In 1989, the MIT Commission on Industrial Productivity produced the Made in America report. One of the recommendations of Made in America was to establish the Industrial Performance Center (IPC) to carry on the interdisciplinary investigations of industrial productivity, innovation, and competitiveness that the Commission had begun. Established in 1991, with the help of a major grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the IPC has brought together faculty and students from all five MIT Schools in research collaborations on industry. Since its inception, the faculty, students and affiliates of the IPC have produced numerous books, articles, papers and other publications that have advanced the understanding of strategic, technological, and organizational developments in a broad range of industries.
Report | March 13, 2024
Foreign Direct Investment in Billion Dollar Factories
Project | October 16, 2023
MIT Automation Clinic
The Automation Clinic is an applied research and education program to understand how organizations make new technologies work in practice. MIT researchers and their partners work with organizations to learn the problems they aim to solve with new technologies, the challenges they face in deploying them, and the consequences for their workers, customers, and society. […]
Working Paper | October 9, 2023
Models for Building Regional Manufacturing Economies: From ‘Home Alone’ to Regional Ecosystems
At the national level, U.S. manufacturing has suffered from slow productivity, wage, and job growth for decades. At the regional level, industrial decline has hollowed out once-thriving industrial cities.
Article | September 24, 2023
A Smarter Strategy for Using Robots
Despite advances in automation technology, the promise of productive and flexible automation, with minimal involvement of human workers, is far from reality, for two main reasons. First, adoption of automation technology has been limited. Second, when firms do automate, what they gain in productivity they tend to lose in process flexibility, resulting in what the […]
Report | September 1, 2023
Building the Infrastructure for Innovation: Three Lessons from the CHIPS and Science Act
A spotlight is on the U.S. semiconductor industry. After decades of decline, there is a wave of new investment from private industry and the federal government to jumpstart domestic chipmaking with the goal of making U.S. semiconductor production more cost competitive and technologically advanced. Whereas the United States did not have any chipmaking capacity at […]
Report | August 8, 2022
Where are the Good Jobs in Manufacturing?
American manufacturing has experienced a new wave of energy and investment. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, market demand for U.S. manufacturing has grown, and new policies like the CHIPS and Science Act have dedicated new public investment to the future of domestic production. Despite this momentum, manufacturers have faced a persistent challenge as […]
Article | March 21, 2022
Unraveling the Silicon Valley Consensus
The Silicon Valley Consensus is that innovative cities grow faster than non-innovative ones—but that’s not always the case.
Article | March 21, 2022
Why Innovation Hubs Fail
Successful innovation hubs depend on who is leading, and how.
Article | March 21, 2022
Industrial Policy and Local Economic Transformation: Evidence From the U.S. Rust Belt
State and local governments frequently invest in policies aimed at stimulating the growth of new industries, but studies of industrial policy and related economic development initiatives cast doubt on their effectiveness.
Article | March 21, 2022
The Puzzle of the Missing Robots
Robots in particular are the object of public concerns about employment. But in most American manufacturing plants—particularly small and medium firms.
Report | March 21, 2021
Advanced Technology, Advanced Training: A New Policy Agenda for U.S. Manufacturing
The U.S. military relies on manufacturers – particularly small and medium manufacturing firms – to sustain the defense supply chain, and a substantial share of U.S. manufacturing firms count DoD as a customer.