Oct 25, 2013 5:34:00 AM
However, a recent article I read got me thinking about a major factor that I’d like to take some time here in our blog to examine: supplier relationships.
Topics: Ardel News, Manufacturing news
Aug 5, 2013 7:49:00 AM
Lately, there has been a lot of attention and buzz about additive manufacturing, or “3D” printing – we’d like to weigh in on the subject, and also explore other similar technologies from the perspective of a mid-size manufacturer and custom CNC shop.
Jun 7, 2013 6:09:00 AM
Some are calling it another industrial revolution, but 21st Century style - an advanced manufacturing response to the digital age. There are even those that are expecting and advocating a shift back to the U.S. as being primarily a manufacturing nation, with technology and education joining forces with to create a much larger technically skilled advanced manufacturing labor force. Others argue that the “revolution” isn’t sustainable, and that the next labor revolution should see the service and management sectors dominate.
Topics: Manufacturing news
May 3, 2013 11:02:00 AM
We are a leading customer-exclusive production-based job shop because we have never stopped growing and innovating.
Topics: Ardel News
Mar 7, 2013 4:30:00 AM
More and more, the traditional, distinct specializations that have underscored the organization of hospitals and clinics throughout most of the past century are getting cross-pollinated; the designation between doctor and specialist is growing ever more “blurry.”
Topics: Medical manufacturing
Feb 4, 2013 6:30:00 AM
Speaking at the 2012 Manufacturers’ Summit at the Minneapolis Airport Hilton in Bloomington, MN, Mr. McHale spoke of the “red flag” he saw in outsourcing low-skill manufacturing jobs overseas. While conceding that such a policy wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for America so long as our country took steps to bring advanced manufacturing jobs to its home territory, McHale also noted the perils of off-shoring too many industrial jobs. His reasoning seems reasonable to our own way of thinking here at Ardel: by outsourcing too many low-skill manufacturing jobs to China, Indonesia, and the like, America is giving these countries the incentive to develop advanced manufacturing bases on par with our own. As unskilled labor pools overseas become – by sheer effort and labor – more skilled, the possibility of developing advanced manufacturing jobs to accommodate these new skill-sets is that much more likely.
Topics: Manufacturing news
Jan 28, 2013 6:30:00 AM
This was back in the 1980s, once upon a time and not so long ago, when the U.S.S.R. was a clear and present danger to the peace of the planet, and the Soviet Red Banner Fleet harbored the largest submarine force in the world. It was a time when slogans for “A six hundred ship Navy!” resounded through the Halls of Congress and the White House. It was a decade that saw the construction of some of the most awesomely powerful ships ever built: the giant Nimitz class aircraft carriers, the deadly and silent Los Angeles-class attack submarines, and the fiercely protective Ticonderoga-class AEGIS missile cruisers. By outspending the Soviet Union in naval forces year upon year, we contributed to Communism’s collapse, and the birth of the so-called Pax Americana. We played our part at Ardel Engineering, and we’re proud of those journeyman days of ours.
Topics: Military
Jan 21, 2013 8:43:00 AM
Thirty years ago, one by one, manufacturers who dealt in bulk production of things like electronics and toys made the critical decision to reconfigure their operations in places like China’s Pearl River Delta, Singapore, the Philippines, or Mexico. As a result, the total percentage of our workforce that is employed directly or in a field related to manufacturing has declined steadily since the late 70s, to a point where it now constitutes roughly 9% of American workers. Compare this statistic to the boomtown heydays of the early 1950s when around 30% of our workforce was engaged in manufacturing, and you can see the great disparity. Cheaper workers, more permissive labor laws, and certain aspects of free trade agreements have all contributed to a culture and atmosphere where it is deemed “smart” – and justifiably so – for a large company to migrate its manufacturing capacities overseas. Few companies have used the productivity of foreign workforces more brilliantly than California’s Silicon Valley technology companies, where outsourcing of printed circuit boards and silicon chips has gone on since at least the 1980s.
Topics: Manufacturing news
Jan 3, 2013 4:30:00 AM
We had refrigerators, microwaves, toasters, dishwashers, and washing machines that made the daily schlep of food storage, cooking, cleaning, and grooming into something less than a footnote in our collective day. And as our country came online throughout the 90s and the 00s, we found ourselves living in a world where everything – information, consumer products, skills, career opportunities, professional consultation, friendship, even soul mates – were suddenly ours for the Google-searching. In a few brief years, the work of Tim Berners-Lee and his like grew to encompass the entire planet. People once marveled that a supersonic Concorde passenger jet could deliver travelers from Charles De Gaulle Airport to JFK Airport in a matter of a few hours. Today, these same people can connect with friends, loved ones, and business associates across the globe in the matter of just a few, wireless seconds.
Topics: 3d printing, Manufacturing news
Dec 27, 2012 4:30:00 AM
Time and again in recent decades, American air supremacy has won the day in conflicts such as the First and Second Gulf Wars, as well as in Kosovo and Afghanistan. The names of America’s fighters, bombers, attack, recon, electronic detection, and transport aircraft are the stuff of late 20th and early 21st century legend: F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, C-5s, C-130s, A-10s, B-1s, B-2s, and B-52s have struck fear in the hearts of America’s enemies and have been “welcome news” indeed for many an American army or marine grunt pinned down by enemy gunfire in cities, villages, plains, and crevices across the Middle East and beyond.
Topics: Aerospace
