Manufacturing Stories | Community Development Digest

Auto Parts Maker Faces One of OSHA’s Largest Fines -- $3.42 Million

The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued 57 citations for safety violations to Sunfield Inc., an Ohio auto parts’ manufacturer. The agency has also proposed the company pay more than $3.42 million in total fines for its failure to disconnect machinery from a power supply and prevent sudden movement before maintenance and service, and to train workers in how to operate machine presses safely and to service and maintain them.

read complete story

NIST Invents New Tests for Nanomanufacturing Quality Control

Manufacturers may soon have a speedy and nondestructive way to test a wide array of materials under real-world conditions, thanks to an advance that researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have made in roll-to-roll measurements. Roll-to-roll measurements are typically optical measurements for roll-to-roll manufacturing -- i.e., any method that uses conveyor belts for continuous processing of items, from tires to nanotechnology components.

read complete story

Manufacturing Continues Growing in Blue Grass State

Kentucky manufacturing employment climbed for a fifth straight year, reports the 2016 Kentucky Manufacturers Register, an industrial database and directory published by Manufacturers’ News Inc. (MNI) of Evanston, IL. According to MNI’s’s database of manufacturers, Kentucky gained 3,151 manufacturing jobs from October 2014 to October 2015, or 1.1%.

read complete story

NIST to Fund Two New Manufacturing Institutes; $70 Million Each

The Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) has issued a Notice of Intent to fund up to two institutes as part of the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI). For its first institutes, the Commerce Department will provide up to a total of $70 million per institute over five to seven years.

read complete story

Report Offers Strategies for Strengthening Manufacturing

A new report from the national nonprofit group Jobs for the Future offers insights on training more workers for jobs in advanced manufacturing.

read complete story

Fastest Growing Industries in U.S. Manufacturing Employment Listed

Overall, the U.S. manufacturing industry continues to experience rapid growth and change, driven by trends in re-shoring/next-shoring and improvements in technology, including advances in 3D printing, manufacturing cloud technology, supply chain management and automation.

read complete story

Administration Names !2 New 'Manufactuuring Communities'

Twelve new communities have received designations under the Obama administration’s “Investing in Manufacturing Communities Partnership” (IMCP) initiative. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker announced the designees during remarks this week at the U.S. Manufacturing Summit held at Walmart’s headquarters in Bentonville, AR.

read complete story

USDA Permits Inclusion of Wood Products in BioPreferred Program

The final rule establishes a procedure to designate "intermediate ingredients" so products made from them can be included in the "preferred" Federal procurement process. That rule establishes procedures for designating "complex assemblies" that contain one or more components made from biobased ingredients.

read complete story