Manufacturing.net For many years and even decades, the U.S. manufacturing sector has cued thoughts of economic decline, heavy job cuts, dark "Dickensian" facilities and a hopeless outlook in collective minds. But in recent years, the foundation has been developed for the industrial landscape to improve, and a handful of buoyant factors have accomplished what had been inconceivable for many years: restored faith in manufacturing.

Manufacturing.net The manufacturing skills gap. It seems you can’t go a week without a politician, media outlet or industry leader wringing their hands over this issue, perhaps because it’s just so confounding. In an industry that has yet to recover the jobs lost in the recession, we’re dealing with vacancies in the skilled trades that threaten to derail production growth and sector expansion.

U.S. News & World Report Japan's industrial output has recovered slightly in May from a decline following an April sales tax increase, stabilizing as factories produced more machinery, vehicles and electronic devices. Factory output in the world's third-largest economy climbed 0.8 percent in May from a year earlier, and was up 0.5 percent from the month before, the economy ministry reported Monday. Output fell 2.8 percent in April.

Desert Dispatch Board of Equalization member George Runner announced that a new law will take effect on Tuesday that will allow manufacturers to receive a partial exemption of sales and use tax on certain purchases.

Shopfloor The U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter more than we previously thought, with real GDP down 2.9 percent at the annual rate. The sharply lower revision was much worse than the previous estimate of a 1.0 percent drop.

IndustryWeek In an effort to advance the technology of gas turbine engines used for jet aircraft, power generation plants, and the oil and gas industry, GE is providing $13.5 million over the next five years to fund research at the Notre Dame Turbomachinery Facility.

IndustryWeek Bonfiglioli, USA, announced earlier this week that it will expanding its Hebron, KY operations in Q4 2014. The company, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bonfiglioli Riduttori S.p.A. based in Bologna, Italy, manufactures power transmission for mobile and self-propelled machines.

Manufacturing Business Technology The Manufacturing Jobs for America campaign, helmed by U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), has announced that the U.S. Senate has approved bipartisan legislation that will strengthen the nation’s manufacturing workforce training programs and help fill the skills gap that many manufacturers are coming up against.

Manufacturing Business Technology Alcoa is delving deeper into the aerospace industry, spending nearly $3 billion to acquire the British jet engine component company Firth Rixson. Alcoa will pay $2.35 billion in cash and $500 million in stock to the current owner, the private equity firm Oak Hill Capital. It may spend an additional $150 million based on pre-set performance targets.

IndustryWeek The U.S. automotive industry has experienced significant growth since the 2008-2009 economic downturn, with U.S. automotive sales volumes increasing from approximately 10 million units in 2009, to approximately 15.6 million units in 2013, according to LMC Automotive.

Manufacturing.net Automakers Daimler and Renault-Nissan say they will build a $1.36 billion plant to manufacture Infiniti and Mercedes-Benz brand compact vehicles. The companies announced Friday that construction on the plant would begin in 2015 in the northern state of Aguascalientes.

Bloomberg Copper rose, capping the biggest quarterly advance since September, as gains in the housing market signaled higher demand in the U.S., the world’s second-largest consumer.

TribLIVE.com Harrison-based J.V. Manufacturing and PEM Technologies produce parts used in everyday products such as batteries and light bulbs, but their parts may soon be somewhere not so common — space. NASA and rocket manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne have picked PEM Technologies to develop a final machining and finishing process for ball valve components for the space agency's next generation of rockets.

Dayton Business Journal Champion GSE — a division of Springfield-based The Champion Co. — unveiled an new engine stand this week that’s designed for small aircraft engines. It touts the stand, which 600-pound capacity, as a significant improvement in general aviation engine serviceability.

CNBC It wasn't long ago that the thought of corporations bringing their manufacturing back to the U.S. seemed all but impossible. But that's precisely what's happening, and the trend is predicted to continue through the rest of the decade.

Phys.org Innovative new materials drive advances in virtually every product and industry imaginable—healthcare, transportation, energy, electronics, and many others. Yet it takes nearly two decades from the time researchers develop a new material until that material actually makes its way into manufactured products. That long lag is a major barrier in U.S. manufacturers' efforts to remain competitive in an intense global market.