Durable goods orders drop in April
Web site helps companies find products made in U.S.
Brady Corp. acquires EMED Co.
Manufacturing job losses to continue
Intel to invest $2 billion in Irish manufacturing facilities
Leading indicators increase in April
WinWare honored as Boeing Supplier of the Year
Initial unemployment claims climb in recent week

Durable goods orders drop in April
New orders for manufactured durable goods in April decreased $5.7 billion or 2.9 percent to $191.3 billion, according to the Department of Commerce. This followed a 5.7 percent March increase.

Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 2.1 percent. Excluding defense, new orders decreased 2.4 percent. Year-to-date, new orders for 2004 are 12.4 percent above the same period a year ago.

Transportation equipment, down following two consecutive increased had the largest decrease, at $2.7 billion or 4.7 percent to $54.5 billion. Computers and electronic products, down following four consecutive increases, decreased $1.4 billion or 4.1 percent to $31.7 billion.

“After the extraordinary gains recorded in February and March, the April decline in durable goods orders reported by the Commerce Department today was predictable and not a source of concern,” said David Huether, chief economist of the National Association of Manufacturers. "I remain convinced that manufacturing will likely outpace the overall economy in 2004 for the first time in half a decade.”

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Web site helps companies find products made in U.S.
Before retailers and consumers invest their dollars into foreign-made products, they may want to visit BuyDirectUSA.com. The site was launched in an effort to help Americans and American retailers locate products produced by manufactures located in the United States.

"American workers do not have time to wait for the politicians to figure out ways to keep jobs here in America and to balance out our huge trade deficit," said BuyDirectUSA.com owner Danielle Csekits.

BuyDirectUSA.com is a new company, but it is not new to business. It operated e-commerce Web sites offering gifts and collectibles since 1999. The company noticed how many of the items it sold came from outside the U.S. and decided it was time to help balance things out.

"We don't have an issue with free trade; what we are hoping to do is to help create a more balanced trade," said Csekits. "Too many jobs have been lost due to outsourcing and moving manufacturing jobs to foreign countries. If we can convince more consumers to buy American and retailers to carry more American-made products, then I believe that we can help make a difference."

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Brady Corp. acquires EMED Co.
Milwaukee-based Brady Corp., a manufacturer and marketer of identification systems, completed its acquisition of EMED Co., a Buffalo, N.Y., direct marketer and manufacturer of identification and safety products.

"We are delighted to welcome EMED and its employees to the Brady family of businesses and look forward to working together to offer customers the absolute best in safety and identification products and services," said Tom Felmer, Brady vice president for direct marketing - EMED.

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Kenney co-edited the new book, Locating Global Advantage: Industry and Dynamics in the International Economy.

In examining what happened to U.S. manufacturing jobs industry by industry, his book details the transfer of American jobs to other countries in the apparel and textile, vehicle, television, personal computer, semiconductor and other high-tech industries.

The book reveals several surprises. For instance, while there are no longer any hard-disk drives produced in the United States, 60 percent of the wages in the hard-disk industry are paid to American workers.

"It's all in the higher-paid jobs of design, marketing, human resources and coordination," he said, adding that the American challenge will be to keep those jobs. In fact, if U.S. companies had not shipped those manufacturing jobs to Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia in the 1990s, Kenney said that Japan, with its able complement of service and manufacturing abilities, could have put the U.S. hard-disk manufacturers out of business.

The just-in-time inventory trend means that China may not become the destination for high-fashion manufacturing because Mexico is closer to U.S. consumers, Kenney said. In this case, the volatile consumer tastes in fashion are influencing garment manufacturers to try to turn inventory around in less than a week.

Although it can take two to four weeks for a shipment to arrive from China, Mexican apparel factories, while more expensive, are located strategically closer to American fashion consumers. Garment manufacturers risk less by paying slightly more to Mexican workers.

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Intel to invest $2 billion in Irish manufacturing facilities
Under an agreement with the Irish Development Authority (IDA), Intel Corp. disclosed plans for an additional $2 billion investment in its facilities in Ireland. The company plans to make this investment to enable 65 nanometer (nm) process technology and build Fab 24-2 on the Ireland campus.

The investment will add an additional 60,000 square feet of manufacturing cleanroom space plus the necessary manufacturing equipment to enable the latest 65nm technology within both Fab 24-2 and existing Fab 24 facilities. Production for the new module is expected to begin the first half of 2006.

"We are about to begin production in Fab 24, our newest 300mm manufacturing facility," said Bob Baker, senior vice president of Intel's technology manufacturing group. "This additional investment in the factory will help ensure that we have leading-edge manufacturing capacity to meet customer needs in 2006. The performance of our workforce in Ireland and our relationship with the government helped make this investment decision possible."

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Leading indicators increase in April
The Conference Board announced that the U.S. leading index increased 0.1 percent in April. While the index increased only slightly, the March increase was revised up from 0.3 percent to 0.8 percent as actual data became available.

As a result, the leading index is still increasing at an average annual rate of 3.5 percent to 4 percent.

Four of the 10 indicators that make up the leading index increased in April. The positive contributors – beginning with the largest positive contributor – were interest rate spread, real money supply, building permits and stock prices. The negative contributors – beginning with the largest negative contributor – were average weekly manufacturing hours, manufacturers’ new orders for consumer goods and materials, vendor performance, index of consumer expectations, manufacturers’ new orders for nondefense capital goods, and average weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance (inverted).

The leading index now stands at 115.9. Based on revised data, this index increased 0.8 percent in March and remained unchanged in February. During the six-month span through April, the leading index increased 1.8 percent, with nine out of 10 components advancing.

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WinWare honored as Boeing Supplier of the Year
The Boeing Co. awarded WinWare a premier supplier award for its commitment to excellence and customer satisfaction. Boeing saluted 13 partners at its third annual Suppliers of the Year Awards Ceremony.

"We are proud to be selected as Boeing supplier of the year, to say the least," said WinWare president Larry Harper. "To know that all of our hard work and dedication to our customers is appreciated and recognized means a lot to our entire team."

WinWare provides Boeing with Windows-based inventory management software, which uses radio frequency and barcodes to track Boeing tools valued at more than $435 million.

In 2003, WinWare demonstrated a high level of quality performance when it completed three releases of CribMaster software enhancements on schedule. The team's product support and customer service have been excellent throughout Boeing. WinWare successfully led implementation of its software at many sites; supported the implementation and training; and worked to ensure the software was compatible with other Boeing applications, both local and across the company.

The 13 award-winning Boeing Suppliers of the Year were selected from a field of more than 10,900 Boeing suppliers in more than 66 countries and approved through an exhaustive review process.

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Initial unemployment claims climb in recent week
New claims for unemployment insurance increased 12,000 for the week ended May 15 to 345,000, according to the Labor Department. The four-week moving average was 333,500, a decrease of 2,750 from the previous week's revised average of 336,250.

The four-week moving average is generally considered by economists to be the more reliable of the two because it smoothes out week-to-week volatility. Both rates remained below 400,000, which is the level economists use to define a weak labor market and a stable one.

Continuing claims for unemployment insurance fell 23,000 to 2.9 million for the week ended May 8. Continuing claims are those older than two weeks.

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