Made In America: Lockheed Martin’s Camden Plant Receives Environmental Award
by October 11, 2015 7:09 am 177 views
Editor’s note: Each Sunday, Talk Business & Politics provides “Made In America,” a round-up of manufacturing news in our email newsletter, which you can sign up to receive daily for free here.
LOCKHEED MARTIN RECEIVES ENVIRONMENTAL AWARD FOR CAMDEN MANUFACTURING OPERATIONS: Lockheed Martin’s Camden operations facility recently received a top Arkansas environmental award for its pioneering work in recycling tons of paint waste containing silver. The Arkansas Environmental Federation (AEF) presented the facility with the 2015 Diamond Award for Excellence in Environmental Leadership on Oct. 1 during AEF’s 48th Annual Convention and Trade Show in Hot Springs.
Lockheed Martin ships both the residue from the coating and objects that come into contact with it — including paint-booth filters, plungers and containers — to a facility that extracts the silver and sells it on the precious metals market. Proceeds are returned to Lockheed Martin.
The company’s Camden plant manufactures missiles and launch vehicles, including the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) Missile, the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launcher and elements of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) Weapon System. This is the site’s second Diamond Award. In 2010, it was recognized for its waste-to-energy program, in which waste is converted to energy instead of shipped to landfills.
INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS MARKET BOOMING, REPORT SAYS: By 2018, global sales of industrial robots will on average grow year-over-year by 15%, doubling the numbers of units sold to around 400,000 units, according to a new report by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR). Five major markets representing 70% of the total sales of robots in industrial settings. They include the U.S, China, Japan, South Korea and Germany.
China is the largest and fastest growing robotics market in the world with density of just 36 units per 10,000 employees, representing a 56% increase in 2014 compared to the previous year. As the front-runner, South Korea deploys 478 industrial robots per 10,000 employees followed by Japan (315 units) and Germany (292 units).
The statistics on robotic density indicate huge opportunities for growth in the U.S. American production industries deploy just 164 industrial robots per 10,000 employees. However, the U.S. is automating its economy at high speed, increasing the number of installed robots in 2014 by 11%. To view the full IFR report, click here.
STUTTGART RICE MILLS MAKE TOP 100 LIST OF U.S. COOPERATIVES: Two Stuttgart-based rice mills again made the top 100 list of the nation’s agricultural cooperatives in 2014, but lost ground in the annual ranking as most of the nation’s farmer, rancher and fishery cooperatives posted record income and revenue in 2014, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday (Oct. 7). Riceland Foods, which had annual revenues of $1.32 billion in fiscal 2013, fell from 22nd to 25th on the USDA list. Neighbor and rival Producers Rice Mill dropped one spot from 64th to 65th on the annual list.
COMMERCE DEPARTMENT RELEASES MANUFACTURING WAGE REPORT: In recognition of “Manufacturing Day” events across the U.S. on Oct. 2, the Commerce Department released a new report drawing on evidence from 10 federal data sets showing that a pay premium exists for workers in manufacturing industries. Utilizing numerous federal data sets, the report by the Commerce Department calculates and compares the average pay of manufacturing workers and the average pay of workers overall. Read more here.