Category: Chapter 1

posts related to Chapter 1

OM in the News: US Manufacturing and the Skills Shortage

Today’s Wall Street Journal (Feb.27, 2012) reports that “following 12 straight years of declines, US manufacturers added 109,000 workers to their payrolls in 2010 and another 237,000 in 2011”, with more to come in 2012.  But this vibrant sector, it turns out, is being held back–and not by imports. American manufacturers claim that 5% of their jobs remain unfilled simply because they could not find workers with the right skills. That 5% vacancy rate means an astounding 600,000 jobs are left unfilled during a period where unemployment is over 9%.

According to manufacturers, work-force shortages or skill deficiencies in production positions are keeping them from expanding operations or improving productivity. The majority of US manufacturing jobs used to involve manual tasks such as basic assembly. But today’s industrial workplace has evolved toward a technology-driven factory floor that increasingly emphasizes highly skilled workers.

“In the 1980’s,” says the president of a technical college in Kentucky, “US manufacturing was 80% brawn and 20% brains, but now its 10% brawn and 90% brains.”  This new trend in advanced manufacturing  leans heavily on computers, software, sensors, networking, and the use of emerging capabilities from the physical and biological sciences.

What’s the solution? The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) has endorsed a Manufacturing Skills Certification System, which already has 35 states showing support and interest behind it.  It would develop credentials for advanced manufacturing in 10 areas–ranging from production and automation to distribution and logistics. Last year, the US government announced a national goal of credentialing 500,000 community college students with skill sets similar to those of the NAM initiative.

“For manufacturers to continue expansion, it’s critical that our shortage of skilled workers be addressed,” concludes the Journal.

Discussion questions:

1. Would any of your OM students consider a high-tech, high-paying factory job?

2. Why is there such a shortage of skilled workers?

OM in the News: US Productivity Gains Make Manufacturing More Competitive

Two recent articles in the Wall Street Journal provide some good talking points as you start your new semester, discussing productivity in Chapter 1. The first piece (Jan.12,2012), reminds us that manufacturing employment in the US has declined steadily in the past 6 decades. And despite a growth of 334,000 jobs in the past two years, we are still down 2.3 million factory jobs since the recession began. “That’s not to say American manufacturing is withering,” writes the Journal. “Factories have been producing more with fewer workers.” Productivity is up an amazing 40% since 2007 as producers have adopted new technologies, with  better-skilled workers whose wages are staying low.  And,  “Productivity, in the long run, is good. US manufacturing may do ok in the  decade ahead,” especially as the cost of manufacturing overseas  narrows. Modern factory  jobs that require “brainpower often pay well and are secure.”

The second Journal  piece (Jan.6,2012)  cites sharply lower costs in the US relative to Canada and describes how US manufacturers have become more competitive globally because of efficiency, flexible work standards, and increased automation. The US, with a decrease of 13% per unit of output since a decade earlier, has outperformed Germany (where costs are up 2% ), Canada (up 18%), and Korea (up 15%). This means some manufacturers are bringing production back to the US, partly to reduce logistical snarls and to take advantage of the cheap dollar and cheap natural gas.

In particular, the article cites Caterpillar (moving  jobs from Ontario, to Illinois, where wages are 1/2 of what they are in Canada),  Navistar (from Ontario to Ohio  for lower wages and more flexible work rules), Electrolux (from Quebec to Tennessee), and Siemens (from Ontario to North Carolina). There is a short video embedded in the Journal article.

Discussion questions:

1. Will the US ever recover the full number of manufacturing  jobs lost?

2. Why has productivity increased so dramatically in US factories?

OM in the News: Fiat Threatens to Quit Italy

Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne has recently threatened to cease manufacturing in Italy if he cannot bring down operating costs and increase productivity. This article in Businessweek (Oct.28-Nov.4, 2011) can make for an interesting class discussion on a whole variety of OM issues, from efficiency to capacity to productivity to union relations to off-shoring. The standoff between Italy’s largest manufacturer and one its hard-line unions (metalworkers–who are 12% of the workforce) is emblematic of the challenges facing the country. Italy’s industrial competitiveness has been eroding steadily, while Eastern European rivals have been working hard to improve conditions for corporations. The World Bank just ranked Italy 87 th in terms of ease of doing business; Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic all scored better.

