Breaking the Bottleneck | Issue 19
[07/31/2023] Semi Labor Gap, Bed Bath & Beyond, Additive Camera Research & Team USA!
Breaking the Bottleneck is a weekly manufacturing technology newsletter with perspectives, interviews, news, funding announcements, and a startup database. For a high-level market map on discrete and continuous manufacturing click the link here! If you know anyone looking to chat about manufacturing tech, I’d love to talk!
Content I Enjoyed This Week 🏭🗞️🔬
News:
Addressing the Labor Gap in Semiconductors [SIA]
The semiconductor industry in the U.S. is expected to grow significantly, leading to an estimated increase of 115,000 jobs by 2030. However, 58% of these new jobs (67,000) may remain unfilled due to a lack of skilled workers. The shortage of technical talent is not only a challenge for the semiconductor industry but also affects other technology industries critical to the U.S. economy. The report suggests three core recommendations to address the workforce gap: strengthening support for regional partnerships and programs to grow the pipeline for skilled technicians, expanding the domestic STEM pipeline for engineers and computer scientists, and retaining and attracting more international advanced degree students within the U.S. economy.
How P&G Stays on Top of its Game [Supply Chain Brain]
Fares Sayegh, the Senior Vice President of Product Supply, Fabric Care, and Global Supply Network Operations at Procter & Gamble (P&G), discusses how P&G has maintained its position as a world-class operation over the years. It focuses on various improvements across five main areas continuous improvement, digital transformation, resilience, culture, and engagement. The company has done various things like developing an Integrated Work System (IWS), refining their forecasting and demand sensing to become more resilient, and focusing on in-person culture to ensure buy into their purpose-driven culture.
A Soap Maker Cracks the Code to ‘Made in America’ [WSJ]
Bath & Body Works has implemented a unique production initiative to get new products to market more quickly. Instead of sourcing components from various locations around the world, the company now houses every step of production at its dedicated "beauty park" near Columbus, Ohio. The park consists of multiple factories, each responsible for different aspects of the production process, such as making the foaming pump, the bottle, the label, the soap, and packaging the final product. This approach has significantly reduced production time and enabled the company to get a bottle to distribution in just 21 days. The initiative, which began in 2008, required significant negotiations with suppliers to relocate their operations to the beauty park. However, the efforts paid off, especially during the pandemic, as the suppliers on-site were able to share raw materials and workforce to meet the increased demand for hand sanitizer and other in-demand products. The strategy has allowed Bath & Body Works to roll out fresh products quickly, charge premium prices, and avoid discounts and leftovers, ultimately covering the added cost of local manufacturing.
G.M.’s Electric Vehicle Rollout Delayed by Slow Battery Production [NY Times]
General Motors (GM) is facing challenges in producing a new electric car battery pack meant due to a supplier's inability to deliver automated manufacturing machinery. The company is currently lagging behind its EV production targets. In the first half of the year, GM built only 50,000 electric vehicles, with most using older battery packs from a supplier. The newer modular Ultium battery packs are not yet being used in high volume. The company plans to update its existing Bolt model with Ultium technology and introduce several new EVs over the coming months, including the Chevrolet Blazer and Equinox SUVs and the electric Silverado pickup. The company's ability to achieve these plans will determine its position in the evolving automotive landscape.
NASA Picks 11 Companies to Develop Lunar Manufacturing Tech [Engineering]
NASA has chosen 11 U.S. companies to develop technologies that will support long-term exploration on the Moon and in space. The selected projects will be jointly funded by NASA and the industry partners, with a total expected NASA contribution of $150 million. The technologies will focus on infrastructure and capabilities in space and on the Moon, including power transmission, space habitat structures, in-situ resource utilization, efficient lidar systems, in-space joining technology, and more. These technologies are essential for sustaining a human presence on the Moon and enabling future exploration. The projects will be milestone-based and last up to four years. The companies picked include: Astrobotic Technology, Big Metal Additive, Blue Origin, Freedom Photonics, LM, Redwire, Protoinnovations, Psionic, United Launch Alliance, Varda, and Zeno Power Systems.
