Industry Week articles from August 2006

Industry Week archives from August 2006

The new kid in town: U.S. auto-components manufacturers take note: India wants your customers.(United States)
August 1, 2006... As if U.S. auto parts suppliers don't have enough to worry about, there's an emerging player in the global auto-components industry. The new competitor is India, and if current growth trends there continue, U.S. suppliers will have plenty to...

CEO communique: Jonathan Schwartz, president and CEO of Sun Microsystems Inc., reaches employees, partners and customers via his twice-weekly blog.(chief executive officer)(Interview)
August 1, 2006... Santa Clara, Calif.-based Sun Microsystems Inc. President and CEO Jonathan Schwartz is working on cultivating the "Participation Age" one blog entry at a time. While some critics are unsure of how blogging can be applied to the bottom line,...

Course adjustments.(Airbus S.A.S., Boeing Co.)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... If ever there has been a time for aerospace executives to be sleepless in Seattle and Toulouse, it is now." IndustryWeek Senior Editor John S. McClenahen wrote those words in a 2001 article ("Planely Different," June 11) about the battle by...

Ex-military CEOs shine: they're better able to translate vision into results, study suggests.(chief executive officers)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... Military experience parlays into better business performance, according to a recent study by Korn/Ferry International, a Los Angeles-based executive search firm. The study, "Military Experience & CEOs: Is There a Link?" found that firms...

The workplace revisited.("The New American Workplace" by Warren Bennis)
August 1, 2006... The New American Workplace" (2006, Palgrave Macmillan) has a lot to live up to given the ringing endorsement the book receives on its cover from management guru Warren Bennis. "It would be impossible to understand the 21st-century workplace...

Few opting out.(technology companies)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... Few technology companies are totally removing stock options from their executive incentive-pay packages, indicates a study by DolmatConnell & Partners. "While firms are generally employing more restricted stock and performance-based LIT...

Training goes high tech: manufacturers boost use of online, simulator-based training.(E-LEARNING)
August 1, 2006... As manufacturers seek ways to boost the productivity and effectiveness of their training efforts, both online delivery of courses and new software/hardware simulation packages are transforming the way new people are taught "the ropes." "We...

High potential for silicon-germanium? The latest generation of wireless communication chips run faster, use less energy, and might even be affordable.(TRANSISTOR PERFORMANCE)
August 1, 2006... Thinking of transistors for mobile electronics? Researchers have developed silicon-germanium (SiGe) transistors with record-setting performance, low energy consumption--and no manufacturing cost penalty. Georgia Tech and IBM have...

Rethinking raw materials: escalating prices for metals, plastics and other materials are challenging manufacturers to find new methods to rein in costs.
August 1, 2006... OUCH. OUCH. OUCH. WINCE. GROAN. Those are the sights and sounds of manufacturers battling raw material prices that sometimes appear completely out of control. Crude oil futures cruised past $75 per barrel in early July. That's bad news for...

Recapturing R&D leadership.(research and development)
August 1, 2006... The experts warn: If maintaining U.S. R&D leadership is the goal, then both government support and industry practices need to be reconsidered. They contend that federal funding of basic research is slipping even as industry turns from basic to...

Patents: eleven issues to consider ...
August 1, 2006... 1. A patent owner is not assured the right to practice the patented invention. A patent merely grants a right of exclusivity, which gives you the right to stop another from making, using and selling the invention. By practicing your own,...

Online poll.
August 1, 2006... If airlines allow the use of personal mobile phones in flight, when would you make calls? IndustryWeek.com readers respond: Throughout the flight 13% Only to respond to an emergency ...

Recycle, reuse and reap: manufacturers are seeing the bottom-line benefits of designing for the environment.(DESIGN FOR ENVIRONMENT)
August 1, 2006... There was a time when cradle-to-grave manufacturing was the norm--and even made good business sense. Manufacturers made products that weren't meant to last past their usefulness. The products were simply tossed to the curb and consumers would...

Economic insight.(manufacturing science)(Brief article)
August 1, 2006... FOLLOWING TWO MONTHLY INCREASES, U.S. manufacturing production fell a tenth of a percentage point in May, reflecting the slowing of the overall economy. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE U.S. FACTORY OPERATING RATE fell three-tenths of a...

Surviving extinction: Ohio-based Lauren Manufacturing embraces a lean environment in order to compete.(Company overview)
August 1, 2006... Lauren Manufacturing Co., a rubber manufacturer that supplies standard and custom-extruded and molded sealing solutions, had a difficult choice to make in 2002. The company was facing tough competition from around the globe, and the competition...

Road not smooth for GM: lots of bumps lie ahead.(General Motors Corp.)
August 1, 2006... From mid-April to late May of this year, General Motors Corp. stock rose from $20 a share to a peak of $29 per share, a whopping 45% increase, before the share price backed off in the early June sell off. The price of GM bonds also rose...

Building a passion for manufacturing excellence.(Editorial)
August 1, 2006... This is my last issue as editor-in-chief of IndustryWeek. For more than 10 years in leadership posts at IW, I've worked to help deliver to you the best practices you could use to improve your business and to provide benchmarks against which you...

More on immigrants.(Letter to the editor)
August 1, 2006... Re "More Immigrants," Page 56, June 2006. Excellent article! As a native of Texas, I see a lot of our fellow North Americans coming up from Mexico and I thank them for their thankless work! Most folks have no idea the risk some of them take in...

Outsourcing outrage.(Letter to the editor)
August 1, 2006... Re "Next-Generation Outsourcing," Page 11, Editor's Page, July 2006. Regardless of the pros/cons of offshoring, I still have the same question I've had from the very beginning: As more and more working citizens of the U.S. lose their jobs to...

Forum feedback from IndustryWeek.com.(Letter to the editor)
August 1, 2006... Re "More Immigrants," Page 56, June 2006. Illegal aliens do not do all the jobs that are unpleasant; they do jobs cheaply. Septic tank pumpers, embalmers, exterminators, etc., are dirty jobs nearly always performed by native-born Americans....

Survival of the fitter: Ohio-based Lauren Manufacturing embraces a lean environment in order to compete.(Company overview)
August 1, 2006... LAUREN MANUFACTURING CO., a rubber manufacturer that supplies standard and custom-extruded and molded sealing solutions, had a difficult choice to make in 2002. The company was facing tough competition from around the globe, and the competition...

Management by procrastination: top managers know that there is always an alternative to actually making a decision.
August 1, 2006... Many people say to me: John, how can the decision-making in my company be so screwed up? Were my bosses born stupid, they ask, or did they somehow evolve backwards into vicious, tiny-brained reptiles? Is there any way, they lament, that we can...