| The Monthly Newsletter of the Council of IndustryJanuary 23, 2025 |
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Council of Industry Updates
What's Happening in Your Association
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Nominations Open for the 2025 Manufacturing Champions
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The Council of Industry is seeking nominations for the 2025 Manufacturing Champions Award. The Manufacturing Champions Award is presented annually to individuals and/or organizations that work in the sector or provide direct support to the manufacturing sector in the Hudson Valley. The Awards will be presented at the Champion's Breakfast and Workforce Developers Expo on April 25th at West Hills Country Club in Middletown. Nominations will be accepted through close of business February 12, 2025.
This award is presented annually individuals or organizations which have “Through vision, dedication and tireless involvement have worked in manufacturing, built a manufacturing business, or worked to overcome some of the many obstacles faced by manufacturers in the Hudson Valley and in so doing they have made it possible for manufacturers and their employees to prosper.”
Past champions include owners of manufacturing businesses, key employees, teachers and educators, economic development leaders, educational institutions, economic development organizations elected officials and agencies supporting the manufacturing workforce pipeline. Click here for a list of past champions.
Nominate your Champion here
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Governor Hochul's $252B Budget Proposal Tax Reductions for Pass Through Manufacturers NOT Included. Manufacturing Advocacy Day Set for February 26th
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Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Tuesday a budget that increases state spending by nearly $10 billion, offers tax cuts and backs a slate of affordability measures. The fiscal year 2026-2027 state budget proposal is projected to grow to $252 billion in combined state and federal funding if approved. It’s an increase from last year’s $239 billion enacted budget, which then increased to $243 billion in New York’s mid-year report. “The budget is increasing largely based on current spending in Medicaid and in school aid. These commitments comprise probably 60% of the increase alone,” according to New York State budget Director Blake Washington. Hochul’s plan also includes:
- Middle class tax cut for joint filers making $323,000 or less
- Childcare tax credit capped at $1,000
- A one-time “inflation refund” check: $300 for New Yorkers making $150,000 annually and $500 for joint filers making up to $300,000
- Free breakfast and lunch for public schoolers
- Extension of the Millionaires tax for 5 years
- Leaves a $33B deficit for the MTA
Not included in the executive budget proposal is a provision to lower taxes for manufacturers in the state organized as pass-through entities (‘S’ corporations, LLC’s and partnerships for example) that is a priority of the Manufacturing Alliance of New York (MANY). Currently manufacturers that are ‘C’ corporations pay no corporate franchise tax to the state. The Alliance wants that same treatment for pass-through manufacturers that make up more than 65% of the manufacturing firms in the state.
The Manufacturing Alliance of New York with hold its annual Advocacy Day February 26 in Albany. The day will include meetings with key legislators and administration officials on issues of concern to the State’s manufactures. Those issues of concern include ‘Tax Parity’ , Smart implementation of the CLCPA and other energy related regulations and legislation including the NY HEAT act. And the continued support of manufacturing workforce development efforts including the Manufacturing Intermediary Apprentice Program (MIAP) and P-TECH schools.
Read more at NY State of Politics
Save your spot at Advocacy Day
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Council Teams Up With ASME and SUNY New Paltz on Engineers Day Event February 19
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The Council of Industry, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and SUNY New Paltz’ School of Science and Engineering will be teaming up on an National Engineers Week event February 19th at SUNY New Paltz. The event will run from 4:30 – 7:30.
While program details are still being worked out they will include: tours of facilities including labs and the Hudson Valley Advanced Manufacturing Center (3D Printing), Networking between students, faculty and industry professionals, and a panel discussion highlighting manufacturing engineering careers. A light dinner will be served.
Learn More and Register
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Energy Corner: Governor Hochul Says Advanced Reactors, Interstate Cooperation Part Of New York’s Nuclear Future
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Governor Kathy Hochul discussed New York’s nuclear ambitions as part of a $1 billion slate of climate and clean energy investments detailed during her annual State of the State address on Jan. 14. Characterizing the investment as “a monumental step towards a greener, more affordable future for New York State,” Hochul described the nuclear initiatives as well as plans to run state agencies on 100% renewable energy by 2030, decarbonize New York’s state and city university campuses and advance the state’s cap-and-invest emissions reduction program.
Hochul also announced New York’s intention to “co-lead a multi-state initiative facilitated by the National Association of State Energy Officials and [DOE]” that will explore ways to reduce costs and share risk in nuclear energy development. That initiative is expected to launch in February, she said. Finalized this month, the Blueprint for Advanced Nuclear Technologies will “[provide] a comprehensive overview of issues to be considered throughout the Master Plan process,” Hochul said.
