tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63497500594319374422024-03-13T11:19:35.430-04:00Andice Funding Alliance Partners: The Right Partner MattersIf you are a professional business, legal or financial advisor or manufactures representative, we have the clients that need your expertise. Join us and you too can grow your client base, network with like-minded professionals and make more money.Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.comBlogger81125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-75572365251816186702012-11-05T12:08:00.001-05:002012-11-05T12:08:14.707-05:00How private equity firms are working to clear up misperceptions about their industry | Smart Business<a href="http://www.sbnonline.com/2012/11/how-private-equity-firms-are-working-to-clear-up-misperceptions-about-their-industry-ssg/#.UJfyeHWi0c8.blogger">How private equity firms are working to clear up misperceptions about their industry | Smart Business</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-15860587452530931732012-11-05T09:49:00.000-05:002012-11-05T09:49:28.538-05:00With increasing appeal to investors, Integrated Funding modeling is becoming a particularly interesting topic.<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Andice Integrated Funding (AIF) employs a generalist, diversified strategy of investing across a variety of industries with a focus on the lower-middle-market, investing in companies in the United States and Canada with revenues ranging from $5MM - $50MM.</span><br />
<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is Integrated Funding?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Integrated Funding is a unique mezzanine style of subordinated lending that mixes debt and equity. The debt component usually comes with interest rates of 12%-16% for a typical life of 4-6 years. Unlike most senior debt lender and banks, these interest rates do not typically fluctuate with prime and/or LIBOR rates. Integrated Funding is a hybrid of debt and equity, making it quite flexible. The flexibility enables it to be used in a variety of situations — including buyouts, corporate takeovers, mergers, acquisitions, growth capital, or recapitalizations.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Intergrated Funding is currently on solid footing – it is a vibrant market opportunity. Demand and supply are both very high as a result of banks being half aggressive and half scared, it’s a good time to get deals done.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How does AIF Value Companies?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We share much of the same due diligence criteria as equity lenders. There are multiple factors that contribute to the attractiveness of an opportunity. In addition to the use of proceeds, amount of proceeds, type of transaction, and so on, we like to look at the management team and its past experience with leverage, very much akin to what an equity investor looks for in a business — a scalable business model, recurring revenue, and strong EBITDA margins.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What are the Benefits of AIF?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the biggest benefits of AIF is our partner-like mindset and significantly less dilution to the borrower as opposed to a direct equity investment. AIF is more like a private equity firm than a bank. We are a lender by design, and our capital network is deployed as debt, but we think more like a partner than a lender. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We work extensively to help our client ompanies through our network and the resources that we can bring to bear. Because of the structure and the equity element of our royalty lending, we are very motivated to see the equity value of the company increase.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For more information visit as at www.andicefunding.com.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-56020507347820843372012-10-09T17:57:00.001-04:002012-10-09T17:57:21.175-04:00Obama Administration Announces $20 Million for 10 Public-Private Partnerships to Support American Manufacturing and Encourage Investment in the U.S. | Department of Commerce<a href="http://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2012/10/09/obama-administration-announces-20-million-10-public-private-partnersh">Obama Administration Announces $20 Million for 10 Public-Private Partnerships to Support American Manufacturing and Encourage Investment in the U.S. | Department of Commerce</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-19906413254093075712012-08-30T16:15:00.001-04:002012-08-30T16:15:49.105-04:00The Secret (2006) believe it ( Full movie )<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/FAbQbaJYwH0?fs=1" width="459"></iframe><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-12133103199610647412012-08-30T11:59:00.000-04:002012-08-30T11:59:30.813-04:00The Post-Labor Day Boom<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Monday is Labor Day and that means two things: the end of summer and the beginning of the busiest period for the PE industry. It’s time for the inevitable post-Labor Day boom. Although everyone knows it exists, we decided to try to quantify the boom. How much does deal activity actually pick up after Labor Day?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To investigate, we dove into the data from 2011. We looked at deal activity on AxialMarket a month before and two months after the holiday. The rumors are confirmed - the number of deals brought to market the week after Labor Day increased 20% compared to the week before. The second week back saw dealflow increase another 47%. By the second week in October, the weekly deal number (and presumably your workload) was nearly 3x larger than any week in August.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Looks like a busy couple of months ahead - hope you’re well rested. Enjoy the weekend and see you back in the market next week!</span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-77026333786106987942012-08-29T21:49:00.001-04:002012-08-29T21:49:04.173-04:00Small manufacturing gets interesting<a href="http://www.designworldonline.com/evolving-manufacturing/">Small manufacturing gets interesting</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-61474997521940738192012-08-24T09:31:00.001-04:002012-08-24T09:31:30.494-04:00How to Be Persuasive during Virtual Sales Calls (Part 1) | Sales & Marketing 2.0 Conference<a href="http://www.sales20conf.com/blog/?p=1287#.UDeCJEUIb30.blogger">How to Be Persuasive during Virtual Sales Calls (Part 1) | Sales & Marketing 2.0 Conference</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-72919636016175733622012-08-21T12:18:00.000-04:002012-08-21T12:18:13.893-04:00Andice Integrated Funding: Intelligent Growth Capital<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While questions remain about where the economy may be heading into the latter half of the year, we have seen entrepreneurs obtaining larger orders and taking advantage of opportunities by utilizing our working capital and integrated funding programs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AIF provides funding of inventory required to fill sales orders from credit worthy end buyers at an advance rate