The Monthly Newsletter of the Council of Industry
May 23, 2024
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Council of Industry Updates
What's Happening in Your Association
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The 2024 New York State Legislative Session is Winding Down – Some Key Manufacturing Issues Remain Unresolved
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With primary day less than 2 weeks away the New York Legislature is in the waning days of session with plenty of legislative and regulatory issues of interest to the State’s manufacturing sector that are still under consideration. Below is a summary from the NYS Manufacturing Alliance of where some key issues stand.
NY Heat Act - Was rejected for inclusion in the state budget. With the legislature in session until June8th, there is still more work to be done to defeat this proposed law. We will continue to advocate against this legislation.
Cap & Invest - Was also not included in the budget. This is one of the provisions to the CLCPA that was passed into law in 2019. The CLCPA directs the DEC to provide draft regulations by July 1, 2024. Once draft regs. are released, this will kick off a public comment period. The prevailing thought on this regulation: for companies that produce 10,000 metric tons of carbon, they will be required to begin reporting their carbon produced. These companies will not have to pay fees. For companies that produce 25,000 metric tons of carbon per year, they will have to pay and report.
COVID Paid Sick Leave - This law looked like it would be repealed in 2024 but in the waning days of budget negotiations the law’s sunset was extending to July 31, 2025. While the CDC updated their respiratory virus recommendations in early March for COVID to match those for the flu, we struggle with understanding the logic behind keeping COVID paid sick leave in place for another year. We will continue to point out the dearth of logic this law represents. We will need to keep this legislation on our radar and make sure it rides off into the sunset in 2025.
Establish First-in-Nation Paid Prenatal Leave - The final budget includes the creation of prenatal leave as part of the New York State’s existing sick leave provisions. Beginning January 1, 2025, all employers, regardless of size will be required to provide 20 hours of paid prenatal personal leave during any 52-week calendar period, for the purposes of receiving health care services related to an employee’s pregnancy.
Increase Short-Term Disability Leave Benefits - Excluded from the budget. This matter is still in play through the end of session. This would be one more of the ‘thousand cuts’ that bleeds employers and makes the state’s businesses less competitive. We are continuing to oppose this increase.
Manufacturers Intermediary Apprentice Program - The Manufacturer’s Intermediary Apprentice Program (MIAP)supported through the Manufacturers Alliance of New York State was approved for $1.75 million. MIAP is helping manufacturers across New York State establish apprentice programs. The Council of Industry is a part of this effort and is working toward building more apprenticeships among manufacturers in our region.
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Annual Golf Outing on Monday, August 26th
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The Council of Industry will hold its Annual Golf Outing on Monday, August 26th at the Powelton Club in Newburgh. Last year’s event drew more than 100 golfers from member firms throughout the Hudson Valley. Registration and lunch will begin at 11:30 followed by a shotgun start at 12:30. Cocktails and a light dinner will follow at approximately 5:00 p.m.. The $240 per golfer ($815 for a foursome) registration fee includes lunch, golf, cart, cocktails, hors-d'oeuvres, dinner, prizes and giveaways. Dinner only option for non-golfers.
Sponsors help make this event possible and one of the most enjoyable of the golfing season. Please support the Council of Industry and Hudson Valley manufacturing by becoming a sponsor.
