“With the ubiquity of mobile devices and other communications technology, many workers are expected to multitask, with some employees taking pride in their perceived ability to switch between complex tasks. But all this multitasking is putting workers, as well as their employers, at risk, experts say.

"It’s unequivocally the case that workers who are doing multiple things at one time are doing them poorly," says Clifford Nass, director of the Communication Between Humans and Interactive Media Lab at Stanford University. "The human brain just really isn’t built to switch rapidly from one task to another. Workers who constantly multitask are hurting their ability to get work done, even when they are not multitasking. People become much more distracted, can’t manage their memory very well."

Companies that demand multitasking may be damaging productivity.

"It would be a total tragedy if when we have so much potential to make the work force more intelligent, we are actually making the work force dumber," Mr. Nass says. "Companies that are demanding that workers multitask might not only be hurting their productivity, but may be making the workforce worse thinkers."

In a 2009 study, Mr. Nass and other researchers found that heavy media multitaskers are "more susceptible to interference from irrelevant environmental stimuli," and were worse at switching between tasks, likely because of their lesser ability to ignore irrelevant information.

Some companies are beginning to worry about the impact of multitasking, Mr. Nass says.

"Slowly you are starting to see companies starting to change from everything having to be answered immediately," Mr. Nass says.

From an employer’s point of view, one of the most worrying effects may be the trouble that chronic multitaskers have focusing.

"They are seduced by irrelevancy. They are constantly distracting themselves. They will look for distraction even when no such distraction exists," Mr. Nass says. "We are creating a culture that encourages workers to be less effective, handle information poorly and have a tougher time in social relationships. What does the work force look like where people can’t pay attention, where people can’t think deeply and where people lack emotional skills? It’s a pretty scary world."

Troubles can start when individuals try to work simultaneously on more than one complex task. Complex tasks require some reflection or mindfulness, says Earl Miller, a professor of neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Anything that involves upgrading information requires consciousness, and that’s where the limited bandwidth comes in," says Mr. Miller.

Complex multitasking can mean missing out on details.

"The best way to get things properly stored in long-term memory is to pay close attention to them, and if you are overtaxing your short-term memory, you are going to be missing things and they won’t appear in long-term memory because they won’t be stored in the first place," Mr. Miller says.

When workers do complex multitasking they are often in a state of stress, and unable to recognize opportunities and solutions, says Linda Stone, a former senior high-tech executive based in Seattle.

"There could be an answer right in front of you that doesn’t look like what you think it should look like," Ms. Stone says. "In a stressed state, we often miss things that are right in front of us."

Multitaskers think they are much more successful at completing tasks than they actually are, experts say. Ms. Stone uses the phrase "continuous partial attention" to describe complex multitasking.

"We may believe that when we’re driving and talking on a cellphone, we are aware of everything around us," Ms. Stone says. "The truth is, we’re often missing quite a bit."

It can be tough to resist the allure of an unread email or unresponded-to instant message, but the reward is completing tasks at a higher quality level. Here are tips from the experts about how to stop, or at least curb, multitasking:

Strategize: "Plan ahead and remove the possibility of distraction. If there are [fewer] things tempting you, it’s easier to focus on the job at hand," says Mr. Miller.

Work on a single task for at least 20 minutes: "When you start to do something, do it and nothing else for 20 minutes. This trains you to focus, to think deeply. It trains you not to think that distraction is a positive, and it teaches your brain to be able to focus," Mr. Nass says.

Make face time sacred: "It’s very, very important for the human brain to really spend some time talking to one person, face-to-face, without any technological distraction," Mr. Nass says”

Ruth Mantell, On Sunday 10 July 2011, 11:22 SGT

Multitasking: More Is Less – Yahoo! Singapore Finance

Het fysieke versleutelen van de bediening van apparatuur of processen om te voorkomen dat deze worden geactiveerd wanneer personeel mogelijk gevaar loopt – een procedure bekend als Lock Out/Tag Out (LOTO) – is een veelgebruikte veiligheidsprocedure in industriële omgevingen. Maar een campagne die veiligheidsspecialist Master Lock deze zomer zal lanceren benadrukt dat als dit soort veiligheidsprocedures geen deel uit maken van een volledige veiligheidsstrategie, kwetsbaar personeel mogelijk niet volledig beschermd zijn.

Elk jaar gebeuren er duizenden industriële ongelukken in Europa, ondanks dat de meesten volledig voorkomen hadden kunnen worden door LOTO-procedures te gebruiken, die activering van apparatuur of onverwachte uitstoot van energie of chemicaliën voorkomen.

