Reports from an ambitious MIT research project that makes the case for encouraging the colocation of manufacturing and innovation. Production in the Innovation Economy emerges from several years of interdisciplinary research at MIT on the links between manufacturing and innovation in the United States and the world economy. Authors from political science, economics, business, employment and operations research, aeronautics and astronautics, and nuclear engineering come together to explore the extent to which manufacturing is key to an innovative and vibrant economy. Chapters include survey research on gaps in worker skill development and training; discussions of coproduction with Chinese firms and participation in complex manufacturing projects in China; analyses of constraints facing American start-up firms involved in manufacturing; proposals for a future of distributed manufacturing and a focus on product variety as a marker of innovation; and forecasts of powerful advanced manufacturing technologies on the horizon. The chapters show that although the global distribution of manufacturing is not an automatic loss for the United States, gains from the colocation of manufacturing and innovation have not disappeared. The book emphasizes public policy that encourages colocation through, for example, training programs, supplements to private capital, and interfirm cooperation in industry consortia. Such approaches can help the United States not only to maintain manufacturing capacity but also, crucially, to maximize its innovative potential. Contributors Joyce Lawrence, Richard K. Lester, Richard M. Locke, Florian Metzler, Jonas Nahm, Paul Osterman, Elisabeth B. Reynolds, Donald B. Rosenfeld, Hiram M. Samel, Sanjay E. Sarma, Edward S. Steinfeld, Andrew Weaver, Rachel L. Wellhausen, Olivier de Weck

Events around the world are broadcast by giant media players such as CNN, BBC and NHK amongst others. This book explores how powerful political and economic agendas in the national media environment influence the production processes.

In the last 20 years, there has been a remarkable emergence of innovations and technological advances that are generating promising changes and opportunities for sustainable agriculture, yet at the same time the agricultural sector worldwide faces numerous daunting challenges. Not only is the agricultural sector expected to produce adequate food, fiber, and feed, and contribute to biofuels to meet the needs of a rising global population, it is expected to do so under increasingly scarce natural resources and climate change. Growing awareness of the unintended impacts associated with some agricultural production practices has led to heightened societal expectations for improved environmental, community, labor, and animal welfare standards in agriculture. Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century assesses the scientific evidence for the strengths and weaknesses of different production, marketing, and policy approaches for improving and reducing the costs and unintended consequences of agricultural production. It discusses the principles underlying farming systems and practices that could improve the sustainability. It also explores how those lessons learned could be applied to agriculture in different regional and international settings, with an emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa. By focusing on a systems approach to improving the sustainability of U.S. agriculture, this book can have a profound impact on the development and implementation of sustainable farming systems. Toward Sustainable Agricultural Systems in the 21st Century serves as a valuable resource for policy makers, farmers, experts in food production and agribusiness, and federal regulatory agencies.

This two-volume set presents selected and revised papers from the 10th International Conference of Production Research - Americas, ICPR-Americas 2020, held in Bahía Blanca, Argentina, in December 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the conference was held in a fully virtual format. The 41 full papers and 11 short papers were thoroughly reviewed and selected from 275 submissions. They are organized in topical sections on optimization; metaheuristics and algorithms; industry 4.0 and cyber-physical systems; smart city; intelligent systems and decision sciences; simulation; machine learning and big data.