Category: manufacturing
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The American Civil War was a War on Supply Chains
I love to look at the Early Modern Period and the Modern Age through a capitalist lense. I see the significance of capitalism in almost every turn of historical events when I read the excellent book “Americana: A 400-year history of American Capitalism” by Bhu Srinivasan. After I read the chapter on the American Civil…
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How the consulting world screwed up the ‘Lean’ Idea
The lean idea was started by Toyota in the war-torn Japan in the 1950s, almost by necessity. It turns to be very effective and helped Toyota grow and even dominate the world auto market towards the end of the 20th century. It also fundamental influenced the industrial world. Now almost all the large corporations are…
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Will Robots kill human jobs? Yes and No
I have been long perplexed by this question of whether automation and robots will replace human workers. My intuition is that while they will no doubt replace many jobs, they will also create more jobs in other areas. That intuition was confirmed after I read a paper by Acemoglu, Koster and Ozgen (2023), but the…
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India has the potential to overtake China as the world’s manufacturing hub, even though it may take a while
Photo: Building material in Home Depot, 2022. It was reported in the WSJ today that “China Finally Has a Rival as the World’s Factory Floor“. While some of the claims in the article are a bit ahead of themselves, I largely agree with the central message. To be sure, China is not going away from…
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How do sustainable supply chains improve the continuity of supply and protect the environment?
Photo: Woods in Sherborn, MA, Summer 2023. Recently I was asked by my School’s PR people to reflect on a few questions regarding the relationship between business practices and sustainability. They asked some excellent questions, which prompted me to write something down. Below is the first part. The question is: How do sustainable supply chains…
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The Multiplier Effect of Manufacturing: Where Jobs Come From
These days whenever we talk about manufacturing, the number 1 thing that came to people’s mind is that it is shrinking. And that it is a small pie of an economy. The truth is that according to the US government definition of manufacturing, it has been been sitting steady at around 12% of Real GDP…
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How large is the supply chain economy? The answer may surprise you
Recently I have been working on a book about the “supplychainification” of economies around the world – If you have never heard about the word “supplychainification”, no worry. I have not either. My collaborators and I invented it, and I will explain it in a separate article. In here, I answer a even simpler (but…
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So Ford Wants to Do Away with its Dealers…
According to the Detroit Free Press, Jim Farley, the current Ford CEO, said that he wants to sell its EVs online rather than through its dealerships. Apparently, he was upset at the markups added by many of its dealers on its ever-so-popular electric F-150 Lightning that offended many customers. For example, one of the dealers…
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EV in 2022 and Beyond: More Good News, but Uncertainties Too
Recently I was asked to reflect a little on the recent EV movement, so I dug a bit on the latest statistics. 2022 is not over yet, so the latest number we have is from 2021. I was encouraged to find that while everyone was focusing on the COVID in 2021, EV sales actually nearly…
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Do you really need a Power button for an electric car?
I just got my second EV, and it is a Nissan Leaf. It is a good-looking car, especially with its signature “Scarlet Ember” exterior. It drives smoothly, and rides comfortably. In fact, everyone who rode in the car told me they do not feel the difference between this and my Tesla. And I agree with…
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A Fascinating Recount of the US Semiconductor History
I recently read a book titled “The Microchip Revolution: A Brief History” authored by Luc Oliver Bauer & E. Marshall Wilder. It has lots of interesting technical details as well as personal anecdotes. A wonderful read. I flipped to the chapter on Intel once I got my hands on the book, because it was the…