing jobs adds to a lack of viable educational avenues into the sector, which is exacerbated by the lack of large-scale adoption of innovative technology. This ‘cycle of lack’ spells particularly bad news for US manufacturing within modern industry. A growing focus away from low-cost labour to strengthen supply chains and embracing innovation to up productivity spells trouble. This skills and technology gap will be felt more acutely as the world plots recovery from Covid-19.

Turning a blind eye to manufacturing scale up and instead focusing upon winning the global industry 4.0 race has become all-consuming in US politics over the past few decades. Reagan appeared to usher in the beginnings of manufacturing’s downfall in the 1980s, while he was weathering the storms of recession, playing a heavy hand in ending the Cold War and lowering taxes for Americans.

Berger says: “[Alongside deregulation of financial markets] Reagan added to that a very strong dollar, which made it very hard to export. So the combination of those two were really pretty bad [for manufacturers].”

Yet another trend that Bush senior inherited was the alarmingly fast-growing unemployment rate. Within this rate, manufacturing jobs continued to bleed out of the US. Ultimately, Bush senior’s choice to raise taxes alongside his failure to safeguard jobs saw his presidency last for only one term.

The US was looking for a white knight, a man of the people, someone who would understand the need for jobs. They decided that man was Bill Clinton. When elected in 1993, Clinton brought in welfare reform to tackle the growing unemployment in the US. It was largely successful, and by the time Clinton left office in 2001, unemployment sat below 4%, which hadn’t happened since the 1960s.

During Clinton’s presidency, the internet and the wider use of computers changed almost every aspect of American life. Technology had begun to transform not just the US workplace, but the global workplace. ​This transformation was rippling throughout all sectors and for manufacturing it triggered a long-term pattern of being overlooked when it came to adopting new technology and investing in meaningful innovation.

Yet more importantly, the increased use of information technology exacerbated the globalisation of manufacturing. Alongside this, the race to the bottom added pressure to manufacture cheaply, which pushed wages down. This fed into the desire to outsource manufacturing.

In the years following, this loss of jobs has been chalked up to a lot of the aforementioned issues for US manufacturing – the rise of Asia, the offshoring of jobs, globalisation, innovation and rapid digital transformation.

Following the 2008 global recession, Barack Obama took power with a unenviable task to putting the US on the road to recovery. He cited restoring US manufacturing as a key mandate for his presidency. This remained a priority during his run for re-election, when he made a campaign pledge to create one million new manufacturing jobs.

Cottonham asked: “I’m trying to find out, what do we have left? All of our jobs are leaving. I see here, you are doing a lot of things, but in Indianapolis, there is nothing there for us. So what is next? What can we look forward to in the future as far as jobs and employment? All of our jobs have left or are in the process of leaving.”

He went on to highlight that he had been making efforts to raise wages and environmental standards through trade deals to try and diminish the competitors countries’ ability to undercut the US.

Another issue Obama raised was the heightened level of productivity in the US despite the decreasing level of jobs. More optimistically, Obama highlighted the rising reshoring trend as promising for manufacturers. “For those folks who have lost their jobs right now because a plant went down to Mexico, [reshoring trends] won’t make you feel better,” he said. “So we have to make sure that folks are trained for the jobs that are coming in now.”

Berger explains: “Republicans are verbally supportive. Trump was running around telling people they were going to keep their jobs and that they shouldn’t sell their homes. That was three months before General Motors closed.”

Berger expands on her theory as to why Democrats are better for manufacturing. “Republicans really basically have been opposed to anything that looked like support for industrial policy, or support for manufacturing, aside from the ‘keep America great by closing the borders’ sort of policy. I think that the Democrats – because of having a strong union, component in the democratic constituency – have been somewhat more supportive.”

This pattern, alongside a heavy focus on manufacturing in the first half of Joe Biden’s presidency, gives many in the US manufacturing industry hope for some improvement.

When elected, Biden brought with him a mandate to rejuvenate the US’s flailing manufacturing sector. Since then, manufacturing in the US has been in a state of expansion, between 2020 and 2022, with the Institute for Supply Management reporting that activity reached a 37-year high in March 2021.

Biden has signed through a number of bills and programmes aimed at strengthening the sector, from his $1tn infrastructure plan that held a key objective of renovating and bolstering supply chains – which was passed in November 2021 – to his Additive Manufacturing (AM) Forward programme, which was announced in May 2022. The AM Forward programme is a partnership between Biden’s government and several large US manufacturers. Biden’s readiness to collaborate with manufacturers has reinstated some positivity for the sector following Trump’s more stringent approach.

A closer look at the crime scene shows that US manufacturing was not killed, but it has endured grievous bodily harm. The American factory has lost its edge. Reclaiming this must be one of the country’s economic and geopolitical priorities.

However, Biden, like Obama, inherited an economy in the waves of an aftershock. The recovery from Covid-19, Asia’s manufacturing dominance, ongoing trade wars and the unforgiving pace of innovation set by industry 4.0 are all hefty obstacles to overcome. Yet Biden’s tenacious bills and savvy investments, particularly in the semiconductor industry, could be a lifeline for the industry that keeps the sector in expansion.

As Biden approaches mid-term elections, it remains to be seen if his efforts to redeem the relationship between US manufacturers and the White House have been successful in terms of votes, yet the continuing expansion of industry is a promising indicator. However, with the serious and plaguing problems of a labour shortage, shifting supply chains and a competitive post-Covid economy, it may be too early to crown the US manufacturing industry as ‘great again’.

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