of up to 100% of the cost of the inventory. AIF, as a funding integrator we also work with a factor, asset-based lenders, or banks in each of our transactions and look to partner with senior debt financing sources thereby providing a completely integrated supply chain funding solutions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our funding programs are customized to support:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">• Finished goods inventory trade transactions for importers, exporters, and wholesale distributors</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">• Production or value added transactions for light manufacturers, assemblers, and processors</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">• Companies operating in consumer goods, industrial products, food, and government contract industries </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AIF specialized funding programs provide:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">• Funding for transactions ranging in size from $300,000 to $200,000,000 or more</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">• Letters of credit, credit guarantees or cash funding for the purchase of finished goods, raw materials, components, and logistics costs. In certain cases, funding can be made for direct labor and direct overhead relating to specific transactions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Please call us today to discuss any opportunity that could use our integrated funding expertise and capacity for working capital and contract funding in the U.S. and Canada.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thank you for your continued support as we look forward to working with you in the near future.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ann Reade-Moore</span><br />
<a href="http://www.andicefunding.com/"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">www.andicefunding.com</span></a><br />
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-58970874006956024412012-08-16T18:05:00.001-04:002012-08-16T18:05:24.589-04:00Manufacturing Takes Center Stage in the Global Economy<a href="http://manufacturing-executive.frost-multimedia-wire.com/manufacturing-takes-center-stage-in-the-global-economy">Manufacturing Takes Center Stage in the Global Economy</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-85502998247159463032012-08-15T08:21:00.000-04:002012-08-15T08:21:10.163-04:00Manufacturing Is Returning to America<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although it may not be the panacea that everyone seems to think it will be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The robots of today aren’t the androids or Cylons that we are used to seeing in science fiction movies, but specialized electromechanical devices run by software and remote control. As computers become more powerful, so do the abilities of these devices. Robots are now capable of performing surgery, milking cows, doing military reconnaissance and combat, and flying fighter jets. Several companies, such as Willow Garage, iRobot and 9th Sense, sell robot-development kits for which university students and open-source communities are developing ever-more sophisticated applications.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note what’s missing from this picture: Jobs for people from the left side of the Bell Curve, the sort of people who work on assembly lines and join unions. This is bad news for the Democrats and throws them back on the other half of their base, i.e. welfare recipients. Look for them to push even harder for increased dependency on the government largesse that they use to buy votes.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How will we turn these designs into products? By “printing” them at home or at modern-day Kinko’s using shared public manufacturing facilities such as TechShop, a membership-based manufacturing workshop featuring manufacturing technologies now on the horizon.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another hit for the working class. The emerging technology of ‘contour crafting’ will affect the building trades the way that Henry Ford’s assembly line did the manufacturing trades. Once we have programmable machines to ‘print’ houses, there won’t be a lot for bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers, and electricians to do.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In additive manufacturing, parts are produced by melting successive layers of materials based on three-dimensional models — adding materials rather than subtracting them. The “3D printers” that produce these parts use powdered metal, droplets of plastic and other materials — much like the toner cartridges that go into laser printers. This allows the creation of objects without tools or fixtures. The process doesn’t produce waste material and there is no additional cost for complexity. Just as, thanks to laser printers, a page filled with graphics doesn’t cost much more than one with text (other than the cost of toner), with 3D printers we can print a sophisticated 3D structure for what it would cost to print something simple.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More efficient, more economical, more ‘green’ — you name it, automation does it. What happens when ‘customized’ products are the same price as mass-produced? The ‘fashion’ industry ought to be getting pretty nervous right about now. Upside: Prices will plummet. Downside: How are people going to pay even these low prices without a job to generate income?</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, there will always be niche positions for custom craftsmen — there are people today making a living doing custom wood and stone work — but that’s not going to float the working class.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This entry was posted on Monday, August 13th, 2012 at 03:58 and is filed under <a href="http://dyspepsiageneration.com/?p=78735" target="_blank">Think about it</a>. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. </span><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-61172322045202398752012-08-06T16:28:00.001-04:002012-08-06T16:28:28.674-04:00The Greatest Machine That Never Was | Product Design and Development<a href="http://pddnet.com/video-the-greatest-machine-that-never-was-072312/">The Greatest Machine That Never Was | Product Design and Development</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-25289783635865081192012-07-25T17:21:00.001-04:002012-07-25T17:21:58.995-04:00The Future of Manufacturing Is in America, Not China - By Vivek Wadhwa | Foreign Policy<a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/07/17/the_future_of_manufacturing_is_in_america_not_china#.UBBjb2GgSmE.blogger">The Future of Manufacturing Is in America, Not China - By Vivek Wadhwa | Foreign Policy</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-44235365092764275922012-07-25T13:56:00.001-04:002012-07-25T13:56:23.517-04:00What the Candidates Should Do About U.S. Manufacturing | Economy In Crisis<a href="http://economyincrisis.org/content/what-the-candidates-should-do-about-u-s-manufacturing#.UBAzOZDlsFg.blogger">What the Candidates Should Do About U.S. Manufacturing | Economy In Crisis</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-51797336300752734552012-07-11T10:08:00.000-04:002012-07-11T10:08:21.491-04:00New Trends of Sustainable Development of Manufacturing Industry<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">New Trends of Sustainable Development of Manufacturing Industry</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Establish a sound system for technological innovation is the key to the sustainable development of China”s equipment manufacturing industry. Of technological innovation system of the equipment manufacturing industry is a common Basic Research → Research → Product Development → industrialization, this structure shows that based on common technology is indispensable, and research institutes in China structural reform to the weakening or even absence of the R & D based on common technology are already evident, is not conducive to the overall innovation. At present, the conversion Institutes of public services to rebuild infrastructure and common technology platform has become essential; otherwise it will affect our overall strategic process of the establishment of an innovative country.