Archive

NAM Survey Reveals Lags In E-Commerce, Value-Added Profits

Jan. 13, 2005

A recently released plant-level survey by the National Assn. of Manufacturers and accounting firm RSM McGladrey, the fourth-annual PulseMark Survey, revealed significant findings in the areas of Internet usage, cost splits, and value-added creation: ...

78.6% of respondents have an existing, operational Web site, but only 44.6% are currently marketing their product catalog online.

Material expenditures top the list as the largest dollar percentage of the overall manufacturing cost structure, and labor is the smallest.

95.7% say their firms achieved a positive after-tax net income, yet only 36.4% could say the same after considering economic value-added calculations, which determine if a company is generating returns above their internal cost of capital. Data was collected from more than 25,000 surveys mailed to mid-level manufacturing firms across the United States. The results are published in the report Benchmarks for U.S. Manufacturing Productivity.