There was a time when contract manufacturers performed one specific task: making products, usually of a high-tech nature, while staying well behind the scenes. But that time is long gone.
Free trade seems to have few friends in positions of power these days. But advocates of removing obstacles to the flow of international trade got at least one piece of good news earlier this year.
It only makes sense that The 3M Company, with a business model resting almost entirely upon technology, would eventually get around to applying it to the supply chain.