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, what industry is considered high-end equipment manufacturing industry? Next focus of development where? Summed up the view of experts, the areas covered by the high-end equipment manufacturing industry, including aviation equipment, satellite and its application industry, rail transportation equipment marine engineering equipment, and intelligent manufacturing equipment, and so on. These industries have a technology-intensive, high added value and strong leading role, the high-end part of the equipment manufacturing industry, and all belong to the emerging industry. Traditional industries cannot be assigned to them. For example, one million kilowatts of ultra-supercritical generating units, although a high-end part of the manufacturing sector, but it belongs to the traditional industries, and therefore cannot be included in the areas of focus on the development of high-end equipment manufacturing. Some ore equipment manufacturer – ball mill manufacturers must also forward to the high-end intelligent, in order to meet development needs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the various fields of high-end equipment manufacturing, intelligent manufacturing equipment is still relatively new concept, but also much concern. The so-called intelligent manufacturing equipment is the perception, analysis, reasoning, decision making, manufacturing equipment control functions; it is an advanced manufacturing technology, information technology and smart technology integration and depth of integration. The development of intelligent manufacturing equipment include: focus on promoting high-end CNC machine tools and basic manufacturing equipment, complete production line automation, intelligent control systems, sophisticated and intelligent instruments and instrumentation and test equipment, the key foundation components, parts and general parts, intelligent dedicated equipment development of production process automation, intelligent, precision, green, driving the overall technology level of the industry. Example, in the field of sophisticated and intelligent instrumentation and test equipment, it should address the development of biological, energy saving and environmental protection, petrochemical and other industries need to focus on the development of intelligent pressure, flow, level, composition, materials, mechanical properties, such as precision instrument and scientific instruments and the environment, security and defense, special testing equipment. In key infrastructure components, parts and general parts of the field to focus on the development of high-parameter, high precision and high reliability bearings, hydraulic / pneumatic / sealing components, gear drives and large, sophisticated, complex, long-life mold and so on.china jaw crusher:http://www.hxjqchina.com/n69.html </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">artificial sand maker:http://www.hx-china.com/9.html</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the field of intelligent dedicated equipment should focus on the development of a new generation of large electric power and grid equipment, robotics industry, TBM, rapid integration of flexible construction equipment such as intelligent construction machinery, as well as large advanced and efficient intelligent agricultural machinery.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also, the large aircraft, regional aircraft and general aviation aircraft for the application object, the use of aircraft manufacturing, the combination of machine tool manufacturing and materials production enterprises, the focus on the development of composite materials preparation equipment, automatic auxiliary band / auxiliary wire device, component processing machine, ultrasonic processing / high pressure water cutting equipment and grinding ball mill equipment.</span><br />
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Posted on July 10, 2012, 2:20 am, by lilyyoung89, under I Love Gingers.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-88724143716477877862012-07-11T09:50:00.001-04:002012-07-11T09:50:14.736-04:003-D printing could remake U.S. manufacturing – USATODAY.com<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/manufacturing/story/2012-07-10/digital-manufacturing/56135298/1#.T_2EhAaKL_8.blogger">3-D printing could remake U.S. manufacturing – USATODAY.com</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-62227216378134642962012-07-10T15:50:00.001-04:002012-07-10T15:50:37.782-04:00A Burden Now, a Blessing Later?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A Burden Now, a Blessing Later? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Posted by David McCann | July 05, 2012 </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m a lifelong, avid baseball fan, and when others of my ilk pose “best player” questions, I always query back: best over the course of his career, or best at the peak of his abilities? Sandy Koufax had a short career during which he was inconsistent in the early years but more than brilliant for a final few. Don Sutton was at no time regarded as among the best few pitchers, but bit by bit, over 23 years, he compiled a set of numbers that eventually propelled him, like his one-time teammate Koufax, to the Hall of Fame.</span><a href="http://www3.cfo.com/blogs/human-capital-careers/human-capital--careers-blog/2012/07/A-Burden-Now-a-Blessing-Later"><span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www3.cfo.com/blogs/human-capital-careers/human-capital--careers-blog/2012/07/A-Burden-Now-a-Blessing-Later</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
Those guys played decades ago. But these days, when I hear people voice opinions on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — which has been quite often the past two-plus years, reaching a crescendo recently — I notice a reminiscent whiff of that baseball dichotomy. By that I mean, if someone asks me whether I think this law makes sense, I want to rejoin with: over the short term, or over the long term?<br />
