TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ANNOUNCES MADE IN USA WHITE HOUSE CONFERENCE

July 18, 2017 by Leave a comment

Certified, Inc., One of the Nation’s Top Independent Made in USA Certifiers is Well Positioned to Take the Lead Role

BOCA RATON, FL, July 18, 2017 – This week, the Trump administration doubled down on its commitment to buy products made in the USA. President Trump renewed his pledge to bring American jobs back by hosting a Made in USA Conference at the White House on Wednesday, July 19th.

Since before his inauguration, President Trump has been fighting on behalf of American workers and their families. The President recently signed the “Buy American and Hire American” Executive Order to ensure that taxpayer funds are used to purchase USA made products and services. The President is committed to preserving and creating new jobs for all US citizens.

According to Senator Barbara Stabenow (2017), the government recently awarded more than $70 billion in contracts to foreign manufacturers that do not manufacture products in the United States. Furthermore, in 2013, the Department of Defense used 28,887 waivers and spent $19.7 billion on goods produced by foreign companies (Murphy, 2014).

“There are legitimate reasons for buying foreign made products, in some categories like technology and certain raw materials, USA made goods are not available or they may be too costly to include,” said Adam Reiser, CEO, and Founder of Certified, Inc. “However, we use far too many waivers because stipulations and definitions of ‘made in USA’ are too confusing even for an experienced official and authentic certification is too difficult to determine.”

“In 2014, Certified, along with several of its competitors were audited by the FTC and Certified was the only one that met or exceeded government standards,” according to Reiser. “Our Verity One™ system offers regulators and consumers, a cloud-based evidence repository that is accessible from any smartphone device, so records can be easily accessed by clients, procuring agencies, and consumers,” Reiser continued.

“We welcome this important conference and the Trump Administrations’ commitment to promoting and buying products and services made in the USA,” said Reiser. “Supporting USA manufacturers grows our economy and US jobs, and this action is a great indication that President Trump’s heart is in the right place.”

https://www.certified.bz/index.php/media-16/press-releases/11-news/49-made-in-usa-week

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Whole Foods To Close Nine Stores & Scale Back Expansion Plans

February 9, 2017 by Leave a comment

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Whole Foods to close 9 stores amid sluggish sales

Whole Foods Market said Wednesday it will close nine stores in the second quarter as it abandons its goal to open 1,200-plus stores.

“We’re going to continue to grow, but I think we’re going to be a more disciplined growth company than we have been in the past,” John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods, told analysts on the company’s first-quarter earnings call.

Mackey called the closing of the nine stores a “difficult but prudent decision” and said the company will now have more targeted site selection and “continued moderation in ending square footage growth.” He said these moves together will “result in a healthier bottom line, increased cash flow and higher returns.”

Still, the Texas-based company also said it welcomed 14 new stores in the first quarter, including two outlet relocations.

Mackey added the retailer remains “optimistic about the future growth potential for our 365 format but we want to see how this next round of stores perform before getting more aggressive.”

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Made in USA: Growing Panes for a High-Tech Window Company

February 7, 2017 by Leave a comment

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| IndustryWeek

sageglass-recruiting-millennials

SageGlass was bought by a French company but its manufacturing remains in the United States. Operations director David Pender talks about the pros and cons of this arrangement.

SageGlass invented dynamic glass—“tint on demand” windows that use special coatings and low voltages of electricity to filter out varying degrees of light. The small company started in 1989 in New York, but eventually moved to Faribault, Minnesota, 50 miles south of Minneapolis, because the area was developing a reputation for its innovation in window manufacturing.

Then in 2012, French building materials manufacturer Saint-Gobain acquired SageGlass. Although the unmet demand for dynamic glass was mainly in Europe, Saint-Gobain chose to keep production in Minnesota, build a new plant there, and convert the old plant to a research and development facility. The new facility can coat panes of glass that are more than twice the size of the old ones.

David Pender, director of operations at SageGlass (who previously spent 11 years in Germany working for Saint Gobain), talked about the challenges and advantages of keeping SageGlass’s manufacturing and R&D in the United States:

Challenge: Europe has the most growth potential, but our manufacturing facility is in the U.S.

Western Europe is a little further along than the U.S. in building codes. What’s considered extremely exotic here … is considered almost normal in Europe. Getting the supply chain right to be able to produce everything from what’s acceptable in the U.S. to what’s expected in Europe poses a certain amount of challenge. We’ve got to be sourcing some things from Europe, to make the products here and then shift them back to Europe. That doesn’t make too much sense at the moment, but we are trying to grow this market worldwide. Europe is growing very, very quickly because the Saint-Gobain name in Europe is a big plus.

