U.S. Manufacturing Decline Raises Concern About Innovation(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
U.S. Manufacturing Decline Raises Concern About Innovation
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13every.html?ref=business
1 comments
I was just in Shenzen looking at factories and one of the interesting things that I realized was that while they spent time making our product according to our designs, they also have to innovate on how to actually make the product in a factory. There is actual innovation in the production process and it would seem that we don't want to entirely lose that over time.
Research and manufacturing are an ecosystem. Remove the latter, and you're pulling the legs out from under the former. (Money, career tracks, populations to keep educational institutions viable, etc., etc. Also, sanity checks for researchers, i.e. "will it fly".)