Let’s look at the productivity gap (see Chapter 1). Fiat’s 22,000 factory workers in Italy assembled 650,000 cars in 2009. But the 6,100 employees at its plant in Tychy, Poland, built 600,000 vehicles. The Italian workers, in effect, each made 30 cars a year on average, compared to about 100 in Poland. And auto workers in Italy earn $38.55 an hour, more than 3 times the wage paid in Poland.

This productivity gap has Marchionne pushing Italian unions to agree to more flexible hours and to limit strikes and curtail absenteeism. (12,000 workers took part in an Oct. 21st strike).  Says the union head: “Fiat workers, not its managers, want to keep the company in Italy”.    An impasse with unions could end up with production shifted to other locales in Europe and the US–a move made easier by Fiat’s ownership of a controlling stake in Chrysler. An Italian economist writes: “If Fiat moves abroad, it will become a metaphor for a country that cannot be reformed, that has lost all hopes in the future”.

Discussion questions:

1. How is this also an issue for American auto makers?

2. Relate the article to news regarding Greece’s economic problems.

OM in the News: Ten US Industries Still Hanging On

Although for much of the 20th century the US dominated global manufacturing, recent  years have not been as kind. We have seen the last US silverware company close its doors, as did the last coat-hanger maker, sardine cannery and shirt maker. But MSM Money (Oct.10, 2011) just found 10 pockets of  manufacturing that  are still hanging tough. It’s an interesting list to share in class when covering Chapters 1 and 2. The question is whether we should celebrate these limited successes–or are they dinosaurs that are still walking?

1. Bowling balls: Down from 12,000 bowling alleys in 1960, today 5,800 still operate as the sport has remained a  family pastime. Ebonite, in Hopkinsville, KY, makes 4 popular brands of bowling balls and is one of several small firms still  manufacturing in the US.

2. Sparklers: Diamond Sparkler, of Youngstown, is one of the few producers of fireworks to survive the onslaught of cheaper Chinese imports.

3. Compact discs: Although CD sales are falling, Sony just spent $72 million to expand its Terre Haute, Ind., plant where 1,300 employees plan to churn out disks for us old-timers for another decade.

4. Pianos: 98% of concert pianists still demand a grand piano from Steinway, consisting of 12,000 parts assembled by 450 workers in NYC.

5. Socks: Formerly known as the “Sock Capitol of the World”, Fort Payne, Ala., still has 20 mills and 600 employees–but certainly off from its peak of 120 mills and 8,000 workers.

6. Ironing boards: Indiana’s HPI-Seymour pumps out 720 boards/hour with 200 employees, thanks to steep tariffs to protect it from Asian competitors.

7. Pencils: General Pencil, of Jersey City, NJ, has ceded the yellow #2 pencil to China, but produces special graphic and colored drawing pencils.

8. Sneakers: With 1,000 workers in 5 New England plants, New Balance is the last standing athletic footware maker.

9. Electric relays: Struthers-Dunn, in SC, is also the final surviving maker of customized relays and controls. The rest have gone to India and other Asian nations.

10. Chopsticks: Georgia Chopsticks, as we blogged recently, is actually ramping up production, making millions per day for export to China.

Discussion questions:

1. What will OM managers have to do to help these businesses continue to operate in the US?

2. Why are many of these businesses surviving ? How many will be here in a decade?

Teaching Tip: American Productivity–a Double-Edged Sword

Last Saturday, we had a bunch of friends over for dinner and the talk turned to  productivity, about which we write in Chapter 1 (p.13): “Productivity is an excellent way to evaluate a country’s ability to provide an improving standard of living for its people. Only through increases in productivity can the standard of living increase“.

But here was the gist of the conversation— From a pediatrician: “We have a practice of 22 doctors and business is stable. Six staff turned over this year, but because of the economy, we only replaced two. The  work was split among the rest, who each got more hours”. From an ophthalmologist: “I am a sole practitioner, but when two staff left this year, I only replaced one.” From a lawyer: ” My firm made offers to two dozen new associates this year. But with the downturn, we rescinded the start dates by one year. Current associates will pick up the slack”. From a second attorney: “We did exactly the same with new hires. But we  placed each of them with a non-profit for the year and picked up their ( lower) salaries”.