Advantage: The highest demand for the product is still in the U.S.

Overall, we’re on a three to four times year-over-year expansion. So this year we’ll produce three to four times what we did in 2016. Which is a phenomenal growth rate, and that’s set to continue as we grow in the Europe, in the U.S. and the Middle East. We just got our first really big job in China. In the future, this facility will get to capacity and just produce in North America, and there will probably be another facility doing something similar in Europe—and who knows how that will do going forward.

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Filed under Aerospace, Business, Construction, Consumer Products, Domestic Sourcing, Energy, Green, Housing, Made in America, Made in USA, Manufacturing, Product Development, R&D Tagged with , ,

Trump tells manufacturers he will cut regulations, taxes, but must reshore

January 23, 2017 by Leave a comment

reuters

Reuters

By Roberta Rampton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump met with a dozen American manufacturers at the White House on Monday, pledging to slash regulations and cut corporate taxes, but warning them he would impose taxes on imports if they move production outside the country.

Trump, who took office on Friday, promised to bring manufacturing plants back to the United States – an issue he said helped him win the Nov. 8 election – and has not hesitated to call out by name companies that he thinks should bring outsourced production back home.

He asked the group of chief executives from companies including Ford, Dell Technologies, Tesla and others to make recommendations in 30 days to stimulate manufacturing, Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris told reporters.

Trump, a Republican who took over from former Democratic President Barack Obama, was expected to sign executive orders later on Monday to renegotiate the free trade agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico, and to formally withdraw the United States from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The new president told the CEOs that he would like to cut corporate taxes to the 15 percent to 20 percent range, down from current statutory levels of 35 percent – a pledge that will require cooperation from the Republican-led U.S. Congress.

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Filed under Aerospace, Automotive, Border Tax, Canada, Certifications, Chemical, Computers, COOL Country of origin labeling, Currency Manipulation, Domestic Sourcing, Government, Industry, Insourcing, Jobs, Labor, Made in America, Made in USA, Manufacturing, Mexico, NAFTA/CAFTA, Outsourcing, Political, Power of Consumers, President Trump, R&D, Reshoring, Supply Chain, Tariff, Tax, Technology, Trans-Pacific Partnership, WTO Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Detroit, Shinola is ‘Made in USA’ success story

January 16, 2017 by Leave a comment

 

detroit-shinola

Detroit (AFP) – From the outside, there’s nothing much to say about this nondescript, hulking building in downtown Detroit, once the cradle of American industry.

But inside this former General Motors research lab, the fifth floor has been transformed into a state-of-the-art workshop producing watches and high-end bicycles.

Welcome to Shinola, a young American luxury lifestyle company breathing new life into the “Made in USA” label — a designation championed by President-elect Donald Trump.

The firm, which shares the building with a design school, has built an open factory space with wooden desks reminiscent of 1950s movie sets and high-tech machinery.

Watches, handbags, appointment books and other accessories carrying the “Made in Detroit” label are turned out here, while the bikes — made from parts designed in neighboring Wisconsin — and turntables, a new product, are assembled at the flagship store located nearby.

Dozens of employees work here — most of them African Americans, who make up the majority of residents in this blighted working-class city, forced into bankruptcy in 2013 under the weight of its massive debt.

Detroit suffered hugely from the decline of US manufacturing and especially the difficulties facing the “Big Three” — auto giants General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler.

The unemployment rate hit 10.4 percent in November, compared to the national average of 4.6 percent, according to official statistics.

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Ford NOT moving Lincoln SUV to Mexico

November 18, 2016 by Leave a comment

reuters
By David Shepardson | WASHINGTON

 

On Thursday, Trump posted on Twitter: “I worked hard with Bill Ford to keep the Lincoln plant in Kentucky. I owed it to the great State of Kentucky for their confidence in me!”

“He will be keeping the Lincoln plant in Kentucky – no Mexico,” the President-elect tweeted.

But Ford has repeatedly said it has no plans to close any U.S. plants and likely could not do so under the terms of the current United Auto Workers contract that expires in 2019.

This is not the first time Trump’s comments about Ford production have been called into question. Laslincoln-suvt year, he took credit for Ford moving work from Mexico to Ohio, while the automaker had already made the decision in 2011 – long before Trump announced a run for president.

Spokeswoman Christin Baker said Ford “confirmed with the President-elect that our small Lincoln utility vehicle made at the Louisville Assembly plant will stay in Kentucky”.

“We are encouraged that President-elect Trump and the new Congress will pursue policies that will improve U.S. competitiveness and make it possible to keep production of this vehicle here in the United States,” she added, in a statement.

 

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An iPhone made in the US? Apple is considering it….

