Manufacturing & Technology News articles from September 2005

Manufacturing & Technology News archives from September 2005

Growing number Of Chinese IPOs are bypassing U.S. equity markets: does China pose a financial opportunity or threat?
September 1, 2005... There is a surge of initial public offerings from Chinese companies, but a large number of them are not listing on the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ. Many of the biggest IPOs are headed to the Hong Kong and London capital markets due in...

Electronics industry plans pow-wow to discuss lack of technological innovation.
September 1, 2005... The International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI) is convening a forum of senior-level executives and government policymakers on Sept. 15-16 to launch an initiative to stimulate innovation and manufacturing research in the...

Korean government puts its resources into developing a robust photonics industry.
September 1, 2005... The South Korean government is investing hundreds of millions of U.S. equivalent dollars to build the country's commercial industrial capability in the fast-growing field of photonics. Three of its government ministries involved in science and...

New consortium created to preserve & develop Dimensional Metrology Standards.
September 1, 2005... A new consortium has been created to promote standards for metrology in manufacturing operations. The Dimensional Metrology Standards Consortium (DMSC), a spinoff from the Consortium for Advanced Manufacturing International (CAM-I), intends to...

U.S. ammo industry can't keep up.
September 1, 2005... The U.S. industrial base that produces small caliber ammunition has not been able to meet the military's skyrocketing demand for bullets. Between 2000 and 2005, the military's use of small caliber ammunition more than doubled from 730 million...

Budget deficit? What budget deficit?
September 1, 2005... Congress is going spending crazy, says the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Four bills that recently passed and were signed into law by President Bush--the Iraq supplemental, the energy and highway bills and the emergency...

Clinton's top economist says imports have not cost U.S. manufacturers jobs.
September 1, 2005... Surging imports of manufactured goods have not led to the loss of almost 3 million manufacturing jobs over the past four years, claims economist Martin Baily of the Institute of International Economics. Nearly 90 percent of the job losses in...

Watered down engineering education bill starts its way through Congress.
September 1, 2005... A House measure proposing help with student loans for undergraduates in engineering, science or math who embark on a career in their major was reported out of the House Education and Workforce Committee late in July and is expected to go to the...

The rise and fall of Defense Manufacturing Technology programs.
September 1, 2005... The Department of Defense's Manufacturing Technology (Mantech) program was established in the late 1950s "in response to a growing need for advanced production processes in order to produce DOD material more efficiently and more effectively"...

Academic R&D trend is up.
September 1, 2005... Spending on research and development at universities doubled over the decade ending in 2003 to $40 billion, according to the National Science Foundation. In 2003, R&D spending at universities increased by 10.2 percent, representing the second...

Mark your calendars: Manufacturing & Technology events.(Calendar)
September 1, 2005... September 11-12 Lean Purchasing, Boston, Mass. Sponsored by the Association for Manufacturing Excellence, http://www.ame.org. September 11-16 American Ceramic Society's PAC RIM 6 Conference on Ceramic and Glass Technology. Maui, Hawaii....

eBay employs hundreds of thousands.
September 1, 2005... eBay has become a big business. There are now 430,000 Americans making all or most of their living by selling on eBay. During the company's first quarter of this year, dollar volume of payments initiated through the PayPal system totaled $6.2...

NAM blog builds an audience.
September 1, 2005... The eight-month-old blog run by National Association of Manufacturers' senior vice president of communications Patrick Cleary is steadily building an audience. When it started, the Web log (or "blog") was attracting 20 to 30 people a day. Now...

OSHA plans its attack.
September 1, 2005... The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has targeted 4,400 work sites for unannounced inspections this year, due to their high levels of injuries and illnesses. "This year's program will initially target sites that reported 12...

The Senate Armed Services Committee told the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons program to stop funding technology transfer activities.(Ten Years Ago In Mfg. & Technology News)
September 1, 2005... The Senate Armed Services Committee told the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons program to stop funding technology transfer activities. "The committee intends to insure that all stockpile stewardship research and development funds are used...

The CEO of G.D. Searle & Co. Donald Rumsfeld, told Congress that it should "severely and rapidly" cut every government program that is secondary and does not serve specific strategic interests.(Ten Years Ago In Mfg. & Technology News)
September 1, 2005... The CEO of G.D. Searle & Co. Donald Rumsfeld, told Congress that it should "severely and rapidly" cut every government program that is secondary and does not serve specific strategic interests. "Don't wait," he told Congress. "Whatever it is...

