Walmart Proposing $10 Million To Spur Innovation, U.S. Manufacturing
by January 23, 2014 5:02 pm 79 views
Walmart’s U.S. President and CEO Bill Simon announced a new $10 million fund that the retail giant plans to make available for grants to manufacturing innovators.
Speaking to the nation’s mayors in Washington, D.C., Simon said the new fund would seek to create new processes, ideas, and jobs to support America’s manufacturing footprint.
“If we want to grow manufacturing and help rebuild America’s middle class, we need the brightest minds in our universities, in our think tanks, and in our towns to tackle obstacles to U.S. manufacturing,” said Simon. “The $10 million fund will identify and award leaders in manufacturing innovation and help us all work together to create opportunity.”
Walmart has been touting efforts to draw overseas manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. Last year, company leaders announced they would buy an additional $50 billion in American products in the next decade.
In conjunction with today’s announcement, Walmart promoted another relocation of manufacturing jobs to the states.
Kent Bicycles said it is moving production from overseas to Clarendon, S.C. The company expects to add at least 175 jobs and will be assembling 500,000 bikes annually. The company, based in Parsippany, N.J., expects to start production in the fall of 2014.
Walmart also announced that it will host its second U.S. manufacturing summit in Denver, Colo., in August 2014. One focus of this year’s summit will be connecting manufacturers in need of component parts to factories with excess capacity.
“Many factories aren’t operating at full capacity. By working together, we have an opportunity to repurpose or help add production to some of these communities,” said Simon. “This will help rebuild the American supply chain to support U.S. manufacturing and create more jobs.”