Showtime, Awards and Parties- you in?

Hi all!

Join us at the Massachusetts Manufacturing Mash-Up on Friday, Sept. 16^th, at Polar Park in Worcester, MA.

We have a booth with our friends from FORGE and tons of giveaways, complimentary espresso, and lots of exciting Technology to see.

Register here, it's free! You all deserve a fun day at the ballpark!

The State of Manufacturing

The Manufacturing PMI Index registered at 52.8% in August.

New Orders gained 3.3% points, and the Price Index dropped another 7.5%.

It will be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of months. We should get an indication from the latest update of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) / Inflation numbers next week from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Capacity constraints have moved from the water to land: The struggle for shipping capacity has been in the spotlight since the pandemic's beginning, and logistics issues are shifting inland. CCM's trailers earlier this month were tied up for an average of almost 33 days, up from about 20 days at the start of the summer and about 10 days before the pandemic.

From one of our newsletter sponsors:

EPE Components Latest Updates on the Semiconductor Supply Situation

General component demand is waning, and lead times are getting better.

Aluminum Capacitor lead times have dropped significantly in the laptop & desktop markets.

Larger Capacitors, Thin Film Resistors are getting more constrained & Discrete Inductor lead times remain in allocation territory.

Global Foundries and TMSC plan to increase pricing by 6-8% through 2023 and Samsung Electronics plans a 20% price increase due to lower yields from its 5nm to 4nm manufacturing process transition. Rohm Semiconductors announced a price increase starting this month.

Inc. 5000 released its annual ranking of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the country, and 154 companies (incl. many startups) based in Massachusetts got the nod. Congrats!

Check the rankings and see the complete list here.

Cleantech Open Northeast will host the first in-person Regional Finals Awards & Showcase since 2019.

Join NPA to watch the Finals, which will take place on Thursday, September 29th, at Greentown Labs in Somerville, MA. Click here to register.

The Charlestown-based Dexai Robotics Inc. files for $6.7M fundraising to expand their production of robots to work in food preparation.

Hydrow Inc. has raised nearly $21 million in new funding a month after laying off 35% of its workforce.

Hyundai establishes Boston Dynamics AI Institute with an initial investment of more than $400 million to work on solving the most critical and difficult challenges facing the creation of advanced robots.

Our friends at Massachusetts Innovation Network have a full schedule of exciting events. Check them out here and register today!

MassRobotics is hosting its 5^th Robot Block Party on Saturday, October 1^st, from 11am-4pm.

Boston Materials announced the opening of its new headquarters, located in Billerica, MA. The 40,000-sqft manufacturing plant is tailored to triple its current workforce in the next couple of years. (It's incredible, NPA toured it!)

Flexxbotics is partnering with Datanomix to automate production monitoring for universal robots.

GenH is part of this year's TOP 15 PropTechs for the PropTech Innovation Award hosted by GERMANTECH. The winner will be granted an investment of EUR 100,000 from the new GERMANTECH Innovation Fund. Good luck!

Nodar has been shortlisted for the Most Innovative Application or Deployment of Computer Vision for AutoSens' prestigious Award. Congrats!

Seurat was named a Finalist for this year's R&D 100 Award by R&D - Research & Development World.

In our August survey, we asked about our subscribers' top challenges for the second half of 2022.

The results showed that difficulty in talent acquisition is the number one challenge.

'Quiet quitting’ has been in the spotlight on the internet, mainly to describe Gen Z workers. The term can be described as rejecting the notion that work has to take over one's life and that employees should go above and beyond what their job descriptions entail.

But the number one question left is: is ‘quiet quitting' really a new trend, born out of burnout, or is it just a new name for the very old experience of gradually giving up on a job?

A small robot with a clip-like hand and smart enough to know which drinks are popular is being used in Tokyo to restock up to 1,000 bottles and cans a day in convenience stores. Ro-Bottle (Source: AP News)

The VC slowdown is happening faster for AI startups. In Q2, VC investment in AI fell by 44%, while overall funding fell by 25%. NewAIWinter? (Source: Morning Brew)

NASA says that despite what you might’ve heard, there is sound in space BlackHoleRemix (Source: NASA)

Sign up HERE