The Wall Street Journal writes about “superjobs“, a situation where employees do more than one job’s worth of work. (More than 1/2 of workers surveyed said their jobs had expanded, but usually without a raise). So it’s no wonder that US productivity increased twice as fast in 2009 as it did in 2008, and twice as fast again in 2010. This makes American workers the world’s most productive. We not only work longer hours (Americans put in an average of 122 hours more per year than Brits and 378 hours more than Germans), but technology investments have increased their rates of return, and companies have become more efficient.

With more productive workers supporting a growing population, the employment rate and living standards are falling. This can make for a good classroom discussion as your students provide their view of our productivity gains. Perhaps this is lean management at its best.

OM in the News: What is the Future of American Manufacturing?

A lead article in today’s The New York Times (Sept.11,2011) questions whether the US can recover from its decline in manufacturing.   Was the tipping point reached in 2009 when China ousted America’s century long lead by generating $1.7 trillion of “value added” vs. the $1.6 trillion here? Or was it when manufacturing’s contribution to GDP declined to 11.7%  last year, down from 28% in the 1950s? (Countries over the 20% threshold are in Asia and Europe now, with China at 25%).

“We’re going to make sure the next generation of manufacturing takes root not in China or Europe, but right here, in the US”, President Obama told a joint session of Congress this week. An MIT prof counters: “The US today is alone among industrial powers in not having a strategy for thinking through what must be done in manufacturing”. “An advanced manufacturing policy is what this country must have”, adds Dow Chemical’s CEO Andrew Liveris. Liveris believes manufacturing needs government support to expand its dwindling share of the nation’s economy. He even advises the President to “pick winners” and “not let free markets rule”.

And although GE’s Jeff Immelt (co-chair of the President’s Council on Jobs, with Liveris) also expresses concern over the decline in jobs, multinationals like theirs have contributed mightily to the problem by shifting  jobs abroad. Half of Dow’s $58 billion in revenue comes from overseas operations and GE has just moved its Medical Imaging HQ from Wisconsin to China. The damage doesn’t end with factories overseas. With 40% of our engineers working in manufacturing, such jobs also decline. Innovation often originates in research centers near factories and “this trend”, writes The Times, “challenges the view that the US has the best scientists and research centers”.

Discussion questions:

1. Do Congress, the White House, and students see making an engine or scissors as important as  investment banking or retailing ?

2. Can the trend be reversed, and how?

Guest Post: Build It and They Will Learn–Introducing OM at DePaul U.

Dr. Lori Cook is Associate Professor of Management at DePaul University’s School of Business. In her Guest Blog, she describes how important  experiential learning is to her Operations Management classes. You can see her syllabus by clicking here.

I absolutely love the first day of my OM class! As my students enter the classroom, sometimes dreading the start of a new term, I can feel the nervous energy in the air.  After teaching thousands of students, I know with certainty that from day one I need to grab my students’ attention and immediately get them to understand why OM is key to understanding business environments.

On the first day, I use the Paper Puppet activity (see Games and Exercises for Operations Management, by Heineke and Meile, Prentice Hall) to help set the stage.  Upon completion of this exercise, students have an experience they can directly relate to the challenges operations managers are forced to struggle with everyday. It can also be directly linked to the 10 critical decisions of operations introduced in the Heizer and Render OM text. Without the use of the Paper Puppet activity, the majority of the lecture would cover only the basic levels of knowledge. 

Throughout the term, I use a variety of experiential learning activities to simulate “real world” applications of OM.  Research has shown that actively involving students in demonstrations enhances their fundamental understanding of the concepts. My activities tend to level the playing field by providing students with a common understanding of the subject matter.  Each exercise is designed to either introduce or reinforce the lecture topic with the goal of enhancing overall student learning.  If you are looking for experiential activities, I would encourage you to explore the teaching briefs in the Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education. 

The classroom environment is a fundamental building block in the learning process. It is critical to create a classroom experience which is both engaging and enjoyable.  It must be an environment that provides motivation to assist the students in grasping the real world relevance of the material. To see fundamental change in your classroom environment, you will often have to change your process.  While most of us are fearful of change, the long-term rewards far outweigh the short-term costs.

