Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Manufacturing and innovation - tied together

Detroit is synonymous with the US auto industry and as such, experienced the worst of the industry's downturn over the past 30 years. So you may be excused for thinking an article on manufacturing from The Detroit News may carry baggage, but the author Mark Benvenuto uses the past troubles as a good example of the importance of an intrinsic link between innovation and manufacturing.

The most salient point for me was the theory that didn't work - namely the practice of shipping production overseas, whil hoping to retain the idea factories locally.

"To believe that is to misunderstand something fundamental: many of the most valuable innovations happen close to production, where scientists, engineers and researchers have tangible problems before them to solve."

He also mentions an admirable initiative from the American Chemical Society, which is awarding chemical scholarships to encourage innovation and job creation in the chemical sciences.

There are plenty of lessons we can learn from Detroit.

Click here to read the full article.

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