Kickstart: 30 hours work, 40 hours pay

DeKalb Molded Products is putting an emphasis on work-life balance to help fill its job openings.

The Butler, Ind.-based structural foam molder is advertising 40 hours of pay for a 30-hour workweek as it seeks to fill 20 open jobs and retain existing workers. The company told local TV station WANE that its work orders are backlogged because of the work shortage.

Executives cited a Harvard study that workers wanted more work-life balance in developing the new strategy.

General Manager Doug Bonecutter told WANE that the company is looking at splitting the days up into four six-hour shifts rather than three eight-hour shifts as part of the change.

3D printers allow companies to try out new ideas and develop new parts. They're also a big investment for a small company operating on thin margins.

A Detroit-area economic development group now has 3D printers available for companies to put in place and get comfortable with using.

Automation Alley scored $12 million through COVID-19 relief fuding to finance the new Project Diamond, according to our sister paper Crain's Detroit Business.

A total of 300 small manufacturing companies in metro Detroit now have 3D printers, valued at $20,000 a piece, at "virtually no cost to them," Kurt Nagl writes. "The main stipulation was that companies would be required to print personal protective equipment with the machines if called to do so."

Companies have used the printers to make fixtures to improve production within their own manufacturing space as well as validation parts.

"3D printing is going to become the de facto manufacturing standard going forward," said Tom Kelly, executive director at Troy, Mich.-based Automation Alley. "People are missing the pace of change of technology, and that's going to be true across the world, but especially true in Michigan because we have a lot of old assets and a lot of people that are just used to working in those assets."

Carmakers have been making a lot of headlines about building electric vehicles in the next few years. But what does that mean today?

Ford Motor Co. says it is seeing strong responses to its future cars, with deposits placed for more than 100,000 of the upcoming Lightning pickup truck. But more important for now, consider that it sold 56,570 electric vehicles in the first half of 2021.

Granted, that's small compared to overall sales for the auto giant, but it's a number that is up 117 percent vs. 2020. In fact, in its quarterly sales call, Ford noted that in May, it produced more Mustang Mach-E electric sports cars than it did the more traditional Mustang.