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The National Association of Manufacturers, the leading organization for America's manufacturers, has published a major document outlining today's challenges and opportunities for the manufacturing sector of the economy. The article, The Facts About Modern Manufacturing, can be accessed at http://www.nam.org/s_nam/sec.asp?CID%20=201507&DID=229891
Highlighted in the article are stories about how various US companies are handling the challenges of health care, energy costs and availability, Chinese competition, regulation, tort lawsuit excesses, taxes, innovation, compensation, and exchange rates. Twenty-eight companies responses to these issues are featured: Caterpillar, Dow Chemical, Emerson Electric, Ingersoll Rand, Intel, PPG Industries, Procter & Gamble, RPM, Texas Instruments, Timken, Toyota Motor, and MARLIN STEEL WIRE PRODUCTS.
Marlin is featured because, as a small company, it had to radically change to compete with Chinese manufacturers and to comply with heavy government regulations. The Marlin story is at
http://www.nam.org/s_nam/bin.asp?CID=202614&DID=237731&DOC=FILE.PDF
The main point of the Marlin feature is that onerous government regulations on truckers hours, pension plan compliance, and tax code fine print, combined with tough price competition from China, forced Marlin to invest heavily in CAD systems and labor-saving machinery to keep its costs down and its quality up. Now, thanks to these steps, Marlin is better able to fulfill its mission to provide high-quality wire products quickly while manufacturing solely in the USA.
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