November 18, 2016 by Leave a comment

iphone-mfg

Apple has reportedly asked key iPhone manufacturer,partners, namely Foxconn and Pegatron, to investigate ways to bring the iPhone assembly supply chain into the United States. Today, all iPhones (and almost all Apple products) are manufactured and assembled in China.

Is Apple looking into manufacturing the iPhone in the US?

On Thursday, the Japan-based business publication cited an anonymous source in reporting that Apple had asked the two Asia-based firms that assemble the device to examine the possibility of moving production to the States.

That request, to Foxconn Technology Group and Pegatron, came in June, the news outlet said.

Apple didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on the report.

 Moving production to the States would address campaign rhetoric from now President-elect Donald Trump, who said in a speech in January that a Trump administration would “get Apple to build their damn computers and things in this country instead of in other countries.”

 

In a memo to employees last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook addressed strong reactions to Trump’s win and said, “We only do great work and improve the world by moving forward.”

Made in USA Certified Seal

 

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National Law Review primer on the “Made in USA” Claim

August 30, 2016 by Leave a comment

Made in the USA (For the Most Part)
repost:

Newspaper headlines report a new economic trend—manufacturing is returning to the United States. The country’s industrial production grew by 0.7 percent in July, its biggest jump since November 2014. This number represents everything made by factories, mines, and utilities. Before companies start slapping “Made in the USA” labels on their wares, they need to make sure they are familiar with the legal requirements to do so.

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Reshoring Data Reveals Progress, Problems for Reclaiming Jobs

April 4, 2016 by Leave a comment

The Reshoring Initiative, a not-for-profit organization that helps manufacturers recognize the profit potential for adopting local sourcing and production, issued its 2015 Reshoring Report, documenting progress that the U.S. manufacturing sector has made over the past decade in offsetting the job losses and capital investment, and recognized that “rapid job loss” has been curtailed, while conceding that “huge challenges to bringing back the 3-4 million manufacturing jobs previously lost to offshore.”

The report includes data on reshoring of formerly offshore jobs and foreign direct investment (FDI) by companies establishing new domestic manufacturing for 2007-2015. Both factors are keyed to manufacturers’ determination to produce goods in the market where they are intended to be distributed, known as ‘localization.’

The complete— Reshoring Initiative Data Report: Reshoring and FDI Continue Strong in 2015 — is available online.

For 2015, the combination of reshoring and FDI continued to be strong, adding 67,000 domestic manufacturing jobs. Since February 2010 (a low point for U.S. manufacturing employment), more than 249,000 manufacturing since the manufacturing employment low of February 2010, the group indicated.

However, the overall trend fell 6% from 2014 due to a strong U.S. dollar; low oil prices and shipping rates; and weaker economies in competitor manufacturing countries.

Among the reasons for reshoring and FDI documented for 2015 are government incentives, ecosystems/localization, proximity to customers, and a skilled workforce. Offshore problems that companies cited included lower quality, supply interruption, high freight costs, and delivery.

Regionally, the reshoring trend remained strongest in the Southeast and Texas, though in 2015 the West overtook the Midwest for second place among regions gaining the most jobs from offshore.

Despite the downturn, 2015 was the second consecutive year that manufacturing jobs returning to the U.S. remains equal to or slightly higher than the number of jobs leaving. By comparison, for 2000-2007, the U.S. market lost about 220,000 manufacturing jobs annually due to offshoring.

“We publish this data annually to show companies that sourcing domestically is an increasing trend in the United States,” stated Reshoring Initiative founder and president Harry Moser. “With 3 to 4 million manufacturing jobs still offshore, as measured by our $500 billion/year trade deficit, we see potential for even more growth, and we hope this data will motivate more companies to reevaluate their sourcing and siting decisions.”

Moser, the former president of machine tool builder GF AgieCharmilles, established the Reshoring Initiative to help manufacturers recognize the profit potential of embracing local sourcing and production. Among the resources it offers companies to make supply chain sourcing decisions is its Total Cost of Ownership Estimator®, a calculating tool to help account for and understand relevant offshoring costs (e.g., inventory carrying costs, shipping expenses, intellectual property risks, etc.)

SOURCE: American Machinist

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Made in USA is Less of an Option

March 31, 2016 by 1 Comment

 

Made in USA is Less of an Option

Presidential hopefuls Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are about as ideologically opposite on the political spectrum as any two candidates in recent memory. Both of them, however, are in agreement on one issue: free trade. Read more of this post

Filed under Certifications, COOL Country of origin labeling, Domestic Sourcing, Economy, Made in USA, Manufacturing, NAFTA/CAFTA, Trans-Pacific Partnership, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,

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