There’s a good reason that WESTEC, a trade show and conference produced by SME and AMT—The Association for Manufacturing Technology, takes place in Southern California every other year.
California, the “Golden State,” is the most populous state in the U.S. and has an outsized impact on American manufacturing. The Los Angeles area, the country’s second largest census statistical area, has a particularly large impact on manufacturing.
“The size and depth of our state’s population and geography allow an impressive manufacturing sector to thrive,” said Ellen McKewen in her blog on the website of California Manufacturing Technology Consulting (CMTC), Torrance, Calif. CMTC is affiliated with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and is part of the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program. The MEP Program contains 51 centers across the U.S. to serve the manufacturing community.
Manufacturers in California account for over 11% of the total output in the state and employ 9% of the state’s workforce.