John Flannery’s breakup plan will trim General Electric down to three businesses, all of which are built around the manufacture and sale of equipment that shares the common theme of spinning around and making electricity.

The Trump administration’s China tariffs spared some finished goods like smartphones and washing machines, while charges on parts and components could drive up costs in the U.S. supply chain.

It’s lazy to think that a manufacturing process is better just because it’s automated. While the effort going on right now at the Tesla factory in Fremont is anything but lazy, it brings into the spotlight one of the core problems with the simplistic “automation for automation’s sake” strategy: processes that aren’t stable to begin with cannot be made stable with robots.

Aircraft parts manufacturers got a rude welcome back to work Monday with the announcement that Boeing is going into business with France’s Safran to make auxiliary power units. It’s one of the more surprising developments yet in Boeing’s drive to shake up its supply chain, which has featured heavy pressure on suppliers to reduce costs, as well as moves to in-source production of such disparate elements as seats, wings and avionics components.