Ever hear of the Luddites?

Math has never been my strong suit, but lately, even I am starting to think something isn’t adding up when it comes to manufacturing employment data.

This week’s MakingChips manufacturing news story, The Great Robot Takeover: Fact or Fiction, provided a surprisingly comprehensive look at the past, present, and future of incorporating robots into manufacturing processes as well as the emotional

I learned two shocking new things about our industry this week. The first came from our MakingChips featured manufacturing news article from Industry Week which focused on newly released data by SCORE, mentors to America’s small business.

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

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

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

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

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

Never underestimate the power of finding a few good mentors. Click Here if you missed Part 1:Dream Big but Take Little for Granted

Manufacturing is a cyclical industry. When things are booming, it's hard to keep up. So we work more. Then, when things are slow, it's hard to survive. So we work more. The sales may fluctuate, the market may boom or tank, but the amount of effort