Good ideas—for new products, new processes, or new services—are terrible things to waste. Yet time and time again, inventions and discoveries that first sprouted in the United States have taken root in the factories and economies of other nations.

Think of computer-controlled machine tools, solar cells, industrial robots, consumer-electronics devices, and lithium-ion batteries. For many this list is painfully familiar and the costs are, too: lost jobs, shuttered manufacturing plants, withering supply chains, trade deficits, lost opportunities for spinoff technologies, and more.

The outlook improves

But a far better story for U.S. manufacturing is beginning to take shape. During the past five years, U.S. manufacturers have added an average of nearly 15,000 new jobs every month, and exports have grown at an average annual rate of 10 percent—more than three times faster than the average for the preceding decade.

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