OM in the News: How Operations Management is Helping United and Continental Merge

The “productivity challenge”  that we discuss in Chapter 1 comes to the forefront in the merger last October of two mega air carriers, United and Continental. Now the world’s largest airline (with more frequent flyer members than France has citizens), United Continental has turned to OM to lead the integration efforts. Shaving a half-cent off per-mile operating costs can boost profits by $260 million per quarter–something Wall Street was promised with the merger.

Businessweek (July 4-11, 2011) reports how “33 integration teams are making thousands of decisions, ranging from the fastest way to clean 1,260 airplanes and board passengers to which perks to offer in the frequent-flier program“. Most of the decisions are OM-related and team members come from technology, labor, fleet management, and network planning. In technology alone, the carriers have 1,400 separate systems, programs, and protocols. (Continental had 600 programs for tasks such as crew scheduling, dispatching planes, and managing cargo, while United had 800).

Economies of scale favor big airlines, but mismatches complicate every detail. Workers, for example, come from different labor unions with dissimilar work rules. United has 1st class cabins, while Continental has just business and coach. And history has not been kind. Pilots and flight attendants at US Airways (the merger of US Air and America West) are still operating under separate contracts with different pay, schedules, and work rules–6 years after their marriage!  Delta has been bogged down in a labor dispute over pay and work rules since its merger with Northwest in 2008.

That’s why United Continental execs are so focused on the minutiae of the operations integration. “It’s not important how many things come from United and how many from Continental”, says the VP-Integration Management. “Keep the emotions out of it and don’t keep score”.

Discussion questions:

1. Why does OM drive a successful airline merger?

2. Why have other mergers run into problems?

OM in the News: Obama vs. ATMs and Technology vs. Jobs

In headlines last week, President Obama linked technology to job losses when he stated:  “There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller”. The Wall Street Journal (June 22,2100), however, says: “We usually call it progress. It isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. Businesses relentlessly look for ways to replace workers with machines”.

It’s true that telephone operators lost jobs to automated switching, toll collectors are being replaced by E-Z Pass, and that auto workers lose jobs to robots. The Journal gives 2 great examples of productivity increases that benefit society with lower priced goods. The 1st is the textile industry where 50 years ago, one N. Carolina worker operated 5 machines at once, each running a thread through a loom 100 times a minute. Now machines run 6 times as fast, and one worker overseas 100 of them. That’s a 120 fold increase in productivity!

The 2nd example is how 2 workers can now manage an egg laying operation of 1 million chickens laying 240 million eggs a year. The two keep an eye on the highly-mechanized, computerized process that no one could even imagine 50 years ago.

 The result of such productivity gains is a higher standard of living for all of us, in which we work fewer hours to afford enough money to buy  a dozen eggs, a flat-screen TV, or new shoes. Our blog a few months ago discusses why productivity increases are such a plus to society.

Discussion questions:

1. How do new jobs get created to replace the old ones?

2. Why do productivity increase help our society?

Video Tip: Why the US Needs Innovation and High Tech Manufacturing

If you want to show a 6 minute video that will set your semester on fire, try this interview with Henry Nothhaft, author of Great Again and former CEO of Tessera. Nothhaft starts by saying the only way the US can recover from the recession is to deal with the 5 million manufacturing  jobs lost in the past decade. He believes we can bring back high-tech manufacturing  with some basic tax and policy changes.

The US has the world’s 2nd highest corporate tax rate in the world (and California is the 48th worst in the US). Good tax policies are the reason Israel and Germany have had a revitalization of their manufacturing bases. And offshoring in high-tech is unnecessary when labor costs are only 3% of total product cost. Nothhaft points out that 70% of high-tech innovation goes on during production on the factory floor. Give up the factory and in 10-15 years “you have sown your own seeds of destruction”.

Nothhaft also takes on the US Patent Office and its 3.7 year average approval wait time. He points out that in Silicon Valley this is two or three product life cycles—an immeasurable delay. And finally, he asks for a new green card policy for foreign grads in technology areas. “We need to hang out a sign by the Statue of Liberty that says Geniuses Welcome“, he says, noting that the founders of Intel, Google, ebay, and Yahoo! were all immigrants.

OM in the News: Is the Pentagon Harming US Manufacturing?