In today’s immediacy, the machinations and regulatory interpretations of the law are imposing pain on a host of parties, including health-care providers, insurers, and, most notably to CFO’s audience, companies generally. The costs of compliance are annoying and frustrating. Many are angry at Congress for allegedly overstepping its authority in passing the still-new law, and at the Supreme Court for last week endorsing that supposed faux pas. Some CFOs, as we reported then, are dismayed that they still don’t have closure on the fate of the law, given that the next Congress will probably continue the lively fight over whether to modify or repeal it.<br />
Those are certainly understandable and reasonable objections — even the last one, despite some comments posted to our article that railed against the CFOs quoted in it for sounding like they were too ineffectual to move forward. Please, give these finance chiefs a break. They and their peers strive for efficiency, a goal that is significantly hampered, when it comes to health-care benefits, by having to comply with a law that may or may not exist a year from now.<br />
Still, if even the short-term implications of the law and the court decision are not clear, can anyone say with even modest confidence what the long-term implications might be?<br />
For example, what if the PPACA were allowed to fully flower? If, as the law contemplates, providers were paid based on patient outcomes, rather than on the number of patient visits, procedures performed, and tests ordered? If insurers were forced by the law to reduce administrative costs in order to avoid mandatory customer rebates? If the state health-insurance exchanges that may be created under the law worked so well that many companies could eventually find relief from the burden of paying for workers’ health care at all, not to mention the compliance burden?<br />
Look, I know it’s not as simple as that. The PPACA has many provisions that may be cost factors for corporations in both the short and long terms. The incremental dollars to be pumped into the health-care system by the mandate that almost everyone obtain health insurance might not be enough to pay for all the concessions the insurance industry made, like eliminating annual and lifetime coverage caps and the prohibition on denying coverage to anyone, even those with chronic pre-existing conditions. Additionally, numerous unintended consequences of the law, negative or positive, are almost certain to crop up.<br />
But it was never intended to be an immediate panacea to all of the woes related to health care that plague our society, the economy, and corporate bottom lines. It is a stake in the ground that acknowledges those woes that explicitly says, “There are problems afoot. They need to be dealt with.” And that implicitly says, “Here is a start. And from this start, we can smooth out the law and make it better and fairer over time.”<br />
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Companies should, with respect to the health-care arena, climb out of their quarter-to-quarter foxhole, support efforts to gradually improve the system, and look to a farther time horizon. It’s just possible that the view might not be as terrifying as they thought.<br />
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Source:<div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-72436062131571395382012-07-08T16:50:00.001-04:002012-07-08T16:50:23.804-04:00GreenTech Automotive launches tiny electric car with help of Bill Clinton and Haley Barbour<a href="http://www.torquenews.com/1075/greentech-automotive-launches-tiny-electric-car-help-bill-clinton-and-haley-barbour#.T_nygclGHl8.blogger">GreenTech Automotive launches tiny electric car with help of Bill Clinton and Haley Barbour</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-46771924029674742652012-07-03T09:59:00.000-04:002012-07-03T09:59:48.059-04:00US manufacturing shrinks for first time in 3 years<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">BY NEIL SHAH AND BEN CASSELMAN </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The global economic slowdown has finally caught up with American manufacturers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The U.S. factory sector shrank in June for the first time since July 2009—the first month of the economic recovery—the Institute for Supply Management said Monday. Exports fell, and new orders, which gauge future factory activity, dropped at their fastest pace since the post-9/11 plunge in October 2001.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The report is the strongest evidence yet that Europe's troubles and slowing growth in China are hurting American factories, one of the biggest drivers of the U.S. recovery. Separate reports have shown U.S. exports fell in April for the first time.</span><br />
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-52953002773204886522012-06-26T23:35:00.001-04:002012-06-26T23:35:06.520-04:00EDA: Economic Recovery in Fremont, California's Auto Community | Department of Commerce<a href="http://www.commerce.gov/blog/2012/06/22/eda-economic-recovery-fremont-californias-auto-community">EDA: Economic Recovery in Fremont, California's Auto Community | Department of Commerce</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-12141603833335990662012-06-21T09:23:00.000-04:002012-06-21T09:23:07.351-04:00Five Capabilities That Mid-Sized Manufacturers Need To Build<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A mid-sized manufacturer needs to do the following five things right, so it can continue to successfully compete and maintain its growth rate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mid-size companies, with revenues between $10 million and $1 billion, are expected to outpace larger companies in growth over the next 12 months, according to recent research by the Ohio State University Fisher College of Business and GE Capital.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These companies account for a third of the nation’s GDP, more than 41 million jobs, and are considered a leading indicator of America’s future competitiveness. Mid-sized companies added 2.2 million jobs between 2007 and 2010 (a period of economic crisis), while big businesses shed 3.7 million jobs during the same period. Although mid-market companies may not dominate the headlines, they are the engine of the American economy. This article identifies the advantages that mid-sized manufacturers have (which drive their growth) and the key investments they need to make in continuing to maintain this growth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mid-sized manufacturing companies have three very big advantages over larger companies. They are:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">■Focus: Unlike large companies, a mid-sized manufacturing company offers a narrow range of products and services, allowing them to maintain a sharp focus. As a result, their business and market strategies are more crisp, resulting in a better potential to out-execute the large manufacturers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">■Speed: The ability to move faster than larger companies to take advantage of a new market opportunity is one of the biggest advantages of mid-sized manufacturing companies. The likely presence of an entrepreneurial founder (or a family member) running the day-to-day operations, coupled with smaller size, allows mid-sized companies to move quickly