“De effectiviteit van LOTO-procedures hangen volledig af van de integriteit van individuele vergrendelingapparatuur”, aldus Kieran MacCourt, Europese marketing manager van Master Lock. “Een slot gebruiken dat gemakkelijk breekt of verwijderd kan worden zonder de originele sleutel, kan nog gevaarlijker zijn dan helemaal geen slot gebruiken, omdat het voor een vals gevoel van veiligheid zorgt.

In een campagne gericht aan veiligheids- en facility managers, benadrukt Master Lock de gevaren die personeel loopt bij het gebruik van goedkope retail hangsloten en persoonlijke veiligheidsapparatuur. Ook wordt er op gewezen dat de consequenties van het gebruik van zulke ad hoc veiligheidsmaatregelen fataal kunnen zijn.

“De meeste gangbare hangsloten zijn niet ontworpen of bedoeld voor gebruik in levensbedreigende situaties”, aldus Maccourt. “Industriële omgevingen zijn onveranderlijk gevaarlijk en veelvuldig gebruik van een hangslot in dit soort omgevingen zal al snel voor slijtage zorgen en dus kunnen leiden tot falen en mogelijk levensbedreigende situaties.”

De meeste hangsloten die ontworpen zijn voor binnenshuis of sporadisch gebruik hebben bovendien vaak relatief simpele vergrendelingmechanismen en slechts enkele sleutelcombinaties. Dit vergroot de kans substantieel dat het slot open gemaakt kan worden met andere sleutels dan het origineel. “Er zijn verassend weinig sleutelvariaties in de vele lokale hangsloten”, vervolgt MacCourt. “Ook zijn er weinig beperkingen wat betreft het kopiëren van sleutels. Zodra je twee of drie sleutels van een veiligheidsslot in omloop hebt is het hele systeem waardeloos.”

Master Lock’s assortiment van professionele LOTO-apparatuur is ontwikkeld om een simpel doch effectief veiligheidsbeleid te handhaven, dat ingezet kan worden in vele verscheidene industriële toepassingen. Deze zomer lanceert het bedrijf gratis gidsen op zijn website http://www.mastersafetyseries.nl/ om veiligheids- en facility managers te helpen effectieve LOTO-strategieën te ontwikkelen en het gebruik van ongeautoriseerde sloten in veiligheidstoepassingen te beheren.

News Release

Nine easy ways to generate a lot of ideas is to apply a checklist of nine creative-thinking principles that were first formally suggested by Alex Osborn, pioneer of brainstorming, and later arranged into the following mnemonic SCAMPER.

S = Substitute?
C = Combine?
A = Adapt?
M = Magnify? = Modify?
P = Put to other uses?
E = Eliminate?
R = Rearrange? = Reverse?

SCAMPER is based on the notion that everything new is some addition or modification of something that already exists. You take a subject and change it into something else. (E.g., drilled petroleum becomes chemical feedstock becomes synthetic rubber becomes automobile tires. Natural gas becomes polyethylene becomes milk jugs. Mined ore becomes metal becomes wire becomes parts of a motor.)you can take anything that exists and change it into a new idea.

The blueprint for using SCAMPER is:

(1) Isolate the subject you want to think about.

(2) Ask the SCAMPER questions about each step of the subject and see what new ideas emerge.

(3) For every new idea you discover, ask "How can…?" "What else…?" "How else…?"

(4) List and evaluate the ideas.

Suppose you wanted to improve the ordinary paperclip? You would start looking for ideas by asking:

- What can be substituted in the clip?

- What can I combine the clip with to make something else?

- What can I adapt to the clip?

- How can I modify the clip?

- What can I magnify or add to the clip?

- What other uses can I find for the clip?

- What can be eliminated from the clip?

- What is the reverse of a clip?

- What other rearrangement of the clip might be better?

One manufacturer substituted plastic for metal, added color, and produced plastic clips in various colors so that clipped papers could be color-coded thereby finding another use for clips.

Think about any subject from improving your productivity to reorganizing your organization and apply the Scamper checklist of questions. You will find that ideas start popping up almost involuntarily, as you ask:

SUBSTITUTE SOMETHING? The principle of substitution is a sound way to develop alternative ideas to anything that exists. Think up ways of changing this for that and that for this. The scientist, Paul Ehrlich, kept substituting one color for another—well over 500 colors—until he found the right dye to color the veins of laboratory mice. You can substitute things, places, procedures, people, ideas, and even emotions. Ask:

Can you substitute something? Who else? What else?

