These implications are not limited to our own domestic economy. Recently, longtime political journalist Donald Lambro wrote that at a time when even someone in rural China uses the Internet to link to the rest of the world, we fool ourselves in thinking that the information revolution can be regulated or managed by government planners. In manufacturing, the influence of high technology has transformed the modern manufacturing corporation. The results of these changes are as clear as they are significant. Manufacturing contributes about one third to America's long-term economic growth, with about 65 percent of this coming from advances in technology.
Industry performs about three quarters of the nation's research and development.
Therefore it shouldn't be surprising that during the past decade, manufacturing productivity has been nearly 4 percent annually - 4.4 percent from 1996 through 1998, double every other economic sector. This surge in productivity is attributable to technological advance. Or, to put it more simply, manufacturing has entered a fundamentally new era as technology has transformed the factory floor. And nowhere is the promise of technology more evident than in electronic commerce. E-business is driving a new round of changes in the way companies interact and the way products are made and sold.