Corporate Sponsor – Thank you JPMorgan Chase
Shirt Sponsor – Thank you NRG
Cocktail Sponsor -AVAILABLE $2,600
Lunch Sponsor – AVAILABLE $2,600
Golf Cart Sponsor – Thank you Ulster Savings Bank
Scramble Prize Sponsor AVAILABLE- $1,050
Yellow Ball Prize Sponsor – Thank you BELFOR Restoration
Best Ball Prize Sponsor - Thank you Rhinebeck Bank
Closest to the Pin Prize Sponsor -AVAILABLE $850
Hole In One – Thank you Viking Industries
Longest Drive Prize Sponsor - Thank you Package Pavement
Tee Sign Sponsor MORE AVAILABLE– $335 (Tee signs to date: Elna Magnetics, President Container Group)
Register and sponsor here
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Hudson Valley Pathways Academy Students Available for Summer Internships
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The Hudson Valley Pathways Academy (HVPA) is a P-TECH early college high school. HVPA students participate in industry challenges, know lean principles and safety best practices. Many have competed in First Robotics competitions and all are interested in pursuing careers in STEM. Internships are also an important piece of the HVPA experience and this summer, HVPA has approximately 15 young scholars seeking internship placement. Some of the areas they are interested in include:
- Hand assembly/hand tools
- CNC machining
- CAD
- Welding
- Carpentry
- Customer service
- Human resources
- Communications/community relations, writing, and social media
- Business administration and management
- Sales
- Graphic design
- CISCO/Cybersecurity
- IT and tech troubleshooting
- Computer hardware repair
- Help desk
If you are interested in learning how you can hire an HVPA intern this summer please contact Katherine Cahill
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Local High School Corrugated Boat Competition May 31st to be Livestreamed
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The pool at Marlboro High School will be the site of the first ever Mid-Hudson Corrugated Boat Race May 31, 11:25 – 2:25. Teams from Marlboro, Valley Central and Goshen High schools will design and build boats to compete in a variety of categories including a slalom course, drag race and maximum boat capacity. Teachers Tom Fassell (Marlboro), Nick Longo (Valley Central) and Dillon Johnson (Goshen) partnered to create the inaugural event.
Middletown’s President Container Group had donated corrugated board, box cutters and safety equipment to the schools.
Here is the Schedule:
11:25-12:08 - Slalom Competition
12:11-12:54 - Drag Race Competition
12:57-1:40 - Maximum Capacity Competition
Watch the Livestream via the Marlboro HS Website
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For information on advertising in this and other CI publications
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Manufacturing Industry News
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Industry Technology Survey: IIoT Means Nothing and No One Uses Generative AI
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IndustryWeek’s 2024 technology survey digs into data collection and analysis and cuts through AI hype. Dismantling hype remains a challenge for anyone that wants to understand the relevance of new technologies. It’s a huge problem in the consumer electronics world—Apple’s new $3,500 Vision Pro hardware doesn’t meet the hype and faces sluggish sales—and a less cumbersome but still irksome challenge in the manufacturing industry. This year’s IndustryWeek technology survey had a few surprises:
- A lot of manufacturers use IIoT systems without realizing they’re using IIoT systems.
- AR/VR and computer vision either are losing manufacturers’ interest or have become so popular that no one thinks of the tech by these labels anymore.
- Three quarters of respondents said they did not use AI in their business. When the remaining 25% were asked to elaborate only two respondents cited a manufacturing-specific use case. The rest were business applications with nothing to do with manufacturing operations, such as pricing engines, document writing, corporate communications and sales and marketing applications.
- In 2023, 42% of respondents said their business did not use robots and 31% said their operations were not automated. This year, only 31% said their business did not use robots and only 24% said they are not automated. Machine tending dropped as a reported use case for robots while assembly, pick-and-place and material handling all increased slightly.
Read more at IndustryWeek
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Digital Transformation - Redefining The Sector with Smart Manufacturing Practices
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Smart manufacturing, an essential component of digital transformation, controls the physical and digital processes within factories and across supply chains. It optimizes supply and demand by transforming how people, processes and technologies operate, helping you make smarter decisions while boosting efficiency and agility. An intensive application of networked, information-based technologies and smart manufacturing ensures that your process information is available across supply chains and equipment life cycles, thereby optimizing manufacturing efficiency.
- The benefits of digital transformation in manufacturing include: Enhanced cybersecurity: Implementing the correct infrastructure protects your important plant assets from cyberattacks.
- Improved product quality: Automation allows for batch testing and quality analysis, making it easier to manage recalls.
- Fewer workers on the plant floor: Automated systems help mitigate workforce shortages by reducing the need for human operators.
- Better decisions: Data visibility into equipment and processes supports smarter business decisions, helping you achieve your future goals, including possible expansion.
- Harnessing connectivity and data.
Smart manufacturing is only possible through digital transformation, leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) and big data to create a connected ecosystem. This network enables real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and optimized production processes, giving you a dynamic, responsive, and efficient manufacturing environment that swiftly adapts to market demands and technological advancements.