White House to create metrics to prioritize federal R&D spending.
September 20, 2005... "Do we get [greater] impact on our future competitiveness by spending a dollar on space exploration or by spending a dollar on information-technology research?" This question, raised by Presidential Science Adviser John Marburger, is...

'Ruckus' brews over China currency issue.
September 20, 2005... China's recent revaluation of its currency is a farce, and could lead to an even more combustible political situation in the United States once policymakers realize they've been duped, according to Donald Straszheim, president and CEO of...

U.S. needs new approach to preserve defense industrial base, says CSIS analyst.
September 20, 2005... Globalization of the U.S. defense industrial base is a fact of life that has been occurring for centuries and cannot be addressed with blunt instruments like "Buy American" requirements, says Pierre Chao, director of defense industrial...

Paper industry cries foul over China.
September 20, 2005... The U.S. pulp and paper industry isn't very happy with China. The Chinese government is expected to invest $24 billion in new production capacity in the forest products sector over the next 10 years, according to the American Forest and Paper...

Extension centers are a good place to start a lean conversion.
September 20, 2005... Participants in one of the country's largest online lean manufacturing discussion networks agree that working with a local manufacturing extension partnership (MEP) center to help facilitate a lean transformation is a worthwhile pursuit for a...

Don't waste time lobbying Congress on R&D funding, says congressional leader.(Only Bush Can Set The Agenda)
September 20, 2005... Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), who has emerged this year as a leading congressional proponent of increased spending on science and technology (S&T), last week said U.S. business leaders must go straight to the Oval Office to have any hope of...

U.S. industry constantly complains about Chinese IP theft, but does nothing.
September 20, 2005... Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) last week blasted the Chinese government's conduct in the areas of intellectual property rights (IPR) and human rights while also expressing frustration with U.S. companies' reluctance to initiate IPR-infringement cases...

Globalization has usurped Pentagon's ability to dictate future technologies.(IDA Analysts Recommend A New Approach To Defense R&D)
September 20, 2005... The science and technology apparatus of the Department of Defense has not kept pace with the globalization of industry and technology and must be restructured, according to a new study from the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA). "The global...

EC awards 1-b euro for IT research.
September 20, 2005... The European Commission has selected 276 proposals out of more than 1,300 for awards totaling more than 1 billion euro in its Information Society Technologies program. The round of funding is largest ever made by the EU as a result of a single...

Two Washington insiders butt heads.
September 20, 2005... William Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council and one of 12 commissioners on the United States--China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), wasn't very happy about being accused of representing the interests of the...

Plans change for national innovation summit.
September 20, 2005... Plans for the Dec. 6 "innovation summit" (MTN, Aug. 8, p. 7) indicate that it is shaping up more as an occasion for leaders from business, academia and state government to make the case for increased federal funding of science and technology...

U.S. IT firms catching up to Indian competitors in offshore outsourcing race, says Goldman Sachs.
September 20, 2005... Large multinational information technology service firms like Accenture, EDS, Unisys and IBM are catching up with Indian-based competitors in providing clients with cheap services performed in India, but they still have a long way to go,...

Another high-level panel finds DOE's nuclear production complex lacking in security.
September 20, 2005... The Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is a dysfunctional mess, according to a major new independent analysis of the organization that is in charge of producing atomic bombs. The recently released...

Metal industry is ripe for mergers.
September 20, 2005... The merger and acquisition binge in the metals sector must continue in order to reduce overcapacity and "secure greater market clout," says PriceWaterhouseCoopers in an assessment of the industry. "Although a record amount of money has changed...

Senate votes overwhelmingly in support of NIST's advanced technology program.
September 20, 2005... The Senate resoundingly beat back a new attempt by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) to strip the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) of all funding last week, leaving the embattled Commerce Department program's $140 million intact in the version of the...

Ten years ago in Mfg. & Tech News.
September 20, 2005... The United States had better get ready for a tremendous period of change, says Ford Motor chairman and CEO Alex Trotman. This change "is coming much faster than most people think and the implications for business, government, our customers and...