It was easy to miss the announcement in The Federal Register (the US’s little read journal of record) that the US Air Force was asking for a waiver on the “Buy American” requirement for 37 items it needed at its Eielson  Base in Alaska. The products  included screws, ceiling fans, light fixtures, towel rods, shower rods, and handrail brackets. The Air Force got its exemption on buying American with this statement: “Extensive market research and thorough investigation of the domestic manufacturing landscape” showed these items were made almost exclusively in China.

 Is this shocking? We know that over 57,000 factories disappeared in this country between 1999 and 2009 (see Businessweek, May 9,2011). But the Pentagon may have actually accelerated this trend. According to Businessweek, flat-panel displays, machine tools, and advanced electronics and IT goods are now also obtained from non-US suppliers. Further, armor-plate steel, defense-specific integrated circuits, and night vision goggles are among the items the  DOD says it must obtain overseas. The goal of  cost-cutting has ended up increasing the military’s reliance on overseas suppliers. It may also mean the US may be opening itself to the danger that an overseas manufacturer could place a “Trojan horse” component in to critical equipment. (Does this sound  like what happened to Iran’s nuclear reactors)?

Of 16 manufacturing sectors that underpin America’s military, 13 suffered erosion between 2001-2008, as measured by decreased employment, output, and number of factories. These industries, which include foundries, forging and machine shops, have wide applications in civilian industry as well.

We all know that some decline in America’s low-end manufacturing is to be expected. Imports, for example, make up more than 95% of sales of silverware, men’s clothes, and woman’s shoes. But according to the National Research Council, “the movement of manufacturing offshore is weakening American R&D capability” in some areas.

Discussion questions:

1. How has the military affected US manufacturing, according to this article?

2. Should we be making towel bars in the US?

Good OM Reading: Taco Bell and the Golden Age of Drive-Thru

If there was one article you could ask your students to read at the beginning of the OM semester, it would be this lead piece in Businessweek (May 9,2011). The theme is that OM innovations at fast food restaurants like Taco Bell rival those at any factory in the world. Written from the view of the drive-thru window (which generates about 70% of fast food sales), the article lets you overview your course with issues of productivity (Ch.1), technology and process design in services (Ch.7), layout (Ch.9), and time & motion studies (Ch.10). The story also comes with a 1-1/2 minute video which the students will enjoy as well.

Here is a quote from the 5-page reading: “Go into the kitchen of a Taco Bell today, and you’ll find a strong counter argument to any notion that the US has lost its manufacturing edge. Every Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King is a little factory, with a manager who overseas 3 dozen workers, devices schedules and shifts, keeps track of inventory and the supply chain, supervises an assembly line churning out a quality-controlled, high-volume product, and takes in revenue of $1 million to $3 million a year, all with customers who show up at the front end of the factory at all hours of the day to buy the product”.

 The firm’s  CEO concludes, “At Taco Bell today I’ve got 6,000 factories, many of them running 24 hours a day”.
Adds a former Wendy’s VP for OM, “The most advanced operational thinking in the world is going on in the back” of a fast food restaurant. Wendy’s is rated as the fastest brand (an amazing 134 seconds per drive-thru vehicle), but Taco Bell comes out 1st ranked overall with an average time of 164 seconds and a 93.1% accuracy rate.

This article describes the restaurant layout (the topic of our Global Company Profile in Ch.9), new technologies in the industry, bottlenecks, staffing issues, and much more.  It is a perfect lead-in to the exciting topic we teach.

OM in the News: A Shortage of Factory Workers in the US?

Would your undergrad or MBA students be interested in a manufacturing job if they knew it paid $50,000-$80,000 a year? Maybe not, but such jobs are available and often unfilled. The Wall Street Journal (May 6,2011) reports that manufacturers , despite 9% unemployment rates, are struggling to find skilled workers. Large and small manufacturers of everything from machine tools to chemicals are scouring  for potential hires and poaching each other’s employees. Some are even hiring former prisoners who learned machinists skills behind bars.

Its a confluence of 3 trends, says the Journal. First, after falling for a decade, manufacturing jobs are now growing, albeit modestly. Second, baby-boomer retirements are sapping the most experienced workers (1/4 of all factory workers are 55 or older). Third, the US educational system isn’t turning out enough people with the math and science skills needed to deal with sophisticated computer-controlled factory equipment.