Read more at Automation World
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Tracking the Inflation Reduction Act’s Impact on US Manufacturing
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Across the U.S., companies continue to invest billions of dollars in clean manufacturing projects as they pursue lucrative tax credits offered under the Inflation Reduction Act. The law, passed in August 2022, has helped spur a new era in U.S. manufacturing, with factories popping up in dozens of states to produce items such as electric vehicles, batteries and solar panels. In the first year of the law’s existence, 39 states saw factory and other project announcements worth more than $86 billion. Since then, companies have continued to invest amid the administration’s push to expand the country’s clean manufacturing industry and bring supply chains closer to home.
Manufacturing Dive is monitoring these investments on a monthly basis and highlighting key trends in the data in a series of charts, including where investments are clustering across the U.S. and which foreign countries’ companies are leading in establishing projects. They include five charts that break down what you need to know about clean energy manufacturing investments in the U.S. For the latest monthly data, scroll to the bottom for a breakdown of projects by investment, job creation, sector and location.
Read more at Manufacturing Dive
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A Tax Expert Breaks Down the Finer Points of Inflation Reduction Act Incentives for Manufacturers
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The IRA has revised, updated and extended production tax credits (PTCs) and investment tax credits (ITCs) for U.S. companies that either manufacture or purchase components for renewable energy production, including wind facilities, biodiesel and other biofuel and alternative fuels. Some of the credits have been extended to 2032, with an increased credit percentage. Importantly, there is no cap on the dollar amount of product tax credits that manufacturers can earn. If a company makes, for instance, photovoltaic wafers for solar energy products, at a cost of $12 per wafer, and if it manufactures half a million of them in a year, the company earns a $6 million credit against its federal tax liability.
All manufacturing companies, regardless of size, within the renewables orbit – even the outskirts of it – should proactively be investigating the renewables tax credits, especially those connected with Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Sections 45/45Y Clean Electricity Production, Sections 48/48E Renewable Energy Investment, Section 45V Clean Hydrogen Fuel, Section 45Q Section Carbon Oxide Sequestration, 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production and Section 48D Advanced Manufacturing Investment. The government has developed an extensive of list of technologies that earn tax credits, and it is incentivizing both manufacturing and purchasing.
Read more at IndustryWeek
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Continuous Learning in the Shop
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Continuous learning is critical in manufacturing operations. The issue is that the pace of technological progress means that workers’ skills become outdated rather quickly, resulting in the manufacturing skills gap. While someone may have the skills needed to perform a job upon hiring, without continuous learning and ongoing training opportunities he or she risks losing upward career potential – and may even fall behind in the current role.
This is problematic for the individual and the employer. Workers who fail to succeed in their roles or advance in the organization likely will struggle financially as inflation drives up the cost of living. Already debt is a serious issue for workers, with the average American household debt now at $104,215. As the manufacturing sector accounts for a significant percentage of American jobs, this means workers’ debts could rise if they are unable to progress in their manufacturing careers. For manufacturers, losing workers to skills gap issues is another aspect of the problem. Workers who do not feel their employers are invested in their career growth will move on and find work elsewhere. According to LinkedIn research, 94% of workers say they would be more likely to stay at a company if it invested in their career.
Read more at American Machinist
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Middle Managers Have Had a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Couple of Years. AI Can Help Turn that Around
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Playing the middleman between senior leadership and frontline supervisors has always been a little miserable, but the role reached a tipping point in the 2020s. Middle managers have led their employees through the pandemic, navigated the Great Resignation, and implemented upper management’s return to office policies to disgruntled workers. They are, unsurprisingly, increasingly burned out. And they’ve become prime targets for the chopping block—30% of laid off workers are middle managers.”
Bryan Hancock, partner at McKinsey & Co. and an author of “Power to the Middle: Why Managers Hold the Keys to the Future of Work,” thinks generative AI can help with that, “freeing up managers to spend more time coaching and leading and being someone who actually helps apprentice, guide, and manage people across their career and be the person who makes connections across parts of the organization,” he says. “Managers are going to be leading teams that are going to be a combination of human activity and activity augmented or automated by technology.”
Read more at Fast Company
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Researchers Discover that 80% of Employees ‘Bring Their own AI’ to Work
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Microsoft and LinkedIn have jointly unveiled the 2024 Work Trend Index report, titled “AI at work is here. Now comes the hard part.” Based on insights from a survey of 31,000 individuals across 31 countries, LinkedIn labor trends, Microsoft 365 productivity data and input from Fortune 500 clients, the report looks at ways AI reshapes global work dynamics. The report shows a shift from employers simply endorsing casual AI experimentation to leveraging this new technology to achieve concrete business outcomes.
