Today the United States will celebrate Mfg Day 2014, with factories across the country opening their doors to the public and communicating their issues and challenges.
Mfg Day, according to its organisers, addresses public attitudes and misunderstandings around the sector, and includes events at locations including factories, job fairs and technical colleges around the country.
US President Barack Obama and his Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker will visit family-owned automotive-grade steelmaker in Indiana.
California’s City of Fremont, whose efforts to create a local advanced manufacturing hub were featured by Manufacturers’ Monthly last year, will host tours at eight factories.
Fremont, in which Tesla Motors and numerous other advanced manufacturers are based, has provided an infographic (see left) on the city’s and the United States’ industry figures at a glance.
National event coordinators for Mfg Day are the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association, International (FMA), the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the Manufacturing Institute (MI), the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), and guest producer Industrial Strength Marketing (ISM).
In all, there will be 1,621 National Mfg Day events held across the United States, according to The Manufacturing Institute.