Mexico manufacturing has come a long way from the early days of simple product assembly in bare bones "maquiladoras" just over the U.S. border.

As a manufacturer, if you make up less than 10 percent of your distributors' product mix, you are not getting the attention of management or, more importantly, sales representatives.

In March 2015, the United Kingdom passed the Modern Slavery Act, the first of its kind in Europe.

Typically, manufacturers are so focused on news and advances within their field that they don't consider the importance of partnering with a CPA firm that really understands their industry and business.

After a long period of economic turmoil, manufacturers in the United States are finding reasons to be optimistic. Demand is up and companies are seeing improvements in productivity, along with increases in profits. For this upward trajectory to continue, however, industry executives and governmental representatives cannot be complacent. Production efficiency, energy costs, tax legislation and education access are integral to the success of the industry's current fiscal condition and need to be nurtured or reformed. If the current business environment is to last, there is still more work to do.

Historically, low-variation/high-volume production has been tweaked to gain optimal efficiencies and quality. Unfortunately for many manufacturers in the United States, manufacturing is now done in high-variation/low-volume environments.

Manufacturers typically evaluate seven critical areas when it comes to operational decision making: transportation and energy costs; market demand for their products; rising labor costs in China and other developing nations; access to talent, tax and regulatory policies; availability of capital; and currency trends.

A group of workers is poised to dominate industry, according to a report released by PricewaterhouseCoopers and The Manufacturing Institute. They are tireless and silent, and yet, incredibly disruptive.