Read more at Utility Dive
Reach out to the Council of Industry and NRG today to develop an energy strategy tailored to your business needs.
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FuzeHub Manufacturing Grants: Round 1 for Established Companies - Applications Opened Monday, January 20
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FuzeHub, an Albany based organization supporting New York State Manufacturing businesses. has announced that their 2025 Manufacturing Grants: Round 1 will open for applications on January 20, 2025, exclusively for established companies in New York State. As part of the Jeff Lawrence Innovation Fund, these grants foster collaboration between not-for-profit organizations and small to medium-sized manufacturers, supporting success at every stage of development. The program identifies innovative projects that build partnerships, generate economic impacts, and drive growth in New York’s manufacturing sector.
New this year, FuzeHub is introducing separate rounds for industry partners based on company stage. The main applicant is still a not-for-profit organization, but: Round 1 is exclusively for Established Companies that are eligible to participate as industry partners. Applications will be open from January 20, 2025 to February 19, 2025. Round 2 is exclusively for Startup Companies that are eligible to participate as industry partners. Applications will be open from April 15 2025 to May 14, 2025. Funding is available for grants up to $65,000 per project, where the total number of awards will vary based on available funding and application quality.
Learn more at FuzeHub
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Teacher Ambassador Program Educates Educators on Career Pathways
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Today’s students will be tomorrow’s workforce. Teachers and counselors already serve on the frontline and have the potential to shape the workforce. Each day in the classroom, teachers are working with students to identify their interests and develop their knowledge and skills, in turn helping them to prepare and learn skills to be best prepared for career or higher education opportunities.
In 2023 the New York State Department of Labor in partnership with the New York State Education Department launched the first New York State Department of Labor Educator Career Development Ambassador Program, a four-week summer training for teachers, librarians, and counselors in Grades 6 to 12 to develop, implement, and deliver 21st century career-readiness curricula or strategies to New York’s students. Teachers are paid to participate and get a deep dive into workforce development programs, tour local businesses and industries including manufacturing and collaborate on lesson-plan/unit development that is brought back to their districts.
Know a teacher who might be interested? Want to host a group at your facility? Just want to know more? View and share the link below.
NYS DOL Teacher Ambassador Program Information
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Manufacturing Industry News
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Tariff Hikes, Emerging Tech, Trade Wars: Outstrategizing the Competition in 2025
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The year 2024 brought several disruptions—none with the reach of the pandemic or the Western world’s inflation crisis—but geopolitics has increasingly shaped the role of international business, more so than at any other time in modern history. The super-election year delivered few surprises: Russia and India maintained their trajectories, and while the European Parliament didn’t drastically alter the course of the European Union, it opened a Pandora’s box of nationalist, pro-Russian and anti-European Green Deal parties.
Amid these challenges, artificial intelligence continues to transform industries. Companies are leveraging synthetic data, agentic AI and industrial applications of AI to gain a competitive edge. However, organizations are learning that technology alone is not a silver bullet—success lies in combining data readiness, strategic use cases, governance and security. To simplify an overly complex world, Jan Burian, Head of Industry Insights, Trask Solutions, outlined areas that the most significant global manufacturing hubs should focus on in 2025 to stay competitive. They include: Leveraging power of data and AI, protecting intellectual property (IP), modernizing IT infrastructure, and addressing personal biases in decision-making .
Read More at Industry Week
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New Report Reflects Optimism Among Manufacturers Mixed With Some Caution
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Digital transformation among manufacturers is healthy, and the Industry 4.0 era is well underway, but automated processes and upgrading the factory floor through technological advancements still face notable hurdles going into 2025, according to the results of the late summer and early fall Smart Industry audience survey that formed the basis of the State of Initiative Report 2024, their latest whitepaper.
In the survey, a third of the respondents—33.94% to be precise—felt “general economic uncertainty” was a significant challenge to advancing their businesses and digital transformation projects. The survey also showed digital transformation advancing further compared to a year ago. The responses do reveal noticeable barriers that persist when it comes to financing, support from the C-suite and—maybe most glaringly—the ability of the manufacturing workforce to understand and operate new technology.
