You may be surprised that Technology as a stand alone item is not one of them.

Our future is not about shinier flying saucers.
We will master  and implement whatever technologies are developed.
But our future is being impacted by these 7 items  today:

  1. Loss of experienced workers taking tribal and craftsman knowledge out of our shops.
  2. Lower average wages as experienced workers with seniority leave and younger workers start at trainee wages, making it difficult to attract talent with facts about “increasing wages”- even though they are.
  3. Training growing in percent of spend as many shops are unable to purchase new technology to quote new work because they do not have trained workforce.
  4. More and more jobs being quoted out of more challenging, non free machining materials;
  5. A bit of relief from new regulations, but more uncertainty as Washington turns to trade issues which can impact availability and cost of imported materials, and tooling,  as well as impact the exports of finished goods that contain our parts.
  6. Increasing demands for certification of production to a wide variety of customer demanded requirements regardless of legal obligations- Conflict Minerals, REACH, RoHS, Animal- Free; Ca. Prop 65. Etc.
  7. Possibility of an “Association Healthcare Insurance solution” in 2019 or beyond.


 
What do you see as the trends shaping our company and industry future?
Please don’t say technology- as Humans, we’ve been successfully implementing new technologies for quite some time.

Flying cars
Todd Rundgren Future
Fire
 

The odds are pretty slim you’ll make it into professional athletics.Time spent on math and science can assure you of a well paying professional career, even if you choose not to go to college.

Machinists make the bone screws that engineers designed that physician surgeons install in injured professional athletes.

 
Professional Athletes:  16,500 positions; Average Salary $79,460;  source BLS 2008 http://www.bls.gov/k12/sports02.htm
Professional Engineers: 1,600,000 positions; Average Salary $79,000  (my quick estimate from a look at the table) http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm
You have a roughly the same chance to make the same wages by choosing engineer or athlete, the number of potential positions improves dramatically for engineers.
Physicians and Surgeons: 661,400 positions; Average Salary $186,044 source BLS 2008 http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos074.htm
Machinists: 380,720 positions; Average annual earnings $38,940, (Aerospace machinists $43,110)    http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes514041.htm
I compile employment and compensation data for the PMPA, and the BLS machinist data seems to understate the wages of top performers.
And the BLS data seems to indicate straight time only. (Not include overtime.)
Yes maybe some day I will pay $50 a ticket to watch you play your sport.
But based on the number of positions, chances are I’m going to pay a heck of a lot more for your professional work product if you become an engineer, a physician, or a machinist.
If you can do the math, you can see how these odds work for you.
Come join us in  our world of  applying Science, Technology, Engineering and  Mathematics – in Manufacturing.
We can help you find productive use of your talent and skills.
We’re the People Who Make Things.