JUST PRESS PRINT: Whether it’s used to make trinkets or custom-designed machine parts, 3-D printing will change manufacturing. (Photo by Flickr user theycallmebrant; used under Creative Commons license) The 3-D printer is no Star Trek replicator, but it’s pretty darn close. The futuristic machine could well be the next big thing in manufacturing, and substantially […]
manufacturing
Posted inGuest Commentary
Wayne County’s economy is doing better than you think
(courtesy photo/used under Creative Commons license) There has been an unrelenting dose of bad news in local newspapers and on national television about the city of Detroit’s financial difficulties, but one measure of business establishment employment in Wayne County is showing relatively healthy growth. And if the city of Detroit gets its financial problems under […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Michigan economy grew again in 2012, but pace was well off ’10,’11 rates
Kurt Metzger is director of Data Driven Detroit, a nonprofit in Detroit established by foundations to build greater capacity for people to work together, and improve lives and communities affiliated with the Michigan Nonprofit Association. He was research director for United Way for Southeastern Michigan from 2005 to 2008 and before that, was a director […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Average Michigan wage earner is $5,000 behind other Americans
When politicians talk about Michigan’s “lost decade” of the 2000s, they usually focus on the huge number of jobs shed by the state. Michigan lost 863,300 payroll jobs between April 2000 and July 2009, at the bottom of the state’s downturn, or nearly one out of every five jobs. But a less-discussed element of that […]
Posted inLand O Links
Land O Links
“There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating — people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing” — Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright and author. * Durable goods manufacturing, as a percentage of total economic activity, is “at or near pre-recession levels for each Seventh District state,” says the Federal […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Pulse quickens in Mich. manufacturing
It looked like the end of the millennium would also be the end of Michigan manufacturing. The state lost 47 percent of its manufacturing employment, nearly 423,000 jobs, between 2000 and 2010 as the U.S. auto industry went into a frightening decline. But like a patient who surprisingly wakes up from a years-long coma, manufacturing […]
Posted inBusiness Watch
Stomach-churning: Highs and lows in Mich. economy
Michigan has starred in its own disaster movie in the first decade of 21st century. The economic equivalents of F5 tornadoes and magnitude 9 earthquakes have battered the automotive industry and smashed construction work in the state. You knew all that, having lived here. But amid all the destruction there was surprising growth over the […]
Posted inSuccess
Couple bets all on Michigan start-up; beats odds
Manufacturing appeared to be dying during the past decade in Michigan. Critics of Michigan’s taxes and regulations said the state was a terrible place to start a business. But Justin Ayers and his wife, Tracy, thought it was a great time to open a manufacturing company. And into being came Lakeshore Cutting Solutions Inc., an […]