Read more at Smart Industry
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NAM Study: Tax Provisions’ Expiration Will Cost U.S. Jobs, Wages, GDP
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Allowing crucial pro-manufacturing tax provisions to expire will be devastating for the U.S. economy, according to a landmark EY study released today by the NAM. “Pro-growth tax policies from President Trump’s 2017 tax reforms were rocket fuel for manufacturers and made the U.S. economy more competitive on a global scale,” NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons said. But in 2022, key provisions began to expire—and additional tax reform measures are scheduled to sunset at the end of this year. If Congress doesn’t preserve these pro-growth policies, the U.S. economy will face dire consequences: Nearly 6 million jobs will be put at risk. Approximately $540 billion in employee compensation will be lost. U.S. GDP will be reduced by $1.1 trillion.
The manufacturing industry will bear the brunt of this economic damage, according to the study. More than 1.1 million manufacturing jobs and $126 billion in manufacturing worker wages are on the line if Congress does not preserve critical pro-manufacturing policies from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The U.S. economy relies heavily on manufacturers, which in turn rely on competitive tax policy—and that makes these provisions’ renewal crucial, said Johnson & Johnson Executive Vice President and Chief Technical Operations & Risk Officer and NAM Board Chair Kathy Wengel. “[M]anufacturers—both large and small—drive innovation, create opportunity and strengthen communities across the country. ... Maintaining competitive tax policy is essential to sustaining this momentum.”
Read more at The NAM
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America Has a National Security Strategy. Where Is Its National Competitiveness Strategy?
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It is taken for granted in Washington that each new administration comes up with its own National Security Strategy. Indeed, Section 603 of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 mandated that such a strategy must be generated and transmitted to Congress annually, although recently they have come more sporadically than that. What has been singularly lacking in all of these reports has been any analysis of the competitive position of America’s dual-use industrial base and what is needed in the way of policy to strengthen it.
The sad reality is that it’s as if the Washington national security establishment is living in another era. An era when our main military competitor was a communist country run by a stifling Gosplan bureaucracy. An era when defense spending drove commercial innovation and there was more spin-off than spin-on. An era when the United States was the dominant industrial nation on the planet. None of that is true today. The overwhelming national security threat facing the nation is not poverty in Africa, droughts, narco trafficking, climate change, or another such issue: It is China. And China is not the Soviet Union. China is the world’s leading manufacturer and is close to becoming the world’s leading innovator. And yet our national security strategies are strangely silent about this threat and what to do about it.
Read more at The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation
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NFP Benefits Trends Report: Employers Grapple With Rising Health Care Costs And Fiduciary Concerns
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Being an employer in 2025 is not for the faint of heart. Striking the right balance in providing competitive benefits that support and engage the workforce while navigating an environment of growing fiduciary risk and cost containment pressures is a major challenge. “Most employers are at an intersection of a rapidly evolving economic, legislative and political landscape, and health care is a key component of this,” said Doug Hammond, CEO of the benefits consultant NFP. “As employers strive to ensure their employees have access to quality health care, they also appreciate the importance of minimizing the costs passed on to their workforce. This requires employers to be proactive and innovative in their approach.”
Even as health care costs continue to rise, employers remain committed to their benefits programs, with only 4% decreasing their health care spend this year and 43% increasing it, the 2025 NFP U.S. Benefits Trend Report found. The report also found that many employers are expanding their mental health offerings, in part, through support for employees and their families across various life stages, from pediatric and dependent-children mental health services to increased offerings for the “sandwich generation” of caregivers.
Read more at Benefits Pro
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Major Factory Construction Projects To Watch In 2025
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Manufacturing construction continues to boom in the U.S. Construction spending in the industry continues to rise, reaching just over $236 million in October 2024, up 16.6% from the year before, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Money continues to flow in the wake of the CHIPS and Science Act and Inflation Reduction Act, with companies like Tesla, Samsung and Hyundai investing billions of dollars in mega construction projects across the country for semiconductor and clean vehicle factories.
Here are some of the biggest manufacturing construction projects to watch for in 2025 including Tesla, Panasonic, Hyundai and LG Energy Solution, Samsung Electronics, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Ford and SK On.
Read more at Manufacturing Dive
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Manufacturers Must Bridge the ‘Data Gap’
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By the end of this decade, manufacturers worldwide will generate 4.4 zettabytes of data, according to a recent study conducted by ABI Research Inc. That massive data stream will originate from production machinery, Internet of Things sensors, ERP platforms, automated identification readers and MES systems. It will provide a transformative opportunity for manufacturers to sustain competitiveness, drive innovation and enable AI-driven systems. However, many organizations currently lack the expertise needed to leverage this data fully, resulting in inefficiencies and revenue losses of hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
“Generating a lot of data is one thing,” says Leo Gergs, principal analyst at ABI Research. “Being able to analyze and prepare this data for large language models and AI algorithm training is another. “Data fabrics hold immense promise in transforming operations through seamless integration, enhanced governance and automated data management,” explains Gergs. “To unlock their full potential, it’s imperative to address a spectrum of challenges spanning technology, governance, operations and organizational readiness.” Integrating legacy systems, on-premise platforms and cloud-native systems into a cohesive data fabric is a major hurdle. “Vendors like Databricks, IBM and NetApp are developing platforms that unify these environments, enabling real-time data processing and seamless compatibility,” Gergs points out.