when they identify a new opportunity in an existing or related market segment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">■Closeness to customers: Customer relationships and satisfaction are important for any business’s success, but mid-sized manufacturers (especially those that are family owned) take it to the next level by connecting with the customers they deal with, emphasizing the community and accentuating the personal touch. Their sharper focus and smaller size enable them to stay closer to their customers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As we discussed above, the primary source of a mid-sized manufacturer’s competitive advantage is its ability to stay close to its customers, be nimble and offer superior service, while still making respectable margins. But as such companies grow, they begin to get squeezed from both sides – they can no longer be as flexible and personalized as their smaller competitors, but at the same time, they do not have the operational sophistication to compete with the big boys. This affects their ability to grow at the pace they want. How can they counter it?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A mid-sized manufacturer needs to do the following five things right, so it can continue to successfully compete and maintain its growth rate:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">■Hire the right managerial skill set: As an organization grows, it needs managerial talent who know how to scale the company to the next inflection point. Lack of such skills within the company has tripped many companies who were very successful when they were small, but are now struggling. Mid-sized manufacturers also need managers who know how to grow their business internationally. Easy growth in revenues and profits from an expanding domestic economy is gone – so mid-sized companies have to build their presence in the fast-growing emerging economies. As a result, they need to hire managerial talent that has done this before and knows how to navigate these new waters.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">■Gain access to cash and working capital: Most mid-sized companies need access to sufficient working capital to fuel their growth. While financial discipline ensures they have sufficient cash-on-hand, it is often not enough to fund their growth. Challenges to improving working capital performance remain, partly as a result of mid-market firms deriving a large volume of business (57%) from bigger companies. This imbalance, according to an American Express study, affects their ability to negotiate better deals and payment terms, requiring them to tap into financing arrangements outside the company. As a result, mid-sized businesses need to continuously evaluate and build relationships with banks and capital markets to fund their cash and working capital needs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">■Deploy technology that provides insights into business performance: Mid-sized companies have limited resources. Therefore, they cannot afford to make many mistakes. They need visibility into what is working well, so it can be quickly capitalized. They also need visibility into what is not working well, so it can be rapidly addressed. For example, if their managers have analytics technology that provides clear visibility into planned vs. actual revenue, costs, and spend for new products introduced in the last 12 months, they could easily identify poor performers and quickly shift the spending away from them until their issues were addressed. Without the benefit of such information, it may take either longer to make such decisions, and they may continue betting on poor performers. Continued success also comes from getting everyone in the company on the same page, using the same set of assumptions, and seeing the same version of the truth. For example, if engineering, sales, finance, and marketing organizations use the same analysis on marketing pipeline trends, quarterly sales performance and profitability by various segments, they are more likely to share the same conclusions and be aligned on priorities to maximize growth and fix problem areas.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">■Look bigger than they are: One of the greatest challenges for a mid-size company is to find a way to profitably scale their operations. They now need to look big in the eyes of their large customers – where the average lifetime contract value is highly prized and will provide fuel for their rapid growth. But in order to successfully acquire such customers, they must appear seasoned in all aspects of their customer interactions – from marketing campaigns, to sales force’s interactions with customers, to after-sales support and service. Examples include:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">◦Being able to segment the prospect base and deliver highly customized marketing campaigns to them at a caliber one expects from large companies. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">◦Enabling sales people to have ready access via their mobile phones to information such as pricing or configuration or shipment dates, providing for rich customer interactions. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">◦Providing specialized support to VIP customers by routing calls quickly to the best support people and rapidly escalating unresolved issues. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">CRM technology implements such capabilities, so the organization will appear seasoned and operationally sound to the bigger prospects.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">■Improve operational capabilities and deploy changes rapidly: In order to scale successfully, mid-sized manufacturers also need to develop operational sophistication to predictably deliver the right product to the right customer at the right time in the right quantity at the right cost. It requires extremely tight integration between the front-office (sales, marketing, and service) and back-office operations (engineering, planning, procurement, manufacturing, distribution and finance) to coordinate all aspects of the supply chain to meet customer commitments. It requires eliminating any information silos within the organization and across the supply chain, so nothing can fall through the cracks. But that is not enough. Agility, one of the sources of competitive advantage of mid-sized companies, cannot be sacrificed in favor of well-defined and integrated processes. Mid-sized organizations need to ensure their technology is flexible, so they can quickly deploy process changes to support rapid deployment of new initiatives or rapidly respond to shifting market dynamics.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mid-sized companies are the growth engine of US economy. A mid-sized company that develops these five capabilities can continue to successfully compete in the market against companies of all sizes and grow its business. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By: Mindy Fiorentino, SAP </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mindy Fiorentino is Vice President of Portfolio Marketing in the Global Ecosystem Channels Solution Marketing Group at SAP</span><br />
