“The American Dream” had to come from somewhere, right? If you’re keen on American history, you’re aware of the blood, sweat, and tears that went into the creation of America’s “more to life” mindset. America’s founding fathers sought freedom from the status quo of the British regime. They wanted to live how they saw fit, even if their loyalist relatives and neighbors disagreed. So, they got to work creating a world around them that catered to their way of life, and eventually declared independence from the British crown altogether. In doing so, they created the nation that ultimately became the place where dreams turn into realities.

This land is your land, this land is my land.

In recent months, some supply chain thinkers have all but blamed lean inventory levels for the challenges and delays the world has faced in 2020 and 2021.

Back in early 2020, I published a couple articles aimed at encouraging US Manufacturers to stay the course and go on the offensive while global supply chains hemorrhaged amidst geopolitical turmoil. Now is the Time to Take it Back and Manufacturing Companies, Keep the Faith and Soldier On were calls to action during a time of great confusion and chaos – periods which have consistently proven to be the right time to rise above the noise and come out on the winning side.

You’ve likely been here before: you get an order that’s unusually large from your customer. And then another customer, and another customer. So you take that as a sign that demand has increased for your product, and you order enough supplies to sustain this level of demand based on your forecasts. Then a couple weeks later, your demand has settled back to its average level. What happened?

Companies in the US have faced challenges finding workers for the past few years. This is partially due to the pandemic, but inflation, commodity prices, and shifting expectations about work are trends that will continue to make the labor market challenging.

US Manufacturing is lagging behind the overall economy in growth, according to the Institute for Supply Management’s Purchasing Managers Index (PMI). The sector is seeing limited growth, however, with a PMI above 60%. 

Do you ever wonder if what you’re paying workers is why they never seem to stick around?

Maintaining a strong team is hard enough without workers leaving for better pay down the street. Maybe you’ve started to consider changing the compensation you offer, but it’s a big headache to figure out what’s fair or even competitive.

That’s why we’ve gathered the average manufacturing and logistics wages for Chicago, Illinois in the most common roles in these industries. 

When you’re in operations, you're always thinking of the future.  Whether it’s for the next shift, next week or next quarter, you’ll need to create a forecast that will help you prepare for the demand coming your way.  And for all businesses, there is a common practice of how those operations plans are created.  You look at historical demand, take the average, and build your forecasts off that.  

The US Department of Commerce's GDP analysis of manufacturing estimates the industry represents ~11% of the economy and has 1.4x multiplier effect for every dollar spent.  Those figures are already quite significant; however, this article outlines research from the MAPI showing that the US manufacturing sector’s economic contribution is actually 32% and has a multiplier effect of 3.6x for every dollar created. Suffice to say, US manufacturing creates significant economic contribution to our national economy as a whole, as well as local economies across the country.