Can the rules be changed?

Other ingredient? Other material? Other power? Other place? Other approach?

What else instead? What other part instead of this?

COMBINE IT WITH SOMETHING ELSE? Much of creative thinking involves combining previously unrelated ideas or subjects to make something new. This process is called synthesis, and is regarded by many experts as the essence of creativity. Gregor Mendel created a whole new scientific discipline, genetics, by combining mathematics with biology. Ask:

What can be combined?

Can we combine purposes?

How about an assortment? A blend? An alloy? An ensemble?

Combine units? Combine materials? What other article could be merged with this?

How could we package a combination?

What can be combined to multiply possible uses?

Combine appeals?

ADAPT SOMETHING TO IT? One of the paradoxes of creativity is that in order to think originally, we must first familiarize ourselves with the ideas of others. Thomas Edison put it this way: "Make it a habit to keep on the lookout for novel and interesting ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea needs to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you are working on." Ask:

What else is like this? What other ideas does it suggest?

Does the past offer a parallel?

What could I copy? Whom could I emulate?

What idea could I incorporate?

What other process could be adapted? What else could be adapted?

What different contexts can I put my concept in?

What ideas outside my field can I incorporate?

MAGNIFY IT? An easy way to create a new idea is to take a subject and add something to it. Japanese engineer Yuma Shiraishi made the home VCR possible by figuring out how to lengthen videotapes so they would be long enough for feature-length movies. Ask:

What can be magnified, made larger, or extended?

What can be exaggerated? Overstated?

What can be added? More time? Stronger? Higher? Longer?

How about greater frequency? Extra features? What can be duplicated?

What can add extra value?

How can I carry it to a dramatic extreme?

MODIFY IT? What can be modified? Just about any aspect of anything. The hub-and-spoke transportation system that makes Federal Express work was a feature of at least three air freight services as early as 1930. What Fred Smith did was to modify the dimensions, process and purposes of the system and turned an old idea into an elegant concept. Ask:

How can this be altered for the better? What can be modified?

Is there a new twist?

Change meaning, color, motion, sound, odor, form, shape? Change name?

What changes can be made in the plans? In the process? In marketing? Other changes?

What other form could this take? What other package? Can the package be combined with the form?

PUT IT TO SOME OTHER USE? A subject takes its meaning from the context in which you put it. Change the context, and you change the meaning. George Washington Carver, botanist and chemist, discovered over 300 different uses for the lowly peanut. Ask:

What else can this be used for?

Are there new ways to use as is?

Other uses if modified?

What else can be made from this?

Other extension? Other markets?

ELIMINATE? Sometimes subtracting something from your subject yields new ideas. Trimming down ideas, objects, and processes may gradually narrow the subject down to its truly necessary part or function–or spotlight a part that=s appropriate for some other use. Ask:

What if this were smaller? Understate?

What should I omit? Delete? Subtract? What=s not necessary?

Should I divide it? Split it up? Separate it into different parts?

Streamline? Make miniature? Condense? Compact?

Can the rules be eliminated?

REARRANGE IT INTO SOMETHING ELSE? Creativity, it could be said, consists largely of rearranging what we know in order to find out what we do not know. Rearrangement usually offers countless alternatives for ideas, goods, and services. A baseball manager, for example, can shuffle his lineup 362,880 times. Ask:

What other arrangement might be better?

Interchange components?

Other pattern? Other layout? Other sequence? Change the order?

Transpose cause and effect?

Change pace? Change schedule?

REVERSE IT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS? Reversing your perspective opens your thinking. Look at opposites and you’ll see things you normally miss. Ask "What is the opposite of this?" to find a new way of looking at things. The historical breakthroughs of Columbus and Copernicus were the polar opposites of the current beliefs of their day. Ask:

What are the opposites?

What are the negatives?

Can I transpose positive and negative?

Should I turn it around? Up instead of down? Down instead of up? Consider it backwards?

Reverse roles?

Do the unexpected?