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-82967936156369086752012-06-20T17:03:00.001-04:002012-06-20T17:03:26.451-04:00RT @KeepItMadeinUSA: Let's thank manufacturing for helping the U.S. economy so much of late<a href="http://americanmanufacturing.org/blog/lets-thank-manufacturing-helping-us-economy-so-much-late">http://americanmanufacturing.org/blog/lets-thank-manufacturing-helping-us-economy-so-much-late</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-67098527333859220592012-06-15T12:38:00.000-04:002012-06-15T12:38:44.191-04:00US Manufacaturing Renaissance: Which Industries?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Though margin has driven outsourcing to China for decades, the advantage is eroding according to the Boston Consulting Group. “Seven ‘tipping point’ sectors are poised to return to the U.S. for manufacturing: transportation goods, computers and electronics, fabricated metal products, machinery, plastics and rubber, appliances and electrical equipment, and furniture. Combined with increased U.S. exports, these groups could boost annual output in the economy by $100 billion, [and] create 2 to 3 million jobs…“(<a href="https://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/commentary/manufacturing_supply_chain_management_us_manufacturing_renaissance_which_industries/" target="_blank">The U.S. Manufacturing Renaissance: Which Industries?).</a></span><br />
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-43354681838370125502012-06-15T08:39:00.003-04:002012-06-15T08:39:59.690-04:00Hopeful Sign: Small Manufacturers Buy Big Machines<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">NEW YORK (AP) — Small businesses that make machines and components for other manufacturers are experiencing an upswing that could be a sign of things to come for the broader economy.</span><br />
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The industries fueling the demand vary. In some cases, business is coming from medical device makers, which are expected to see increasing growth as baby boomers age and need more medical care. An uptick in orders is coming from oil and gas producers supplying energy to growing economies in countries such as China and India. And then some are getting a pop in sales from aerospace manufacturers that are busy building fuel-efficient aircraft and engines and need special parts to get the job done.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As different as these manufacturers may be, they have two things in common: Their industries are expected to see continued growth and they're investing in expensive machinery that can cost millions of dollars.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This small manufacturer machinery boom may seem at odds with an economy that is suffering from slow job growth following the worst recession many can remember. But the increase in demand for gear that businesses use to make a variety of machines, parts, tools and devices is a sign that companies are more confident and are willing to spend. They're also getting loans from banks to buy the equipment — evidence that lenders are feeling more secure.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last year, industrial and materials manufacturers had a 37 percent increase in big equipment purchases, according to PayNet, a company that tracks lending to small businesses. That compares to an average of 17 percent for all the industries PayNet follows.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"We're positioning ourselves now to have the capacity to respond quickly," says Pat Pastoors, general manager of Dynamic Sealing Technologies, which last month spent $450,000 on new equipment after spending $800,000 last year. In 2011, Dynamic Sealing paid $3.2 million to expand its Andover, Minn., factory. The company makes manufacturing equipment for companies including food packagers and oil and gas producers. Pastoors says the company sees good potential growth in the industries it serves. The company's revenue rose 20 percent last year after doubling in 2010.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">THE FIRST STEP</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Skeptics should talk to the bankers who grant loans to companies that make gear and parts for othermanufacturers, like Anthony Cracchiolo, president of U.S. Bank's equipment finance unit. U.S Bank's lending through its Manufacturing Vendor Services division, part of the equipment finance unit, is up 15 percent this year from the same period of 2011. And last year's lending level was up 26 percent from 2010. Equipment sales had fallen 70 percent during the recession. More recently, the bank, which is based in Minneapolis and has branches in 25 states, has seen an increase in demand for big machines like lasers, molding equipment and plastic injection machines.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By the end of this year, U.S. Bank expects this type of lending to be at 90 percent of pre-recession levels. It expects the recovery among these manufacturers to reach other parts of the economy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"This is the first step, the people that build the machines," Cracchiolo says.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sales for privately held industrial machinery manufacturers, including companies of all sizes, are up nearly 23 percent in the last 12 months, according to Sageworks, a financial research firm.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wells Fargo & Co. also is seeing an increase in lending to companies that manufacture products for other companies, says Hugh Long, head of business banking. The bank would not provide a breakdown of how much lending to companies that make machinery and components has gone up, but "that particular subset of themanufacturing business is quite active," Long says.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Morris Technologies spent $1 million on an electronic beam melting machine in January. The company, based in Cincinnati, uses a sophisticated technology called additive metal fabrication to create complex parts for planes, turbines, medical equipment and other machinery. It's a manufacturing method that uses computer models and molten metals to build components one layer at a time rather than carving them out of a block of metal.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">CEO Greg Morris says the interest he's seeing in the technology from his customers justifies the purchase of an expensive machine even though the economy is looking a little more uncertain these days.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"I think the handwriting on the wall is that this technology is going to be huge," he says.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Generous tax breaks that small businesses got during the recession were also an incentive for thesemanufacturers to buy big equipment. Morris said the laws that allowed him to speed up depreciation of new equipment were a factor in his decision to buy. However, those breaks have been scaled back dramatically this year. For example, what was a $500,000 deduction last year is now down to $125,000. It's not certain that Congress will increase them before Dec. 31.