Free Republic

<p>South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley didn’t mince words when she spoke about unions at an automotive conference in Greenville this week. The state loves its manufacturing jobs from BMW, Michelin and Boeing and welcomes more, she explained, but not if they’re bringing a unionized workforce with them.</p>

Technology to bring 3D printing closer to the mass market is accelerating, though most 3D printed items tend to be rather small in size. To help demonstrate the effectiveness of printing larger items, BigRep, a company founded in 2014, opens the door to printing items such as furniture. The device is launching worldwide at large trade shows, and begins shipping in two months, with a $39,000 MSRP.The BigRep One can print full-scale objects in sizes up to 45x39x47 inches, and has the ability to print plastics, nylons, Laywood (wood fibers mixed with polymers), and Laybrick (something similar to sandstone-type of...

<p>Although we often hear about how China is in hot economic competition with the U. S., we don’t hear as frequently how eerily similar their education system is to ours. “The Chinese government has always been concerned about being outmaneuvered” by its opponents and as a result, their history books are “not even 5% correct” and “children grow up with a certain view of the world and of China,” author Timothy Beardson said at the Cato Institute on February 6, 2014.</p>

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - Remington Outdoor Co. plans to open a plant to make and develop weapons in Huntsville that could employ about 2,000 workers, sources have confirmed to AL.com. The deal is set to be announced Monday at a special meeting of the Huntsville City Council, though sources said there may be a news conference prior to the meeting. Huntsville and Madison County elected officials declined to comment when contacted about the deal this morning. Officials with Remington Outdoor did not immediately return requests for comment Gov. Robert Bentley did not directly confirm the reports about Remington, but told AL.com...

Never underestimate the power of human ingenuity paired with a machine that can print almost anything. It’s been over 30 years since Chuck Hull invented the first 3D printer in 1983. Ever since then, the idea of machine-printing objects from scratch has gone from fiction to reality, opening up new opportunities for every field from science to art. 3D printing may not be quite there yet, but in three decades the technology has progressed leaps and bounds in terms of the scope and utility of 3D-printed objects. Surprise, surprise: It's not just gimmicks and toys. It’s easy to be skeptical...

Nanoparticle inks can turn your existing 2D printer into a circuit board production line – and the possibilities for 3D printers are mind-boggling. Printing foldable mobile phones on a sheet of paper from a normal 2D printer is just a decade away, according to Jürgen Steimle, head of the Embodied Interaction Group at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken, Germany. Steimle and his colleagues took a step towards this in 2013, when they used a standard printer loaded with nanoparticle ink to print a paper circuit that works even after the sheet is torn. In the past couple...

China is investing heavily in 3D printing, just like those in the U.S. and Europe. In June, China announced a gigantic 3D printer, which they claimed was the world’s largest at the time, with a 1.8 meter build diameter. Basically the thing could print out a nice sized bathroom vanity if you wanted it to. Southern Fan Co. (As Translated from Chinese), is completing a printer this month which will be able to print out metal objects approximately 6 meters, or 18 feet in diameter and 10 meters long (33 feet). The metal parts can weigh up to 300 tons....

Case Western Reserve University, in alliance with the Lincoln Electric Co. and a group of business partners, has been selected to lead a project to convert the laser hot-wire welding process developed by Lincoln Electric into a high-output, three-dimensional additive manufacturing process. The $700,000 project is among 15 recently announced by America Makes, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute in Youngstown, which is spearheading next-generation manufacturing technologies based on 3-D printing. The projects are winners of America Makes' second round of funding. Researchers and business partners developing the new 3-D process aim for a quick conversion. "The goal is to...

Everyone seems to have a different idea about what will spark the next industrial revolution: 3D printing, more sophisticated robots and even renewable energy have all been put forward as potential progenitors. The German vision of the future of manufacturing, as laid out at a talk this week at the Royal Academy of Engineering, is somewhat more complicated and extensive. Proposed by a government-backed working group of Germany’s top industrial companies, “Industry 4.0” envisages a world of self-organising smart factories where manufacturing machines talk to each other, to their products and to other links in the supply chain to make...

Boeing is struggling to complete 787 fuselage sections in South Carolina since a production rate increase, and sections are arriving in Everett more unfinished and problematic than before. Since late last year, Boeing 787 Dreamliner fuselage sections from North Charleston, S.C., have arrived at the Everett final assembly line seriously incomplete with wiring and hydraulics lines missing, according to multiple sources in the factory. The poorly done work out of Charleston threatens to undermine the company’s plans to deliver 10 Dreamliners a month and fulfill the much-delayed jet program’s original promise. “It’s snowballing. The planes are getting worse out of...

