Mon, 03/25/2013 - 16:16
Today, information overwhelms everyone. But how can people learn to make sense of it? One intensive economics course at MIT is built around doing just that, by getting undergraduate students to produce research papers while working closely with…
Mon, 02/25/2013 - 10:23
What kinds of industrial production can bring innovation to the American economy? An intensive, long-term study by a group of MIT scholars suggests that a renewed commitment to research and development in manufacturing, sometimes through…
Wed, 02/06/2013 - 16:47
The percentage of companies reporting a profit from their sustainability efforts rose 23 percent last year, to 37 percent, according to the most recent global study by the MIT Sloan Management Review (MIT SMR) and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG…
Wed, 01/30/2013 - 16:57
The MIT Forum for Supply Chain Innovation has released a report, “U.S Reshoring: A Turning Point,” based on the results of its 2012 U.S. reshoring survey. In total, 340 participants completed the survey, of which 198 were manufacturing-only…
Mon, 01/14/2013 - 10:10
When you get a cut, blood starts to flow from the wound. But very quickly, complex biochemical processes spring into action, creating a scaffolding of molecules to block the hole, and then building up an impervious clot to staunch the flow.
That…
Fri, 01/11/2013 - 16:03
Prizes have long been used to induce solutions to national challenges. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, prizes yielded vaccine inoculation, lifeboats, a method of calculating longitude at sea, new food-preservation techniques, and more. But by…
Mon, 01/07/2013 - 09:58
High stresses combined with a corrosive environment can cause critical components inside power plants and other systems to crack and fail, sometimes with little warning. MIT researchers now have new insights into how such “stress corrosion cracking…
Fri, 01/04/2013 - 11:14
Inexpensive labor has defined the last decade in manufacturing. The future may belong to technology.
When GE expanded manufacturing of home heaters and refrigerators at its facility in Kentucky last year, the reasons included big wage concessions…
Mon, 12/03/2012 - 12:36
The device doesn’t look like much: a caterpillar-sized assembly of metal rings and strips resembling something you might find buried in a home-workshop drawer. But the technology behind it, and the long-range possibilities it represents, are quite…
Tue, 11/27/2012 - 13:22
A couple of decades ago, visitors to the quiet city of Zaragoza, Spain, had no reason to think it would become a capital of world trade. But in 2000, the city opened Europe’s largest logistics hub, called PLAZA, and now Zaragoza is a global shipping…