{"243931":{"#nid":"243931","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Dr. Jan Youtie draws a crowd for seminar on \u0027Innovation in Small and Mid-sized Manufacturing: A U.S. Policy Perspective\u0027","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFrom a U.S. policy perspective, manufacturing has been left out in the cold. The argument has always been, according to Dr. Jan Youtie, Manager of Policy Services and Principal Research Associate at Enterprise Innovation Institute, \u201cThe U.S. is a capitalist society, so we have decided not to have an industrial policy. People argue that \u2018some will get served and some won\u2019t, and that is not what we\u2019re about.\u2019 \u201d And that has been the case for about 100 years.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESpeaking to a crowded room at her Sept. 16 Brown Bag Seminar at the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute, Dr. Youtie also explained that others argue that manufacturing is a declining industry and we don\u2019t need to pursue policy that encourages it. The industry sector has lost 1.6 million jobs since 2007 and has shown a steep decline in the number of establishments.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHowever, Dr. Youtie argues: \u201cProductivity has gone up. People are still buying things, and manufacturing has gotten better about making things.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAlthough durable goods took a hit during the downturn, productivity has rapidly increased over the last three years. And where there was a drop in manufacturing\u2019s percentage of gross domestic product, we are beginning to see an uptick. \u201cSo it is much more complicated than just saying manufacturing is a declining industry,\u201d said Dr. Youtie.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFrom a historical perspective, manufacturing has had a significant technological and societal impact. We have seen the rise of automation and microprocessors in the 1960s and \u201870s, to robotics, internet, biotech, and lightweight materials in the following decades. But these technologies did not come about without challenges such as job loss, deskilling and outsourcing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStarting in the 1980s, manufacturing faced many challenges and the U.S. trade surplus became a trade deficit with the rise in Toyota products. The gap between large manufacturers\u2019 productivity and their small and mid-sized counterparts began to widen. At the time, \u201cour large manufacturers were as good as any in the world,\u201d said Dr. Youtie, \u201cbut not our small and mid-sized manufacturers (SME). There was a huge gap.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESMEs once made up 70 percent of manufacturing productivity, but today they only make up 60 percent. The difference in productivity can be linked to the fact that large manufactures use new technologies, whereas SMEs use new technologies much less frequently. \u201cThe uptake in technology is one reason for this gap between large manufacturing productivity and SME productivity,\u201d said Dr. Youtie.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESME has constraints in terms of adopting technology, including:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003ELack of finances\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003ELack of know-how or internal knowledge to manage new technology\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EShortage of skills and limited access to qualified personnel\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003ELimited ability to meet customer needs and foreign markets\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EWeak business relationships and isolation in their work\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs the gap continues to expand, Dr. Youtie suggests that it is time to intervene. SMEs lack knowledge and resources, but large customers, vendors and consultants don\u2019t and can\u2019t support the SMEs in their plight. From a government perspective, there are gaps in public providers, a lack of service coordination and a lack of supporting policies for SMEs.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere have been policy attempts to help since the late 1980s, according to Dr. Youtie. The Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act established regional technology transfer centers to move technology from federal labs to SMEs. These didn\u2019t work as planned, so in 1993, the Technology Reinvestment Act was announced, which expanded the federal Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) program to all 50 states.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDuring the 2000s the economy took a nosedive and low-cost, technologically capable global competitors began to pull manufacturing away from the United States. In order to compete with the lower-wage nations, the general consensus was that for the United States to compete, we had to be more innovative. In 2007, the America COMPETES Act was rolled out. MEP services were to focus on next generation manufacturing and offering toolkits to promote growth. MEP responded with its Next Generation Manufacturing Strategy 2008. \u201cSystemized growth services was the big effort to promote innovation and new products,\u201d explained Dr. Youtie. \u201cToday, there is a renewed effort for advanced manufacturing.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThese new efforts target the Technology Readiness Levels of 4, 5 and 6, or the \u201cvalley of death\u201d in the U.S. technology maturation process. Three big initiatives have been introduced, including the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Consortia, the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation, and Manufacturing Technology Acceleration Centers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThese new policy changes may mean changes in technology: additive manufacturing, digital design and lightweight materials,\u201d concluded Dr. Youtie. \u201cWhole segments of manufacturing will be wiped out.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe GTMI Brown Bag Semina Series takes place each Monday between noon and 1 p.m. in the Manufacturing Research Building, Room 114. Students and faculty are invited and are welcome to bring their lunch to the meeting. If you have questions or you want to be added to the reminder list for these events, please contact Tina Guldberg at \u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:tina.guldberg@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Etina.guldberg@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAs part of the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute Brown Bag Seminar Series, Dr. Youtie provided a history and update on the latest national initiatives to improve productivity among U.S. small and mid-sized manufacturers.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"As part of the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute Brown Bag Seminar Series, Dr. Youtie provided a history and update on the latest national initiatives to improve productivity among U.S. small and mid-sized manufacturers."}],"uid":"27857","created_gmt":"2013-10-09 16:50:25","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:05","author":"Tracy Heath","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-10-09T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2013-10-09T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"155831","name":"Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI)"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"4096","name":"brown bag"},{"id":"11149","name":"Jan Youtie"},{"id":"215","name":"manufacturing"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETina Guldberg\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E404-385-4950\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["Tina.guldberg@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}