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">TAKING BUSINESS FROM CHINA</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many of these small manufacturers spend months on design and development to customize parts for their customers. The complexities involved have given U.S. manufacturers an edge. That's helped some smallcompanies in the U.S. take business away from manufacturers in China.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"For specialty manufacturing products, the end users are concluding it's better to have production close by, here in the U.S.," says William Phelan, the president of PayNet. "If there's a problem, they can get the parts shipped overnight, and transportation costs are less."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wells Fargo also sees the trend in its lending to small manufacturers. "We're seeing this reverse offshoring — some call it onshoring," Long says.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some of these companies are getting more business from the government. Peter Boucher, whose company, 3v Precision Machining, makes components for industries including aerospace and medical devices, is also making parts for the new F-35 fighter plane. He began buying machines during the recession and will buy one this year. He has spent $1.6 million on four machines since 2007.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Boucher says his business from aircraft makers has risen sharply because airlines that weren't buying planes during the recession now want to replace them. When Boeing. Co. released its first-quarter earnings in April, it said it had orders for more than 4,000 commercial planes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"It's a good food chain to be involved in," says Boucher, whose company is located in Tacoma, Wash.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The heavy toll that the recession took on the manufacturing business has also encouraged many companies tobuy machinery. Manufacturers that went out of business left behind a glut of machines.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">John Maurer has bought four machines in the last year and has been getting bargains — some cost just 40 percent of the price of a new one and were only a year old. He expects to buy two this year for his family's Springfield, Ohio-based company, Esterline & Sons Manufacturing, whose customers include aerospace and medical device companies and power plants</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Source: </span><a href="http://www.manufacturing.net/news/2012/06/hopeful-sign-small-manufacturers-buy-big-machines?et_cid=2697039&et_rid=418648105&linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.manufacturing.net%2fnews%2f2012%2f06%2fhopeful-sign-small-manufacturers-buy-big-machines"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">http://www.manufacturing.net/news/2012/06/hopeful-sign-small-manufacturers-buy-big-machines?et_cid=2697039&et_rid=418648105&linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.manufacturing.net%2fnews%2f2012%2f06%2fhopeful-sign-small-manufacturers-buy-big-machines</span></a></div>
</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-31763430851607036832012-06-14T02:26:00.001-04:002012-06-14T02:26:20.997-04:00Analysis: After decades of outsourcing, manufacturing jobs coming home to US<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Beginning in the 1970s America’s high-paying manufacturing jobs in the steel, textile, electronics and automotive industries relocated first south to Latin America and then east to Asia.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In what some dubbed “a global race to the bottom,” labor rights have dwindled all along the way and the American middle class, long sustained by those manufacturing jobs, finds itself gutted. Now the fate of what is left of the American middle class is at the center of a presidential election and forcing a reexamination of the impact of the global decline of labor rights.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But after years of pain for America’s manufacturing sector and its workers, some economists and analysts are wondering if the tide may be turning. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Call it “re-shoring” or “rebalancing” or just “revenge,” but the dynamics of global labor, transportation and productivity costs that eviscerated American manufacturing over the past decade have begun to shift again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over the past few years, some key American manufacturers have either brought jobs back to the US from Asia and Latin America, or have made important decisions not to relocate them in the first place.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>For several years now, the anecdotal data has been tantalizing:</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Caterpillar is building a $120 million plant to make giant earthmovers in Victoria, Texas, including some models that were previously built in Japan and shipped back to North American customers. The Japan plant is now free to devote more capacity to the booming Asian market.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Master Lock, in Milwaukee, landed a visit from President Barack Obama in February after its decision to bring 300 jobs back from China. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">General Electric reversed a decision to build a new “green” refrigerator plant in Asia and decided instead to invest $93 million in refurbishing a plant in Bloomington, Indiana, saving 700 jobs. The company followed up in 2010 by investing $80 million in a water heater plant in Louisville, Kentucky, preventing another 400 jobs from heading east. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not to be outdone, GE competitor Whirlpool decided to break ground on a new $200 million plant in Cleveland, Tennessee rather than send the 1,500 jobs overseas. The facility is part of a four-year, $1 billion American investment campaign. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dow Chemical, the cash register company NCR, Sauder Woodworking and the machine tool firm GF AgieCharmilles have all brought overseas production back to the US market in the past three years.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>More from GlobalPost: Team America needs a new game plan</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most economists — even those inclined to sympathize with the Obama administration’s economic policies — scoffed in 2010 when, in his State of the Union address, the president vowed to double US exports in five years — creating 2 million jobs in the process. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s not that this wasn’t possible in the eyes of economists. It just wasn’t likely, they thought, that the global conditions and political climate in the United States would allow it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The “zero effect” — the distorting phenomenon of measuring growth starting at an unnaturally low point — kept a damper on enthusiasm even as export figures soared in 2010-2011.