Manufacturing

Rob Lynch’s move from Arby’s to become CEO of Papa John’s underscored the musical-chairs nature of life at the top of America’s food chain these days.

For the second consecutive year, Chief Executive has selected a handful of people who are really successful, whose companies represent robust trends in the U.S. manufacturing economy, or who are reshaping their industries or manufacturing as a whole.

The CEO on the biggest hot seat in the auto industry right now may not be head of one of the carmakers. It could be Cheryl Miller, who has taken over as chief of AutoNation, America’s largest new-vehicle retailer.

Toyota’s influence on U.S. manufacturing extends way beyond its own operations—because of the Toyota Production System. Over the decades, American companies ranging from arch-rival General Motors to Herman Miller have learned about the Toyota way of making things.

If you want to maximize the benefit of machine learning to your business, you are going to have to use a hybrid approach of technology that gets you 80% of the way there and people who will take it the rest of the way and maintain it

The landscape in the U.S. automotive business has changed significantly since the last time the Detroit Three automakers and the United Auto Workers agreed on new national contracts in 2015.

Andra Rush is the latest major manufacturer to invest in a new factory in the City of Detroit, the most recent in a string of developments that amount to an industrial renaissance in the original home of the American automotive arsenal.

In just over a year as its new CEO, Chris Hall has helped Sparkling Ice regain its mojo after the pioneering sparkling-water brand spent a few years grappling with deep-pocketed competition, a brand-extension stumble and, finally, the ouster of Hall’s predecessor.

The latest in our “Masters of Manufacturing” series, Atlanta-based EmployBridge CEO Tom Bickes talks about helping manufacturers determine how they become that preferred employer and how they retain talent.

Regardless of their personal politics or their assessments of his social-media antics, manufacturing CEOs have to be grateful to President Trump for at least one thing: raising the profile of their industry to an ever-present public priority.