Even the hot dog, as we know it, is the result of the right idea-spurring question being asked at the right time. Antoine Feutchwanger sold sausages at the Louisiana Exposition in 1904. He first sold them on plates, but this proved too expensive. He then offered white cotton gloves along with the franks to prevent customers from burning their fingers. The gloves also were expensive, and customers walked off with them. Antoine and his brother-in-law, a baker, sat down and brainstormed. "What could be added (MAGNIFY) to the frankfurter that would be inexpensive and would prevent people from burning their fingers?" His brother-in-law said: "What if I baked a long bun and slit it to hold the frank?" "Then you can sell the franks, and I can sell you the buns. Who knows, it might catch on."

9 Easy Ways to Create Ideas | Psychology Today

Published originally on July 20, 2011 by Michael Michalko in Creative Thinkering

Police PR department explains how up is down when it comes to crime figures

Posted by Axegrinder on 15 July 2011 at 09:53

Who says that the millions police forces spend on PR is a waste of money?

Axegrinder has been sent this hilarious press release sent out from North Yorkshire Police force’s answer to the Ministry of Truth.

Stop the presses, apparently crime has gone down in the county. Rejoice, you might think – until you get to the fifth par when you find out that crime has actually gone up. I’ve heard about dropped intros but this is ridiculous.

North Yorkshire Police is making great strides to clamp down on crime.

The force’s latest performance figures show a 6.6% reduction between April and June 2011 compared to the previous year.

This period – the first quarter of the current financial year – has seen 741 fewer crimes recorded than this time last year (10,401 against 11,150 crime). Detections have also increased by 3.7% to a total of 33.5%.

This significant impact is in direct response to a small but concerning increase in overall crime last year in North Yorkshire and the City of York.

Published today (Thursday 14 July 2011), the Home Office’s Annual Crime Statistics 2010/11 for England and Wales outlines a 0.6% increase in crime in the county. This equates to 267 more crimes in comparison to the previous year – from 42,196 to 42,464.

This increase was largely down to higher levels of crime in January, February and March 2011 compared to the previous year. North Yorkshire Police also saw a rise in reports of historical serious sexual offences which is a positive indicator in victim confidence in the police, as well as proactive police work to target drugs offences, most noticeably in Selby with the success of Operation Orate which saw a series of raids on cannabis farms and a 55% increase in offences in the district. In addition there were 137 separate fraud crimes committed by a company director from York.

However, the corresponding British Crime Survey figures that have also been released today are extremely positive for North Yorkshire Police, with only 6.4% of the public perceiving a high level of anti-social behaviour – the lowest level in England.

Public confidence in the force and local councils to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour has also increased by almost 6% over the past year, to a total of 55.9%.

The stand alone confidence measure in North Yorkshire Police has also increased to 61.5% from 57.9%.

Temporary Deputy Chief Constable Tim Madgwick said: “This was the first year-on-year rise in recorded overall crime since 2003/04, and whilst this is ultimately a disappointing position, it must be taken within context of a long term reduction which has seen 20,000 fewer offences committed in North Yorkshire and the City of York over the last six years.

“Despite the rise, it is important to emphasise that the North Yorkshire policing area remains the fourth safest and lowest crime area in England and Wales. The results of the British Crime Survey are also a welcome indication of the satisfaction people have in the service we deliver.”

Mr Madgwick added: “Nevertheless, we have taken some very firm action in response to the small spike in crime and I am very satisfied to report that it is now on a downward trend once more.

“A particular success has been our dedicated burglary reduction campaign Operation Haven, which is having a great impact on reducing offences and promoting key crime prevention messages to members of our communities.

“It is this type of proactive and intelligence-led policing activity, together with strong partnership working and engagement with the very people we serve, that will help to maintain the high quality of life in North Yorkshire and the City of York.”

Bill Baugh, Vice Chairman of North Yorkshire Police Authority, said: “The Authority looked at the full year’s data at its AGM in June and it was disappointing to see the slight rise at the end of the last financial year.  Crucially though, the more recent results have shown encouraging downward trends that we are more used to in recent years.

“We are not complacent though and in those more challenging crime categories, particularly burglaries, violence and theft, the Police Authority has requested further analysis of the issues and tactics to be presented at the next Performance and Scrutiny Board meeting at the end of August so that we can be sure that the service is doing all that it can, on its own and with partners, to sustain the good results seen in the last three months for the rest of the year.”

Police PR department explains how up is down when it comes to crime figures | Axegrinder

By following just a few simple rules, anyone can create diagrams and illustrate information more clearly in slide presentations. Enrique Garcia Cota shared some essential guidelines for things like choosing font size, shapes, color, and more.