“We get people coming in here all the time who say ‘I can weld’. Well, my grandmother could weld”, says the Lehigh Heavy Forge Corp  HR director in Bethlehem, PA. We need “people who understand the intricacies of $1 million lathes”. Likewise, technicians at  Houston’s Bayer AG’s plant need math/science skills for such tasks as calculating the rate at which dyes need to be added for special batches of plastics. After screening, Bayer finds that few people are qualified. Some jobs at Bayer have been open 6-9 months, laments the CEO.

Manufacturers say it’s the educational system. Only about 5% of bachelors degrees in the US are in engineering, compared to 20% in Asia. In the most recent comparison of math and science test scores of 15-year olds by the OECD, American students trailed far behind those in China, Japan,South Korea, Canada, and Germany.

Discussion questions:

1. Do your students have any interest in high paid jobs running sophisticated equipment?

2. What system does Germany use (see Ch.1) that works better to fill this demand?

OM in the News: Chip Makers Bet the Farm on Future Demand

The New York Times (May 3, 2011) has just reported some good news for US manufacturing, namely, the massive expansion of chip makers who are counting on continuing heavy demand for chips in smartphones, tablet computers, refrigerators, cameras, and GPSs. Samsung, the huge Korean chip maker, is betting $3.6 billion in expanding  its US factory to make logic chips for iPhones and iPads. The plant in Austin, scheduled to be completed next month, will be 2.3 million sq.ft., about the size of 40 football fields and one of the biggest factories in the country. Samsung chose Austin because of “the infrastructure and support system here–you can’t get that from anywhere else”.

Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, is spending $13 billion to build 2 new factories and upgrade 4 others in Oregon and Arizona, with the work to be complete in 2013. “When you make an investment in a factory, you’re essentially placing a bet on a manufacturing process that’s not yet done, for products that are not yet designed,  to sell in market that is not yet there”, says Intel.

Global Foundries, a contract maker (also called a foundry) of chips, is investing $4.6 billion in a new plant near Albany, NY,  that will build 28-nanometer chips for customers. (Small companies cannot afford the $ multibillion investment in making their own). Its 1.5 million sq. ft. plant will also open in 2013. “The appetite for tablet computers is a huge part of this move” to become the biggest contract chip producer in the world, says the  Milpitas, CA, company.

The chip industry “is a risky business that’s not for the faint at heart. Its like putting down $1 billion on the craps table”, adds an industry analyst.

Discussion questions:

1. The NYT article focuses on new chip plants in the US. But chip makers are also expanding this year in China, Germany, Japan, S. Korea, and Taiwan. Why the global move?

2. What happens to plants that are out-of-date?

OM in the News: Intel Brings Good News to US Manufacturing

In these troubled times, Intel’s announcement  (Computerworld, Feb.18,2011) that it would start construction this year on a new $5 billion microprocessor plant in Chandler, Arizona is indeed good news. The company, which also does manufacturing in Oregon and  New Mexico in the US, and in Israel, Ireland, and China overseas, will open the Arizona plant in 2013 with 1,000 highly paid permanent workers.  When complete, the factory will be the most advanced, high-volume semiconductor facility in the world. Fab 42, as it will be called, will produce 14-nanometer chips. (Nanometers, billionths of a meter, measure the width of chip circuits. Shrinking them makes chips more powerful or cheaper to make). The chips will be used in PCs, electronics, and mobile phones.

Intel has already committed another $6-8 billion this year to make upgraded chips at its other plants and to build a new plant in Oregon. This will provide those facilities the ability to produce 22-nanometer chips, which are in turn faster than the company’s current 32-nanometer chip-making process. The upgrades budgeted by this money will create yet another 1,000 high-skilled jobs, along with 6,000+ construction jobs. Intel will further hire 4,000 new R&D workers this year to round out the positive news. Revenue is expected to rise 14% to $49.5 billion, according to Bloomberg (Feb.18,2011).

The company, which makes 3/4 of its chips in the US,  was praised last week by President Obama, who stated: “By and large, Intel has placed its bets on America”. Intel execs, meanwhile, have called on the US government for tax breaks to make it cheaper to build facilities in the US.

Discussion questions:

1.Why is the Intel announcement such good news?

2. Why does Intel have plants abroad?

3. What makes chip manufacturing such a difficult business?