3.5 Million Manufacturing Jobs Lost since 2001

I just heard an amazing statistic that since 2001, 3.5 MILLION manufacturing jobs have been lost in the United States! This is where standards such as MTConnect really matter for the United States. We must increase the productivity for the manufacturing technology industry and MTConnect is the absolute first step because until manufacturing technology systems can speak the same language, the industry will continue to languish. The great news is that, as you see below, MTConnect is doing tremendously well thanks the the huge success of IMTS 2008.

The most important group in any standards effort are the customers. The customers are absolutely starting to demand MTConnect. Below are the MTConnect Participants who are the thought leaders in manufacturing technology and are changing the world in a very positive way by embracing open and royalty-free standards (the list below is as of September 26th, 2008) that came from the MTConnect homepage.

MT Connect Technical Advisory Group: Members Assembly & Test Worldwide, Inc. Digital Technology Laboratory Corporation FANUC Robotics America, Inc. GE Aviation GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, Inc. The Gleason Works I/Gear Software, Inc. LMAS, UC Berkeley MAG Industrial Automation Systems National Institute of Standards and Technology Mazak Corporation Parlect, Inc. Remmele Engineering, Inc. Bosch Rexroth Corporation Sun Microsystems, Inc. TechSolve, Inc. MT Connect Technical Advisory Group: Observers Hurco Companies, Inc. Okuma America Corporation Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc. MT Connect Contributors/Implementers Agie Charmilles CNC Engineering CAMTEK Division of Vero CNC Engineering Drake Esprit Flow International GibbsCAM Haas Automation, Inc. Hardinge, Inc. Huffman Corporation Infimatic LNS America, Inc. Milltronics Manufacturing Corporation Mori Seiki, Inc. NUM Omax THINC Partners Refresh Your Memory Star-SU Sunnen