The study findings also reveal a surge in the adoption of generative AI at work, with professionals increasingly showcasing AI skills on their LinkedIn profiles. Moreover, many leaders emphasize the importance of AI proficiency when hiring. However, despite this momentum, there are concerns about the lack of a clear AI strategy within their organizations, compounded by the influx of employee-introduced AI tools. The report indicates that nearly 80% of AI users are branching out independently, a trend the survey calls “Bring Your Own AI (BYOAI).” This phenomenon creates a data security risk and causes organizations to miss out on the benefits of strategic AI use at scale.
Read more at HR Executive
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Digital Twins: Company ‘Clones’ Employees Using AI to Support Sales and Customer Service
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Consulting firm Jet BI has digitally replicated its employees to make so-called "AI twins" to aid their real-life counterparts at work. These AI twins mirror the personalities of the person they replicate, according to Jet BI, which unveiled the digital avatars of their team leaders and experts on its website. "The implementation of AI twins opens up exciting opportunities for the whole new level of personalization and interactive user experience for business needs like sales, service, HR," said Andrey Bosak, Jet BI co-founder, in a statement.
According to the consulting firm, these AI twins are equipped to field inquiries about the company's services and products, as well as offer expert advice while collecting the conversation details for further elaboration by their team. "With these digital clones, we can offer enhanced support and consultancy services to our clients, bringing unique personality branding and communication capabilities to serve our customers more efficiently," Bosak said.
Read more at Human Resources Director
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8 Things You Should Know About the Growing E-Waste Problem
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As a global community, we generate a lot of electronic waste (e-waste). In fact, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research’s (UNITAR) latest Global E-waste Monitor says the escalating e-waste problem vastly outstrips the rate at which we’re recycling those materials. Here are eight more things to know about the mounting, global e-waste problem:
- The 62 million tons of e-waste generated in 2022 could fill a line of 40-ton trucks encircling the earth’s equator, according to earth.com.
- Just 22.3% of this e-waste was documented to have been recycled properly.
- The annual rise of 2.6 million tons in e-waste production—with predictions set to soar to 82 million tons by 2030—"underscores a pressing need to amplify recycling endeavors to prevent further environmental degradation and safeguard human health,” earth.com states.
- Managing e-waste has become big business. DataHorizon Research says the e-waste management market is on track to reach $207.1 billion by 2032.
- Disposing of electronic devices carefully is necessary because they contain heavy metals that can harm the nervous system, bloodstream, and vital organs.
- An estimated 19 billion kilograms (42 billion pounds) of e-waste, mainly from metals like iron which is present in high quantities and has high recycling rates in almost all e-waste management routes, were turned into secondary resources.
- Platinum-group metals and precious metals were among the most valuable metals but present in much lower quantities.
- The share of patent applications for e-waste management rose from 148 per million in 2010 to 787 per million in 2022. Most of those applications were related to technologies for cable recycling.
Read more at Supply Chain Connect
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Are Your Sales Metrics a House of Cards?
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While numbers are important, how you achieve them matters even more. The excellence from which the business is earned is a standard that should never be lowered in the pursuit of producing numbers. Not only that, this standard of excellence should be the driving force behind every aspect of our business and the foundation of how we build our teams and engage our customers.
Think about these numbers:
- 80% of B2B customers expect a B2B experience that is as good or better than a B2C experience. (Source: Accenture B2B Customer Experience Report, 2021)
- 89% of B2B customers are likely to switch to a competitor after a single negative experience. (Source: Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report, 2022)
- 85% of prospects and customers report dissatisfaction with their on-the-phone experience with sales reps. (Source: Customer Service Benchmark Report, 2022)
- 90% of business executives think customers highly trust their companies, but only 30% of consumers actually do. (Source: Edelman Trust Barometer, 2021)
- 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience. (Source: Salesforce State of the Connected Customer Report, 2022)
Here’s the good news: All of these challenges can be overcome with an intentional focus on training and development.
Read more at IndustryWeek
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