Research:
Cost of Manufacturing Operations [KPMG & Manufacturing Institute]
The report discusses the CoDB (Cost of Doing Business) Index rankings for different countries, particularly focusing on the United States. It highlights that the U.S. faces higher primary costs, particularly in terms of labor costs, compared to other countries. However, the U.S. performs well on secondary costs, such as labor quality and business conditions, leading to a strong overall CoDB Index ranking of fifth out of seventeen countries considered in the study. The report also emphasizes that labor quality is a crucial differentiating factor for the U.S., making it a competitive contender. Finally, it examines the impact of the recent U.S. tax reform on the CoDB Index ranking revealing that the U.S. significantly improved its ranking from 11th to 5th due to the tax reform.
MIT Researchers’ New Continuous mRNA Manufacturing Center [MIT]
MIT is leading a three-year research program to design the world's first fully integrated, continuous mRNA manufacturing platform. The $82 million effort is funded by the U.S. FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. The pilot-scale system aims to accelerate the development and production of mRNA technologies, including vaccines and treatments for various diseases. Continuous manufacturing will improve efficiency, reduce costs, and allow for quicker response to future pandemics. The project involves collaborations with Penn State University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The FDA's support aims to ensure the system adheres to good manufacturing practices and advances mRNA therapeutics to address emerging health threats.
One-Camera Method Reveals Quality Insights for AM [Vision Spectra]
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a single-camera method to measure the temperature of the melt pool during laser powder bed fusion in additive manufacturing. The method uses a commercial color camera with a unique pixel setup to sense visible colors and employs demosaicing to reconstruct a full-color image. By measuring color ratios, the temperature of the melt pool can be accurately calculated without the need for assumptions about emissivity, avoiding temperature errors common in thermal cameras. The technique allows for a better understanding of the physics occurring in the melt pool during additive manufacturing and can be applied to various processes beyond laser powder bed fusion.
IBM & AWS Transform Industrial Welding [IBM]
Welding, the process of fusing two compounds with heat, is a fundamental process in numerous industries from constructing everyday items like chairs and cars to enabling the generation and distribution of electricity through transmission towers. Inspecting weld quality is a challenging task, as many indicators of weld defects are invisible to the human eye, much like the hidden part of an iceberg. Traditional inspection methods, such as visual inspection or even ultra-sound testing, have limitations in detecting all defects accurately and consistently. Destructive testing, while accurate, is costly and time-consuming as it requires disassembling and discarding welds. IBM developed Smart Edge for Welding on AWS that analyzes weld quality based on audio and visual recordings taken during the welding process. Visual analytics enables real-time analysis of welding videos, identifying components of the weld pool, wire behavior, spatter generation, turbulence in the shielding gas, and more. Thermal video analysis offers additional insights through color-coded thermal zones, weld pool heat signatures, and real-time annotations. Acoustic analytics translates welding sounds into sound waves and spectra, identifying normal and abnormal patterns and classifying specific failure modes. All these combined offers manufacturers a means to improve weld quality, reduce defects, and optimize manufacturing processes.
Podcasts/Video:
Making Solar Panels in the US [Bloomberg Zero]
Providing Higher Quality Jobs to Attract Workers [Shifting Gears]
Chart of the Week:
Manufacturing Deals
Aeroseal - A company providing carbon dioxide removal technology that produces a gum that seals air ducts and building envelopes efficiently.
$67 million [Series B] - Co-led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Climate Investment, and joined by Aramco Ventures, Building Ventures, 2150, and EIP.
Collaborative Robotics - An more advanced autonomous assistive picking robot able to productively complete end-to-end task
$30 million [Series A] - Led by Sequoia.
About:Energy- Provides battery library and advanced algorithms to select the best cell for battery applications
£1.5 million [Series A] - from HighSage Ventures, Vireo Ventures, Rishi Khosla, Plug & Play Ventures, and Electric Revolution
Partful - A company developing a 3D parts SaaS platform to tranform the industry’s approach to a global aftermarket
£2.4 million [Series Seed] - Led by Intel Capital and joined by Blumberg Capital
Weekly Planned Downtime
Support Our Amazing Women’s Soccer Team at the World Cup!