A vision for the Welding Industry in the USA

Welding is critical technique for the joining of materials in the nation's major Manufacturing industries. Since 1998, leaders in welding industry have defined a vision of the issues and opportunities that it will face in 2020. In developing this vision document, more than 25 senior managers and respected experts from various segments of the welding community met to begin a dialog about the future of the welding industry. They were brought together to develop a long-range business plan for their industry that would identify how it would meet the needs of manufacturers, of the marketplace, and of society in 2020. In essence, these decision makers created an ideal vision of the state of their industry in 20 years, and the strategy to reach it. Welding is a precise, reliable, and cost-effective, method for joining materials. No other technique is as widely used by manufacturers to join metals and alloys efficiently. Most of the familiar objects in modern society, form buildings and bridges, to vehicles, computers, and medical devices, could not be produced without the use of welding. Despite the importance of welding to the manufacturing industry, the leaders in this area felt that welding was not appreciated as much as it should be from the society. The welding industry consists of the “users” of welding techniques as well as the companies, universities and other organizations that industry look for improvements in their operations by 2020, and should find their interest addressed in this document. A major economic impact study co sponsored by AWS and EWI and supported by US Navy, State of Ohio, US Department of Commerce, and major companies was kicked off. This two-year study will determine the economic impact of welding on the United States economy. The objective of this study is to break a paradigm about welding-those of us who are heavily involved in welding, believe strongly that much of our gross domestic product is directly dependent on welding. Furthermore, continued advances in the field of welding are necessary to achieving further increases in productivity that makes our economy strong. Yet, despite intuition, anecdotal information, and fragmented analyses, the completing quantitative information that would proved the justification for strategic actions to further develop this critical field is not currently available.