Curious why Michael Dell was so eager to take the company he founded private? So he could do stuff like this without attracting too much attention. According to the Channel Register, the recently LBOed company is "starting the expected huge layoff program this week, claiming numbers will be north of 15,000." Of course, with a private sponsor in charge of the recently public company, the only thing that matters now is maximizing cash flows in an environment of falling PC sales, a commoditisation of the server market and a perceived need to better serve enterprises with their ever-increasing mobile...

On January 29th, Beretta USA officials joined with Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam (R) to announce the firearm manufacturer will be opening its new plant in Gallatin, TN. Beretta had been looking for a location for its new facility after deciding to leave Maryland over the draconian gun laws that state implemented in spring 2013.

A global manufacturer of high-quality sporting and military firearms, Beretta USA will invest $45 million to expand its U.S. operations by building a firearms manufacturing plant and research and development facility in the Gallatin, Tennessee, Industrial Park. The firm expects to create 300 jobs. “From the moment when we started to consider a location outside of the State of Maryland for our manufacturing expansion, Governor Haslam and his economic development team did an excellent job demonstrating the benefits of doing business in Tennessee. We are convinced we could find no better place than Tennessee to establish our new manufacturing enterprise....

Gregory Mark co-owns Aeromotions, which builds computer-controlled racecar wings. To make those wings both strong and lightweight, they use carbon fiber. No surprise there—it's the material of choice for many advanced motorsports parts. The problem is that making custom racecar parts out of carbon fiber is daunting. The only real method available is CNC machining, an expensive and difficult process that requires laying pieces by hand. To improve the process, Mark looked to 3D printing. But nothing on the market could print the material, and no available materials could print pieces strong enough for his purposes. So Mark devised his...

Officials said President Barack Obama will visit a western Pennsylvania steel plant after delivering this week's State of the Union address. A White House spokesman said Sunday that the president will travel to U.S. Steel's Irvin plant in West Mifflin on Wednesday to deliver remarks on the economy. The company said the Irvin plant produces sheet metal products from the steel slabs produced at the Edgar Thomson plant in Braddock. Obama will also be visiting the Washington suburbs of Prince George's County, Md. on Wednesday and will go to Milwaukee and Nashville on Thursday.

Boeing Co is hiring contract workers at its factory in South Carolina as it boosts output of the 787 Dreamliner and seeks to avoid manufacturing issues linked to the production increase, according to people familiar with the situation. Boeing confirmed on Wednesday that it is hiring at the facility but declined to provide details. The company was responding to a Wall Street Journal report that said the aircraft maker is adding about 300 contract mechanics and inspectors at its North Charleston facility. The Journal said the contractors were needed in part to avoid production issues with 787 body sections made...

One day a 3D printer, using a mix of materials, will be able to create body armor for U.S. soldiers that is more lightweight and stronger than anything could be made with traditional manufacturing and materials today. That's the word from researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who are working to revolutionize 3D printing, as well as the way that companies build products ranging from jet engines and satellites to football helmets. Scientists at the laboratory, a federally funded center in Livermore, Calif., that focuses on national security research, are working on architecting new materials to be used in...

Although the number of people who had jobs in the United States increased by 143,000 from November to December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that still left 1,687,000 fewer Americans holding jobs than held jobs six years ago in December 2007—the month the last recession began. In November, 144,443,000 Americans were employed, said BLS. In December, 144,586,000 held jobs—representing a one-month increase of 143,000. In fact, the 144,586,000 Americans who had jobs this December was still 1,384,000 less than the 145,970,000 who held jobs seven years ago in December 2006. However, the 144,586,000 Americans who had jobs in...

A bit more good news for American manufacturing as Whirlpool announced it would move its commercial washing-machine production from Mexico to the United States. According to a press release, Whirlpool will shift production of its commercial front-load machines from Monterrey, Mexico to Clyde, Ohio. At 2.4 million square feet, the Clyde plant is the largest washing-machine factory in the world. Operations are due to begin in April, 2014. The Wall Street Journal first reported the story. Whirlpool said the relocation will make the company more efficient, since 90% of the commercial machines are sold in the U.S. (the rest are...

Thanks to the gun control blitzkrieg led by Democratic lawmakers last year, Colorado is about to take a hit in the wallet in the midst of an already anemic economy, and lose hundreds of private-sector jobs at a time when they can least afford it.