IS MANUFACTURING COOL NOW? All of a sudden, the "M" word is on the lips of Cleveland's talking heads. And now "The Quiet Crisis: Manufacturing" makes it official -- we still care about companies that make actual physical objects in northeast Ohio factories!

As you probably know, Joe Frolik's newest TQC panel airs tomorrow night on Channel 25 and runs in the Plain Dealer Sunday. But you can get a jump on the official release by reading the entire, somewhat ragged transcript here.

It's not a bad session as TQC panels go. The panelists are mostly in the business -- Bill Brake of ISG, Jack Schron of Jergens and Scott Rickert of Nanofilm are particularly interesting -- but there's also Weatherhead prof Sue Helper raising some big-picture issues not typical for TQC. (Like... if we have all these productivity improvements, maybe we could have shorter work weeks instead of fewer jobs?)

My favorite quote, from ISG's Bill Brake:

We're very proud of our partnership with the United Steel Workers of America... What a region can offer for us is an employee that's more sophisticated than a high school graduate of 20 years ago that comes into a large manufacturer and works on an assembly line or works in the mill.

A key component of our success at ISG has been the ownership, and accountability and responsibility of the hourly worker and they have truly taking an ownership of it. In order to make that successful, they have to be aware of business basics. They have to understand the costs. We explain EBIDTA to them to make sure we all understand what our key metric is for us. We share sales prices, we share costs of materials, things that weren't done as recently as five years ago. To explain to a worker, do you know that roll costs us X thousands to get refurbished, is that the right decision to make and let that individual make the decision. To have that successful, I need a sophisticated worker that cares about his business.

Hey, here's an innovative, outside-the-box thought: How about somebody from that Steelworkers local in the discussion? Or from the UAW local that sold Ford on reinvesting in the Brook Park engine plant? Or anybody at all from a union?

But there's an even worse sin of omission. Why, why, why isn't John Colm of WIRE-Net on this panel? Apparently he's in a supplementary interview, but when the "experts" are lined up, once again he's not there.

If you don't know WIRE-Net, do me this favor: Look through their website, consider that John has worked for fifteen years to build this nationally recognized operation from the ground up... and then ask yourself what it takes to get listened to in this town.