Foreign direct investment (FDI) is often viewed through the same lens as on-shoring or re-shoring. From a nation’s perspective, these activities retain or add jobs. FDI is becoming more important – and more global – to businesses, according to The 2019 A.T. Kearney Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Confidence Index. Almost four-fifths of respondents expect to increase…
An already-tight electronics supply chain will get squeezed even more thanks to the negative effects of Hurricane Harvey. Even as a second hurricane was bearing down on the U.S., domestic manufacturers were preparing for prices and deliveries to be significantly impacted over the next three months. Hurricane Harvey struck a significant blow to the Houston,…
With 17 out of 18 U.S. manufacturing industries expanding in March, domestic producers closed the first quarter of 2017 on a high note. Although the Institute for Supply Management’s leading index, the PMI, cooled a bit from February – a decrease of 0.5 percent to 57.2 — the industry expanded in March for the seventh consecutive…
Faith in the U.S. economy among midsized U.S. industrial manufacturers has “absolutely skyrocketed” compared with last year, as 74 percent of financial executives polled by the buying group Prime Advantage are more optimistic than they were at this time a year ago. This 48-point catapult over 2016 is by far the largest increase for this…
While the mantra of the high-tech industry is constant change, the types of changes our industry has been facing just this month are far outside the norm. The burning business and industry questions are not about volatile market cycles but what happens when ideology meets manufacturing reality along the global supply chain. There are, to…
Purchasing and supply management executives expect they’ll be buying more from their suppliers next year as the U.S. economy continues the recovery that began in 2009. More than two-thirds – 67 percent — of manufacturing respondents to the Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM) Semiannual Economic Forecast expect their 2017 revenue will exceed 2016’s. The ISM’s…
In terms of the general global economy in 2016 it’s hard to identify many coherent overall trends. The broad economic picture has felt fairly flat as reported by most industry associations, with neither astronomic growth nor considerable decline. While there have been minor ups and downs, concerns around major slowdowns in the US, Asia and…
The nation’s leading production index fell for the third consecutive month in September, reflecting ongoing uncertainty across manufacturing industries about the global economy. The Institute for Supply Management’s PMI declined to 50.2 percent in September, its lowest point since December of 2012. The PMI is hovering just above the point of contraction: a reading above…
Some ambitious electronics OEMs are staking out new markets in BRIC nations in contrast to the typical focus on Western countries and in defiance of the recent spate of negative news across the globe. If these bold market plays succeed, might we see a follow-on disruption along the channel and a shift in the leadership…
Economic growth in the United States will continue in 2015, say the nation’s purchasing and supply management executives in their December 2014 Semiannual Economic Forecast. Expectations are for a continuation of the economic recovery that began in mid-2009, as indicated in the monthly ISM® Report On Business®. The Manufacturing sector is optimistic about growth in…