As you know, times they are a’changing for all of us here in the metalworking nation. Welcome to the fourth industrial revolution, or “4IR” as it is being called.

My youngest child is graduating high school on Sunday and it got me wondering how much a high school diploma is actually worth these days? There are wildly differing reports and, like most things, it seems to depend on a number of factors such as

Manufacturers are not traditionally known for being the most open organizations. This is often tied to the fact that many of their customers have parts that are proprietary or connected with the government or military. But, this NDA-culture has

Why do manufacturing companies need marketing automation? Because in the age of Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Netflix all of us expect fast, personalized service, great products, and an easy to use experience from any company we work with, including

As Jim and Jason always say on the MakingChips Podcast, “If you’re not making chips, you’re not making money!” We all know it’s true, yet few shops have formal systems for increasing their spindle uptime. 

According to this week’s MakingChips news story, lawmakers will soon be voting on the new US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), pronounced “oooze meck ahh” according to Jason, or simply called “the new NAFTA” by most news outlets. The trouble is, when

It seems to me that following manufacturing news too closely is a bit like taking Nick’s mom up on her decade’s long offer of, “If you need a reason to cry, I’ll give you one.” It’s important to know what’s going on, but it’s also necessary to

Listen up mom and pop, if you have dreams of raising kids who will take over the family manufacturing business someday, you’re in luck. Comparatively speaking, kids are much more likely to want to follow in your well-laid footsteps than go

  If you’re a regular listener of MakingChips podcast, you’ll know, we often talk about the core values of a manufacturing company as a major component of successful company culture.

In this week’s MakingChips news segment the guys took a look at a recent article, “10 Tips for Changing Your Company’s Culture—and Making It Stick”, published by The Society for Human Resource Management. This got me thinking about manufacturing

Martin Trunnion Tables began as a small family-owned garage shop I started in 1993. I like to say I made the original unit “out of laziness”, and that’s not far from the truth. Actually, I got tired of handling parts, so I designed and built the

There are somewhere around 350,000 manufacturing companies in America, and 98% have less than 500 employees. Most of these small and midsize manufacturers (SMMs) are family-owned, and chances are, if you’re reading this article, you are an owner of

This week’s episode of MakingChips was all about the guys sharing their personal stories and insight on family business succession planning, but succession is not limited to family businesses. The truth is, every manufacturing business leader needs

Something we’re all proud of here at MakingChips is that each of us comes from a multi-generational, family-owned manufacturing business background. And  just as those who have come before us took the time to teach and guide us in this business, at

Our goal with this three part post has been to inspire the next generation of manufacturing leaders to think beyond themselves as they build their business. The mission and vision of MakingChips isn’t to grow Carr Machine & Tool, sell more cutting