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many experts assumed that the favorable trends supporting that growth had little to do with long-term shifts. Instead, most felt the numbers reflected a coincidental confluence of events: sky-high oil prices that drove the costs of shipping upwards, a mega-recession that undermined American labor’s negotiating leverage, Federal Reserve “quantitative easing” that kept the dollar cheap and pumped up US exports, and freak events like the euro zone meltdown and the Japanese earthquake/tsunami that took major players off the economic chessboard.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But the data has started to cause reassessments. Monthly net exports have grown from $140 billion to $180 billion since the start of 2010. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indeed, energy exports (mostly refined gasoline, jet fuel and natural gas) have suddenly grown into the single most valuable product sent abroad by American manufacturers, the first time in 60 years the US has been a net exporter of any of these items.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>A new revolution</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So what’s behind this strange counterintuitive trend? For some economists, this represents the start of the “third industrial revolution,” the dawn of the new high-tech, value-added era of manufacturing that follows the first two global revolutions: England in the mid-1800s, and the one sparked by Henry Ford’s mass production innovations in the 1920s in Detroit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“The factory of the past was based on cranking out zillions of identical products,” writes The Economist in a special report on the new trend published in April. “Now a product can be made on a computer and ‘printed’ on a 3D printer, which creates a solid object by building up successive layers of material. … the cost of producing much smaller batches of a wider variety, with each product tailored precisely to each customer’s whims, is falling.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Manufacturers have discovered the value of bringing production closer to the point of sale, where their employees can engage more directly with customers and adapt quickly to changes in the market. And for all the changes in the global economy, the point of sale, by and large, will still tend to be in the world’s largest consumer economy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For America, this could be the start of something good, according to the Boston Consulting Group. In 2011, BCG reported that, due to a number of changing economic realities — including rising salaries and economic expectations among Chinese workers, new labor, environmental and safety regulations abroad, the higher cost of energy required to ship products halfway around the world, and the US market and the uncertainties of political risk in these places — the cost benefits of producing in Asia no longer automatically outweigh the risks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indeed, the BCG report predicts a “renaissance for US manufacturing” citing the fact that labor costs in the United States and China are expected to converge around 2015.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Executives who are planning a new factory in China to make exports for sale in the US should take a hard look at the total costs,” says BCG’s Harold L. Sirkin, an author of the report. “They’re increasingly likely to get a good wage deal and substantial incentives in the US so the cost advantage of China might not be large enough to bother and that’s before taking into account the added expense, time, and complexity of logistics.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong>More from Global Post: Islamic banking on the rise amid the credit crunch</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Skeptics continue to question whether this is sustainable. Not in the political realm, of course; it is anathema for any politician to suggest that America should content itself to life as a “post-industrial society,” in part because so few can explain how to employ 300 million people in such a place.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Even if we didn’t have to compete with lower-wage workers overseas, we’d still have fewer factory jobs because the old assembly line has been replaced by numerically-controlled machine tools and robotics. Manufacturing is going high-tech,” writes Robert Reich, a University of California at Berkeley professor who served as Bill Clinton’s labor secretary. “Bringing back American manufacturing isn’t the real challenge, anyway. It’s creating good jobs for the majority of Americans who lack four-year college degrees.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">BCG, which launched a cottage industry with its 2011 report on manufacturing, believes this line of argument misses the changes underway in the global economy. On April 20 its economists released a survey of the largest American manufacturing firms. The results: one third of all US manufacturing executives of companies with sales above $1 billion per year now say they are planning or considering “reshoring”; in effect, bringing home manufacturing plants that were sent to China and other low labor cost countries during the 1990s and first decade of this century.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The top factors for bringing these jobs home cited by these executives surveyed by BCG: Higher labor costs in Asia (57 percent), ease of doing business (29 percent), and proximity to customers (28 percent).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the American worker, this will be rare good news. But the jobs that are returning will look nothing like those that left. Rote assembly lines, low value-added manufacturing like textiles, furniture and heavy smelting operations like the steel industry may never again be profitable in the way they were after World War II, when the US economy was the last bastion of capitalism not destroyed by war.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But history shows that workers adapt to change when the incentives are present. Displaced hunters became farmers; displaced farmers became artisans; displaced artisans learned the skills of the factory; and displaced factory workers can learn the techniques of the 21st century.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Source: </span><a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/120504/american-manufacturing-jobs-returning-outsourcing-reshoring"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/united-states/120504/american-manufacturing-jobs-returning-outsourcing-reshoring</span></a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6349750059431937442.post-84421590828347892902012-06-14T00:30:00.001-04:002012-06-14T00:30:41.468-04:00U.S. Commerce Department Invests in America’s Small- and Medium-Sized Manufacturers | Department of Commerce<a href="http://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2011/03/02/us-commerce-department-invests-america%E2%80%99s-small-and-medium-sized-manuf">U.S. Commerce Department Invests in America’s Small- and Medium-Sized Manufacturers | Department of Commerce</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andice Integrated Funding is a member of the Andice Group of Companies.
www.andice.com</div>Andice Alliance Funding Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18112080650128371926noreply@blogger.com0