AIM Manufacturing Community

Massachusetts Manufacturing: Innovation That Never Stops

Manufacturing in Massachusetts has gone through an extraordinary metamorphosis over the past three decades.

Most people know the first half of the story – manufacturing companies in Massachusetts employ fewer than half the number of people they did in 1990. Some 6,000 manufacturing companies in industries ranging from aerospace to medical devices to consumer goods currently employ 230,000 people across the commonwealth.

The second part of the story is less well-known. Manufacturing output during that same period increased 45 percent to $62 billion annually. That means Massachusetts is turning out more product with half the people, a breathtaking increase in productivity that has made the commonwealth a global center for high-value advanced manufacturing.

The evolution of manufacturing is evident across diverse industries in the AIM membership.

There are exciting startup companies like florrent in South Deerfield, which develops and manufactures high-performance ultracapacitors using a unique, bio-based material derived from regenerative hemp. The company aims to improve power quality and reliability for the energy transition by creating energy storage solutions for commercial, industrial, and grid-scale applications, such as solar farms, wind farms, and data centers.

There are also established innovators like Dell EMC in Hopkinton, which builds information infrastructures and virtual infrastructures that provide backup and recovery solutions, enterprise content management, unified storage, big data, enterprise storage, data federation, archiving, security, and more.

There are home-grown innovators like Sanderson MacLeod in Palmer, which makes twisted wire brushes for various industries, including medical, cosmetic, and industrial applications. The company also produces custom assemblies, stylets, and offers services such asd contract manufacturing, prototyping, and custom automation. 

And there are life sciences leaders like Takeda, which maintains a new R&D cell therapy manufacturing facility in Boston and other manufacturing capabilities located in Lexington and Cambridge.

AIM President & CEO Brooke Thomson and other members of the AIM team will be visiting manufacturing companies throughout Massachusetts. Check back into this page for updates as we celebrate Massachusetts Manufacturers.