Tomorrow is National Manufacturing Day!

Friday, October 3, is the third annual Manufacturing Day, which celebrates the role played by manufacturing in local communities and the nation as a whole.

More than 1,500 events will be held across the country to commemorate the event, including open house tours of manufacturing plants and educational programs at community and technical colleges. There also will be professional conferences and job fairs to try to attract more people to the manufacturing industry.

Manufacturing Day is co-sponsored by the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association International (FMS), the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the Manufacturing Institute (MI), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP). This year, there also will be a guest sponsor, Industrial Strength Marketing (ISM), which will provide centralized support to coordinate all the nationwide events.

Jennifer McNelly, president of the Manufacturing Institute, said Manufacturing Day is an important reminder of the central role industry plays in everybody’s lives.

“Today’s manufacturing is about advanced technologies, state of the art facilities, and fast paced work environments,” McNelly said in a news release. “Manufacturing Day expands knowledge and improves public perception about manufacturing by giving manufacturers an opportunity to open their doors and show, in a coordinated effort, what manufacturing really is.”