Read more at Assembly Magazine
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It’s Hip To Be Square. E-Commerce Packaging Shows Why
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During the recent holiday shipping frenzy, the average consumer likely overlooked an important element of e-commerce: the shape of their packages. When it comes to the efficient movement of goods through the supply chain via e-commerce channels, squared-off designs like cardboard boxes reign. Some say that form is better for marketing and transportation emissions reduction efforts, too.
In certain cases, brands are transitioning away from flexible packaging and toward rigid square or rectangular shapes; sometimes they’re making a return to boxes after using other formats for a while. Performance, efficiency and sustainability factors play a role in the choice toward “squarification;” flexible packaging can be prone to getting squashed and moved around in transit more than boxes. The key reason box-shaped packaging currently dominates e-commerce? Robots. The robots used in e-commerce fulfillment typically pick up objects via suction, and they generally aren’t able to grab flexibles as well as boxes.
Read more at Supply Chain Dive
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A Lack Of Creativity Is On Leaders, Not The Culture
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From harnessing (and restricting) AI’s potential to solving humanity’s problems and navigating every organization’s challenges, leaders must prioritize cultivating working environments where creativity flourishes. Yet, the idea (ironic) of strengthening and harnessing the creative potential of people is mostly missing from our strategic, organizational and professional development radar screens. That’s a problem.
It’s easy to blame an organization’s culture for problems, including a creative deficit, but that’s a cop-out. The lack of freedom and encouragement to ideate, share, explore and experiment isn’t a cultural flaw; it’s a leadership failing. The challenge for leaders is to gain help uncovering and fixing the friction points and practices stifling creativity. Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar and author of Creativity Inc.—Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, describes a question he regularly receives from organizational leaders: “How do you become more creative?”
Read more at Smart Brief
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5 Reasons Tech Attracts Gen Z to Manufacturing
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Biomanufacturing is a way to create new materials and sustainable alternatives to existing petroleum-based materials. The use of living organisms and biological systems—including microbes such as bacteria, yeast and algae— is increasing across sectors. Delivering at scale remains the key challenge for the evolving industry. “The most overarching issue we face collectively in the biomanufacturing industry is capacity,” says Mike Arbeiter, CEO of Valerian Materials Inc., St. Louis Park, Minn. “There is simply not enough capacity to be able to produce materials at scale efficiently.”
The biomanufacturing industry is innovating processes and ecosystems to overcome the scaling barrier, rapidly expanding capabilities and production scale, according to Robert Kumpf, managing director, Deloitte Consulting. He says that innovations in bioreactor designs, including single-use and modular systems, allow for flexible and efficient scale-up. “Companies are achieving economies of scale through continuous manufacturing,” Kumpf asserts. “Leaders are adopting strategies like perfusion cell culture to optimize yields, reduce costs and time. Emerging technologies like microfluidics are enabling finer control over cell culturing conditions. Companies are offering solutions to optimize microbial strain performance and process controls.”
Read more at Advanced Manufacturing
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World’s Smallest Biomedical Robot Could Pave Way For Minimally Invasive Surgeries
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Researchers have created the world’s smallest multifunctional biomedical robot. At just 0.95 millimeters, it’s 60 percent smaller than any existing model. This tiny tube-like robot could navigate the intricate pathways of the human body without the need for bulky instruments. The development comes from the School of Engineering of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). This robotic technology is a major advancement in minimally invasive surgery.
This ultra-small size will help it navigate tight spaces and access the hard-to-reach areas within the human body, like the lung’s end bronchi and the oviducts. Moreover, it possesses a range of capabilities, providing doctors with unprecedented views of the body, drug delivery, tissue sampling, and laser ablation. “Small-scale continuum robots hold promise for interventional diagnosis and treatment, yet existing models often struggle with compactness, precise navigation, and visualized functional treatment all in one,” said Prof. Shen Yajing, who led the development.
Read more at Interesting Engineering
Read David King’s take on this emerging technology from the Spring 2017 edition of HV Mfg
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NEW PODCAST EPISODE OUT NOW!
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