Industry News: Manufacturing Roundup
As always, we're proud to play a part in the great manufacturing landscape of the Centennial State. Here's a quick roundup of local and national manufacturing news.
There's Gold in Those Boulder Hills
Boulder's food production scene received a national boost in the New York Times last week. A successful group of food producers are using small-batch manufacturing techniques for now, but are primed for serious growth. The story profiled Justin Gold, founder of Boulder nut butter company Justin's LLC, who sold his company last year to Hormel Foods Corp. for $286 million.
More proof that Colorado is special: “There’s an ecosystem here that supports food entrepreneurs that you just don’t find in other places,” Gold told the Times.
They Just Keep Moving
At first glance, programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and computers are quite similar, but PLCs can perform discrete and continuous control functions that a computer just can't. Check out the video below from Control Engineering for six key differences between PLCs and computers.
The Uncrustables Are Coming
J. M. Smucker Co. announced its intentions last week to build a production facility for its popular Uncrustables frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
The new plant will be built in Weld County's Concepts Industrial Park. About 500 jobs are expected to be created for Coloradans.
Strategies for Manufacturers in 2017
From our friends over at the Colorado Advanced Manufacturing Alliance, comes this report:
"While manufacturing activity in the past two years has been slightly less robust than observers would have hoped for, the general trend is toward growth, and according to the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation (MAPI) the industry is expected to reach pre-recession production levels in 2018. Meanwhile, expectations for 2017 include modest growth overall, with some sectors (such as construction supplies, high tech, and healthcare manufacturing) and some regions (including Colorado) faring better than others."
A recent national survey of U.S. manufacturing companies (including 30 manufacturing executives from Colorado) found that while trimming costs is top of mind, manufacturers are ready to practice strong strategic planning to stay competitive in the coming year,
"For Colorado companies, top priorities were R&D (52 percent), cutting operational costs (42 percent), and short-term strategic planning and seeking new markets (36 percent), respectively."