Happy Friday and Happy Tax Day! Today’s highly deductible Digest spans a number of related topics – from wind and politicians to manufacturing productivity and robots.

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Happy Friday. Very little in the way of breaking news in today’s Digest, but we’ve got a whole heap of background issue on a variety of issues.

So here’s where you go if you feel the urge to study up:

Happy Friday. Very little of real news in this batch of Digest. But alas, much, much deep thinking.

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Happy Friday. We take you into the weekend with a lot of talk about China and chambers, plus a bit about German shoes.

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Happy Friday. Today we have some bright-ish economic news, a shout out to tech pioneers in the flyover states. All this and a teensy bit more.

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Happy Tuesday. CIRAS Digest returns from holiday vacation this week with a slightly thicker waistline and a pile of gloomy prognostication to peruse.

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Happy Tuesday. Beware the Ides of March, for today’s Digest has a lot of manufacturing news to wrap up, including a bunch of presidential candidate talking and some attempts (not by presidential candidates) at instructional journalism.

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Happy Tuesday. Today’s Digest includes a lot of manufacturing prognostication – including by the Chinese.

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Happy Tuesday. Today we touch base largely to share some 3-D printing news and a whole raft of economic stories that you might have missed.

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Happy Wednesday. Today, the Digest dumps a whole slew of deep thinking on you regarding the relationship between automation and American manufacturing jobs. The topic (likely Trump-driven) seemed to be on a lot of minds in the past few weeks.

Here’s where you can read about it:

Multiple times each day, the skilled workers at Miracle Tools America in Davenport must stop what they’re doing and clean. Making drill bits can be a dirty business, and the tiny water channels that keep tools from overheating have a tendency to clog.

Hence, the company decided to begin experimenting with a new type of employee—one that wouldn’t mind the monotony.

One made out of metal.

Dozens of times each day, the skilled workers at Miracle Tools America in Davenport must stop what they’re doing and clean. Making drill bits can be a dirty business, and the tiny water channels that are used to keep tools cool have a tendency to get clogged.

Hence, the company decided to begin experimenting with a new type of employee – one that wouldn’t mind the monotony.

One who is made of metal.

Doors will formally open next month on a new facility that CIRAS hopes will help take the risk out of new technologies for Iowa manufacturers.

Abhay Grover has joined CIRAS as a project manager focused on new technologies.

Legacy Manufacturing in Marion has added seven new employees (with at least three more coming soon) after a CIRAS-assisted automation program helped the company reshore production of one of its most popular products.

An eastern Iowa manufacturing company landed an important job providing parts for a railcar-cleaning robot after CIRAS helped the company prove its design under a tight deadline.

Every day we see something “new” in manufacturing. 3D Printed food, connected everything, cobots, and the list goes on. In fact, we’ve heard of these possibilities for decades. But something about these things seems a bit more real now than in the past. Like something important is happening

About 18 months ago, CIRAS announced its new “Future of Manufacturing” series to help manufacturers become ready for what is “next” in manufacturing. While this was a significant leap, it was based on a simple premise: changes in technology, workforce, and business models were moving so fast that we needed to help get Iowa manufacturers out in front.