Although Cota, a.k.a. otikik, is not a designer, the tips he offers in his presentation maintain classic design principles, such as varying shape sizes for emphasis and to establish hierarchy. His tips are also designed for the audience in mind—those in the back of a room staring at a projector.

A Non-Designer’s Guide to Creating Awesome Diagrams for Slides

The first was a survey by Lee Anne Orange from the International Machine Tool Show 2012 which we wrote about on our Southern Manufacturing & Electronics 2012 blog. In her informal survey of exhibitors, she found that the rate of adoption of social media channels in manufacturing is accelerating, yet is still a relatively small number in absolute terms. In total, around 20% of firms at the show use one or more forms of social media. So while that seems to indicate that there is still room for significant growth, their are many that remain unconvinced. One can only speculate what factors are inhibiting growth, but personally I suspect there are two main reasons: Effectiveness i.e. does it actually work? and Production i.e. who is actually going to write this stuff? For us, the question of effectiveness was answered quite conclusively this week in the second of our “social media happenings”

One of the hardest areas for PR to break into is the national media. This is particularly true for specialists like us who tend to work with b2b brands which are relatively unknown to the general public. Getting journalists from the national media interested in engineering and manufacturing stories is very hard work; that’s not a criticism as they have a completely different agenda to trade publications. But it’s none the less frustrating when our overtures concerning stories of genuine editorial value get passed-over because they are deemed too “niche” to be of interest. But we were surprised this week when a slightly sarcastic  (oops!)Tweet from us concerning the BBC’s lack of interest in grassroots manufacturing was answered in person by a well-known TV personality. This has led to a dialogue, which may well result in BBC TV covering Southern Manufacturing 2012! Hugely exciting for us and something we’ve been trying to achieve for the last 6 years. Time will tell, of course, but if there were any doubts remaining about the effectiveness of Twitter in reaching key journalists, they have now completely evaporated.

By Oliver Luft

Business publisher Centaur reported this morning that group revenue had risen 15 per cent year-on-year in the first half of its new financial year.

Publishing a trading update ahead of interim results scheduled for 24 February, the company said it had maintained the strong growth reported at its AGM in November with group ad revenue increasing 17 per cent year on year in the period.

Centaur, which publishes titles including Marketing Week, The Lawyer and Creative Review, said it recorded a notable increase in recruitment advertising, which was ahead by almost a third, reflecting strong growth in the legal and marketing communities.

Excluding recruitment, Centaur said its strongest growth rates were achieved though web-based display advertising – led by financial product advertising for which revenues are more than 30 per cent ahead year-on-year.

Event revenues increased by around 13 per cent year-on-year, the company said.

Centaur revenue up 15% as ad sales bounce back – Press Gazette

How the Sleeper Effect Persuades You Months After the Message

Persuasion isn’t just about convincing someone in the moment. Psychology researcher Jeremy Dean explains how a persuasive message can change attitudes months after it’s delievered.

In the 1940s during WWII, the US Department of War wanted to know if their propaganda films were really working. So they carried out a series of experimental studies into how they affected soldier’s attitudes.

The complacent assumption was that the films should easily influence the average GI. Producers and psychologists alike expected to see a huge shift in attitudes towards the war after they were viewed. What they found was nothing of the sort, and the results came as a bitter blow to propagandists everywhere.

While the films were informative and did strengthen some existing attitudes, experiments showed they were extremely unlikely to make soldiers more optimistic about the war in general (Hovland et al, 1949).

In retrospect this should have come as little surprise, since the soldiers knew these were propaganda films designed to change their attitudes, so their defenses were up.

What they did discover, though, was that some of the films did have an effect on soldiers after months had passed. While attitudes didn’t change immediately, subtle shifts were picked up nine weeks later. US soldiers who watched one film about The Battle of Britain showed little extra sympathy towards the British five days later, but, after nine weeks, they had softened. Yale University’s Carl Hovland and colleagues called this the ‘sleeper effect’.

Big impact

Since then the sleeper effect has had a rockier history than the average soap opera character. It has gone up and down in the esteem of psychologists over the years as some experiments have confirmed the effect and others have found nothing.

Quite naturally many people wondered whether the sleeper effect really exists, especially as it goes against common sense. Persuasion should really be strongest just after a message is delivered. Over time the persuasive effect should weaken as people’s attitudes return to how they were before-and this is what many other studies have shown.

