Week 26 in Manufacturing News

US: Manufacturing on the path to recession; Robots could take 20 million manufacturing jobs and other topics.

US: Manufacturing on the path to recession

In view of James Knightley, chief international economist at ING, intensifying trade war fears and an inventory overhang are weighing on the US manufacturing sector as depicted by the recent data releases.

Sub-50 ISM will heighten concerns within the Federal Reserve that the economy is softening.

Source: FXStreet.

UK car manufacturing output drops for 12th consecutive month

UK car production fell for a 12th consecutive month in May, with industry bosses blaming a 15.5% year-on-year decline on the continued impact of earlier UK factory shutdowns, along with falling global and domestic demand.

Source: Autocar.

Supply Chain & Logistics Summit 2019: Key takeaways

In the face of significant disruption, supply chain, logistics and procurement professionals are having to answer business-critical questions around:

• How to manage diverse supplier networks
• How to synchronise across functional silos
• What set of policies, procedures and technologies are needed to provide greater visibility and traceability?
• How to calculate true cost-to-serve
• What forces are shifting the supply chain from linear to more circular models

The inaugural Supply Chain & Logistics Summit addressed these challenges and outlined how technology and automation improve upon traditional approaches.

Source and takeaways: The Manufacturer.

Robots could take 20 million manufacturing jobs by 2030

Machines are expected to displace about 20 million manufacturing jobs across the world over the next decade, according to a report released Wednesday by Oxford Economics, a global forecasting and quantitative analysis firm.

Robots are becoming cheaper than many human workers, in part because of the falling costs of machines. The average unit price per robot has dropped 11% between 2011 and 2016, according to Oxford Economics.

Source: CNN Business.