A recent blog post in the Economist brings up an interesting point about manufacturing being a work in progress. With much talk about the resurgence and renaissance of manufacturing, why does there still exist so many manufacturing ghost towns within the United States? Examples of this can be seen in Detroit, Michigan, where the city is bankrupt and the largest industry employers required bailouts from the government. Another example is Gary, Indiana, a once a booming area for the steel industry that’s now reduced to boarded-up storefronts and many steel manufacturing employees without work.

That’s some of the bad, but as in all extremes there are two sides to every story. In a one-eighty move away from the towns of Gary and Detroit there are booming areas of manufacturing that are serving as the poster child for why manufacturing is on the rebound. One such area is Indianapolis, Indiana. Here, the city is a hotbed of manufacturing activity with both American and foreign companies in the mix. When the C.W., the author of The Two Worlds of Deindustrialisation article dug into why Indiana is finding success in a “new” world of manufacturing, a couple of interesting ideas arose.

Benefits of Keeping Manufacturing Local

• Low business taxes
• Stable state and local politics
• Strong state economy
• Openness to foreign manufacturing companies
• Relationships between the government, academia and business

Creating a State-Wide Initiative

Locally, we are seeing steps toward similar initiatives that would bring together interested parties from the government, business, non-profit groups and education. In Ohio, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, in Youngstown, is housed within the Youngstown Business Incubator. Dubbed “America Makes,” the program emphasizes the importance of manufacturing innovation initiatives in the area of 3D printing, otherwise known as additive manufacturing. The collective group is working toward the single goal of making additive manufacturing more competitive globally.

Successful initiatives such as those in Indianapolis and Youngstown are built on a foundation of cooperation. These endeavors require a commitment to look beyond an immediate payoff to future benefits created through cooperation and commitment to a collective cause. As a local manufacturing company, Cleveland Deburring Machine Company (CDMC) also looks to build this level of cooperation with each of our customers. While it would be quicker and possibly more efficient to offer our clients a standardized solution, we believe that it’s important that each solution be unique to the customer. Each job offers an opportunity to bridge the unique requirements of the company with the item or tool requiring a deburring solution. The difference between what a company currently has and what they could have is the difference in innovation and a collective commitment to creating quality in manufacturing.