Nevertheless when researchers have weighed up all these studies, it seems likely the effect does exist (Kumkale & Albarracin, 2004). It’s just it only appears under two circumstances:

1. Big initial impact: the sleeper effect only emerges if the persuasive message has a major initial impact. If it isn’t powerful enough, it won’t hunker down in our minds, biding its time before it boomerangs back.
2. Message discounting: it should be obvious that the source of the message can’t be trusted so that we discredit it; like when the soldiers were watching the propaganda film.

What seems to be going on is this: people are convinced by the arguments until they see that the source of the message can’t be trusted. But people don’t tend to process the discounting cue very thoroughly. So, over time, people forget they discounted the information and the content of the persuasive message, which was processed thoroughly, does its devilish work.

Know the source before the message

The sleeper effect isn’t the great news for advertisers (and advertising agencies) you might imagine. The effect is strongest when the message is discounted afterwards. When we watch adverts, we usually know beforehand that they can’t be trusted, so our minds are already on alert for the distinctive smell of half-truths.

There are all kinds of everyday situations where the sleeper effect occurs. Like when the travel supplement recommends a great resort, then we read at the bottom the trip’s cost was covered by the resort. Or there’s an article telling us about the health benefits of milk and then we read at the bottom that the author is the head of the Milk Marketing Board. Any time we receive a persuasive message before we find out who the source is, the sleeper effect can come into play.

Naturally, then, canny information consumers will want to know the source of a message before they read it.

Persuasion: The Sleeper Effect [Jeremy Dean]

How the Sleeper Effect Persuades You Months After the Message

The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) today released the results of its latest surveys* on Japanese manufacturers in Europe and Turkey (hereafter “Europe”) and Japanese manufacturers in the US. Both surveys were conducted between July and August 2010, and 314 valid replies were received from firms in Europe (or 56.0% of companies sent questionnaires), while 806 replies were received for the US survey (68% of firms).
1. Outlook for 2010: about 70% of firms in both the US and Europe expect to post an operating profit
Against the backdrop of uncertainties in the US and European economies due to the euro crisis driven by Greece’s debt woes and the risk of a double-dip recession, about 70% of Japanese manufacturers in both the US and Europe expect to post an operating profit in 2010, largely on the back of increased sales.
Comparing operating profits for this year with a year earlier, the difference between ratios of firms citing “improved” and “declined” (by both firms in the US and Europe) was the largest in a decade. Looking ahead to 2011, more than 90% of firms in both regions expect profits to “improve” or “remain the same,” revealing a positive outlook for the economic situation rather than concerns over a possible double-dip recession.
Meanwhile, Japanese manufacturers and their counterparts in both the US and Europe are facing intensifying price competition. And while respondents have a more positive outlook for 2010, mainly due to increased sales, they still are planning retrenchments in personnel and management/utility costs.
2. Biggest challenges for firms in Europe: exchange rate fluctuations and price competition
More than 60% of Japanese manufacturers in Europe forecast improved business in 2010 (compared to a year earlier), showing a recovery in business confidence. Reflecting this, nearly 70% of respondents expect operating profit for 2010 (the third highest in the past decade), compared to 50% for 2009, showing that firms managed to prosper (i.e. increase sales), despite uncertain economic conditions. The majority of respondents have plans to increase local production in the next one to two years and also expand sales in neighbouring emerging countries, including Russia, which is on its way to an economic recovery.
Ranking at the top of firms’ management problems/issues were “exchange rate fluctuations” and “price competition with Korean or Chinese counterparts.” To counter these challenges, more than 40% of respondent firms plan to “expand local production,” and an increasing number are eyeing to “diversify or shift procurement source to China or other locations.” To reduce costs, a notable number of respondents said they would “hire executive-level personnel locally.”
3. While facing challenges such as price competition, manufacturers in the US are hopeful for benefits from the environment market and government policies to boost exports.
According to the survey, growth in capital investment and employment among Japanese manufactures in the US seems to be levelling off, suggesting that firms are still waiting to make their next moves, as the economic recovery gains speed. However, they feel the worst is over.
Management problems/issues cited most by firms included “lower sales due to price competition” and “cost increases due to yen rise and spike in raw material costs.” Firms expressed concerns over possible rising health care costs under the health care reform bill passed by Congress in March.
Firms seem mostly positive about the booming environment market, seeing opportunities in solar and environmentally-friendly vehicles, while others anticipate increased orders from local firms on the back of the Obama Administration’s export growth strategy.

JETRO Releases the Results of its Survey of Japanese Manufacturers in Europe & Turkey and the US – JETRO