Who's Bigger

Sorry for the poor blogging recently. Busy, busy, busy. But I couldn't pass this up.

So - What country is the biggest producer of manufactured goods?? Huh?

Drum roll please....

The United States!!! Ding! Ding! Ding!

Yes, the U.S. is still the largest manufacturer in the world. You'd never know by reading the news for the past five or seven years. Sure, Asia, especially China has been growing, but they still have a ways to go to catch up (although it will probably be soon).

Most people don't think of the U.S. as a top manufacturer anymore, but it hasn't all left. Mass produced consumer products and labor intensive goods have moved offshore, but that's only natural. The U.S. is still heavily involved in other products. Chemicals, including pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, Transportation Equipment, Food products, and Computers and Electronics are just some of the major industries.

Read more at http://www.parade.com/news/intelligence-report/archive/whats-made-in-the-usa.html

Hawaii Food Manufacturers

I attended the Hawaii Food Manufacturers Association Holiday Party on Tuesday. I enjoyed myself. Met some people, had some good food (made with Association members products), and utilized my drink tickets. I met, and spoke with, Kai Cowell of Kaiulani Spices, who makes some great spice mixes. I thought I recognized her when I met her, and I had. She has a booth at the KCC Farmers market every other week and she mixes up some curry and potatoes using her mixes, for sampling. Her samples are great! I also met and spoke with Suzanne from Wong's Meat Market. I'm not familiar with their products, but will have to try them out.

I had to leave before the drawing, so don't know if I would have won.

Too many magazines?

I get a lot of magazines. Sometimes I think it's too many. I subscribe to several magazines because I like them and are of interest too me (Runner's World, Smithsonian, and Inc., to name just a few). Some I buy on occasion, especially when traveling (usually MacWorld and Entrepreneur). And then there's the ones I get for free, because I couldn't help myself. I've picked up some of these magazines at a conference, then sent in the form for a free subscription, and some I have no idea now how I got them. But I'm pretty inundated with them anymore. The thing is, though, that there's a lot of great information in them. If I only had the time to actually read them, instead of just contributing to the killing of more trees, they'd be quite interesting and informative. Since I started this blog and am looking for things of interest to talk about, I picked up one of the magazines that are on my pile. I think it's the first time I looked at this one; Food Manufacturing. The subtitle is Technology for Today's Food Production & Packaging Market. I'm just a bundle of excitement reading this type of thing, aren't I. Makes you want to party with me, huh?

But, when I started leafing through the magazine, I found a couple of very good articles. The cover story (October 2007 issue) is about designing food processing plants to mitigate the problems of food contamination, which is a huge issue these days. There's another short article about Choosing a Conveyor System for Your Small- to Mid-Sized DC (that's Distribution Center for those of you not in-the-know). And a very good article on implementing ERP systems (that's Enterprise Resources Plannning, or an organization wide computer information system). I have a chapter on ERP system implementation in my book, so it's always nice to see someone talking intelligently about it.

Most of these free magazines are focused on one industry, and are usually pretty technical and full of ads, but I'm going to have to take more time to look at them, as they are very beneficial. What I'll do with my newfound knowledge of Food-Grade Lubricants, I don't know, but you never know when that will come up in conversation. (That's lubricants for equipment in food processing plants for those of you with dirty minds.)

So what magazines are on my pile?

Inc.
APICS Magazine (comes with APICS membership)
Quality Progress (comes with ASQ membership)
Quality Digest (comes with ASQ Quality Management Division membership)
Hawaii Business (comes with HVCA membership)
Food Manufacturing (mentioned above)
Manufacturing Business Technology
Materials Handling Management
DC Velocity
Inbound Logistics
The Manufacturer
Baking Management
Consulting
Entrepreneur
MacWorld

I'm sure I'm missing one or two that have already found their way to the trash, but I think it's time to take control here.