During my four decades as a consultant, it has never ceased to amaze me how little attention manufacturing firms pay to the amount of time they use the equipment they’ve invested in to generate a return on that investment. The equipment uptime needed to drive...
Product costs, also known as cost of goods sold (COGS), are direct material, direct labor, and manufacturing overhead. COGS are typically the highest category of a manufacturing company’s cost, and they have a huge impact on the company’s competitiveness. COGS are inherently added to products as...
I spent eight years failing to act on an innovative idea that I knew would work. It was an idea that had not just technological promise but also societal value. It would help people contribute to the most important, impactful charities in the country. But I...
Economic incentives aren’t the answer; cultivating a vibrant local supplier base is. The typical intent of governmental economic development is to increase the number of manufacturing jobs and boost the positive economic contribution of manufacturing at either the state or federal level, or both. Such efforts...
Grant Thornton industry lens on: Global instability To keep business flowing, manufacturers need to manage a complex network of inputs and outputs. But it’s hard to know how to manage global instability. Many manufacturers are still struggling with ongoing pandemic impacts, and global instability introduces more complications....
Why have we created a cost engineering certification? Well, most industries have established and well-communicated standards for what it means to be an expert in the field. The ability to quickly communicate knowledge and skillsets is necessary for anyone in a professional environment to prove that...
Key Points:The world's largest contract chipmaker, TSMC, has committed to investing $100 billion over three years to ramp up production. Rival Intel announced last March that it plans to spend $20 billion on two new chip plants in Arizona.In the short term, semiconductor analyst Peter...
In the classroom, activity-based costing looks like a great way to manage a company’s limited resources. ...