Developing a Detailed Analysis of the Transportation Equipment Manufacturing Industry Supply Chain

Objective - This project has three objectives: (1) to develop a detailed analysis of the US transportation equipment manufacturing industry supply chain that provides a temporal examination of the industry both domestically and internationally; (2) to revise and expand the E2013 Function Analysis standard to better integrate it into the newly revised and expanded Value Engineering Standard E1699, issued by ASTM in May 2014; and (3) provide industry statistics on the manufacturing industry for EL management use.

What is the new technical idea? Due to complexity and the changing nature of industry activity, there is a limited understanding of the supply chain for manufacturing and, subsequently, a limited understanding of the associated costs of production. There is, however, data available that details the inter-industry relationships within the US economy that allow for a more detailed understanding to be developed. These datasets include the WIOD, BEA summary level input-output data, and the BEA Benchmark Input-Output data. Each dataset provides a different aspect of the US economy. This project will, first, develop a detailed analysis of the supply chain for the US transportation equipment manufacturing industry that provides a temporal examination of both domestic and international activity. These examinations will reveal how the revenue from transportation equipment is used and dispersed; that is, it will track the purchases from other industries/sectors, compensation of employees, profit, and taxes in the transportation equipment manufacturing industry.

The WIOD provides international inter-industry interactions for 40 countries and 35 industries. This dataset provides annual data spanning from 1995 through 2011 which allows for a temporal examination of the US transportation equipment manufacturing industry in an international perspective; however, it does not offer the level of details provided in the domestic datasets from the BEA. This dataset was used previously in NIST Technical Note 1810, The US Manufacturing Value Chain: An International Perspective, which found that the US imported 15.4 % of its manufacturing supply chain and ranked as the 4th lowest among the 40 countries examined. Between 1995 and 2009, the U.S. percentage increased as did 33 other countries out of the 40 total. For the 34 countries with increases, the average increase was 6.55 percentage points while the U.S. increased by 3.07 percentage points. This previous research lays a strong foundation for developing a detailed examination of the import activity of intermediate goods and services for use in the US transportation equipment manufacturing industry.

The input-output records from the BEA summary level data provide more details than the WIOD data. It is annual data on 69 industries spanning 1997 through 2012. This data was used in NIST Special Publication 1142, The Current State and Recent Trends of the US Manufacturing Industry. It provided an overview of the industry and also lays a strong foundation for tracking changes in the domestic supply chain over a 16 year period. The BEA Benchmark data does not provide much opportunity for a temporal examination, as this data is published every 5 years for years ending in 2 and 7. This data, however, provides extensive details on the US economy as it includes nearly 400 industries and commodities. Together, the three datasets provide an opportunity for a close examination of the transportation equipment manufacturing supply chain.

The second part of this project will revise and expand the E2013 Function Analysis standard to better integrate it into the newly revised and expanded Value Engineering Standard E1699, issued by ASTM in May 2014. The E2013 standard establishes a logical procedure for allocating costs to functions, which simplifies the justification of investments. It establishes a communication format through which all stakeholders can understand, analyze, revise, and agree on the purposes and value of a project, process, or product.

The last part of this project will provide statistics on the manufacturing industry for EL management use. This document provides data on net income, expenditures, shipments, and value added for twelve sectors of manufacturing. It also provides an industry supply chain with five main categories: services, computer hardware, software, and other expenditures; refuse removal expenditures; machinery, structures, and compensation expenditures; suppliers of materials expenditures; maintenance and repair expenditures; and shipments.

Efficiency is the key performance objective for the future vision of manufacturing and the Engineering Laboratory has set out to contribute to this objective through smart manufacturing systems, operations planning, and control. The success of smart manufacturing depends upon the ability to easily and rapidly reconfigure factory production and supply networks to optimize system performance. In order to achieve this, an effective understanding of the manufacturing supply chain must be developed. This project contributes to this understanding by utilizing input-output data to analyze the transportation equipment manufacturing industry supply chain. This project also impacts EL research in additive manufacturing. As discussed in the forthcoming report on cost models for additive manufacturing, this technology has the potential of impacting five of the seven sources of waste identified in lean manufacturing: overproduction, transportation, motion, inventory, and waiting time. Many of these sources of waste are in the supply chain, making it difficult to quantify the benefits of additive manufacturing. This project will further our understanding of the transportation equipment manufacturing industry, a major adopter of additive manufacturing technologies that represents 32 % of the products made using this process. This project will also advance standards for economic analysis. The E2013 Function Analysis standard establishes a communication format through which all stakeholders can understand, analyze, revise, and agree on the purposes and value of a project, process, or product.

What is the research plan? The research plan for the first part of this project is comprised of five activities: (1) conduct a literature search on the supply chain of the transportation and equipment manufacturing industry; (2) gather and assemble WIOD data and conduct input-output analysis for transportation equipment manufacturing; (3) gather and assemble BEA summary data and conduct input-output analysis for transportation equipment manufacturing; (4) gather and assemble BEA Benchmark data and conduct input-output analysis for transportation equipment manufacturing; and (5) develop a report documenting the findings from this research. The NIST report will be organized around the three datasets used for the analysis. Additional discussions within the report will provide an examination of literature on the transportation and equipment manufacturing industry supply chain.

The second part of this project involves three activities: (1) review ASTM Standard E2013 and Standard E1699; (2) revise and expand Standard E2013 to better integrate it into Standard E1699; and (3) submit the revised standard to ASTM for balloting.

The third part of this project involves gathering data from the Annual Survey of Manufactures and summarizing it such that it conforms to previous year's data.