Industry Week articles from January 2006

Industry Week archives from January 2006

A wake-up call from Asia: China and India very aggressively are pursuing advanced manufacturing. Increasingly, China's exports to the U.S. are composed of advanced-technology products.(Editorial)
January 1, 2006... IF YOU THINK COMPETITORS IN CHINA, INDIA and other emerging economies will settle for low-value-added, high-labor-content jobs forever--or even the near future--you'd better wake up. Are you directing your company into head-to-head competition...

Manufacturers to blame for skills gap.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2006... Re "It's Time To Fix The Kitchen Sink," Page 26, November 2005: I have to admit that I read this story with more than a little skepticism. How can we be experiencing a shortage of skilled manufacturing labor given the number of manufacturing...

No fun at the dance.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2006... Re "Dollar Dance," Brandt On Leadership, Page 15, December 2005. From the worker bees' viewpoint: The end-of-year production hockey stick curve, with Q4's mandatory overtime, no vacation period of more than two days allowed, work all during the...

Returning to shipshape: the port of New Orleans expects full recovery from hurricane damage.(TRANSPORTATION)
January 1, 2006... WHEN DISASTER strikes the Port of New Orleans, which along with four other ports on the lower Mississippi River make up the largest port area in the United States--and fifth in the world, it impacts a lot of people. The port serves 2,000...

Friendly competition: STMicroelectronics teams with competitors to cut research and development costs.(3 QUICK QUESTIONS)(Carlo Ferro)(Interview)
January 1, 2006... In 2002, Geneva, Switzerland-based STMicroelectronics NV, one of the world's largest semiconductor manufacturers, formed the Crolles2 R&D alliance with two of its competitors. CFO Carlo Ferro says the alliance allows the company to share the...

Lifetime achievement.(TIME MACHINE)(George H. Heilmeier, Telcordia Technologies Inc.)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... IT WAS DECEMBER 1993 WHEN INDUSTRYWEEK named George H. Heilmeier Technology Leader of the Year. At that time the then-president and CEO of Bellcore (now Telcordia Technologies Inc.) held 15 patents in the areas of electro-optic effects in...

New liabilities for trade secrets: CEOs, CFOs to be held accountable.(SARBANES-OXLEY)
January 1, 2006... IN THE HIGHLY COMPETITIVE global economy, trade secrets often differentiate manufacturers from their competitors as advantages in other areas erode. But executives need to handle such secrets according to new rules or be subject to...

Hybrids, electrics: nano power? Nanotechnology boosts the operating characteristics of lithium-ion batteries.(Emerging Technologies)(A 123 Systems)
January 1, 2006... WANT EVIDENCE THAT electric cars could soon be competing with hybrids? Consider what nanotechnology adds to lithiumion batteries in terms of better battery life, power density and charge times. Those benefits--up to 10 times longer cycle...

Hydrogen Economy in the plant?(Emerging Technologies)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... THE HYDROGEN ECONOMY IS BUILDING--NOT ON THE HIGH-way yet, but certainly on the plant floor. Case-in-point: a retrofitting service that offers owners of conventional lift trucks an opportunity to gain fuel-cell benefits by just replacing the...

The fat is gone--now what?(Response Management)(cost control)
January 1, 2006... It's no surprise to anyone that in today's environment, there's little room for error in managing performance. With decreasing customer loyalty and increasing pressure on predictable performance and profitable growth, there's simply no "fat"...

Download the free analyst white paper: "Are Yesterday's Solutions Conflicting with Today's Challenges? Managing Change as a Strategic Advantage in Global Outsourcing".(Response Management)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... Senior consultant and editor of the Thought Leadership Series, Technology Forecasters Inc. In the beginning, OEMs designed, developed, and manufactured most of what went into their products--hence the name Original Equipment Manufacturer....

Our new-product plan: keep out: involving customers and others is a pain. So is worrying about manufacturability and marketing.(BRANDT ON LEADERSHIP)(Column)
January 1, 2006... For those of you who've forgotten how much hassle real innovation can be, here's a quick review of our much easier FLOPS process. I'VE BEEN HEARING A LOT OF PRATTLE INSIDE THE company lately about the importance of new products, how...

Hot! Hot! Hot! U.S. manufacturers continue to invest heavily in china and India, but their siting strategies also include eastern Europe, South America and even the United States.(EXPANDING GLOBALLY)(Industry Overview)
January 1, 2006... THERE'S A KIND OF A NIGHT CLUB mentality about China and other economic cauldrons, says Peter L. Rodriguez. "When some place is seen by enough people as the future-the big opportunity-everyone wants to be there. They'll do anything to get...

Reaching deeper for data: emerging WI-FI, RFID and bar-code technologies increase mobility.(WIRELESS APPLICATIONS)
January 1, 2006... IN THE PAST, COMPLEX PLANT environments have proved to be challenging places to implement and effectively use wireless technology. But many of today's applications enable greater mobility, improved data-collection capabilities and...

Robert Lane: Flows new ground: Deere's CEO concentrates on running smarter, faster and leaner to nurture global growth at the $21.9 billion, 168-year-old company.(CEO OF THE YEAR)(Interview)
January 1, 2006... OUR PRODUCTS," boasts Deere & Co. Chairman and CEO Robert W. Lane, "continue to stand alone in productivity, innovation and value." Lane, only the eighth chief executive in the company's 168-year history, is clearly committed to maintaining...

Grant Thornton survey: manufacturing CEOs embrace high-risk growth.(Executive Insights)(Advertisement)
January 1, 2006... Manufacturing companies are under tremendous performance pressures. With stakeholders scrutinizing every move, customers continually raising the bar on service and product expectations, and competition chipping away at market share,...

Shying away from spending: U.S. manufacturers know they need to invest in IT-and some even plan for it--but research shows fewer actually are buying.(INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY)
January 1, 2006... AHH, THE HALCYON DAYS of 2004, Sure it was CENSUS OF MANUFACTURERS no 1998, but it was sure better than 2001. Manufacturers were so sure that the turn-of-the-century recession was over that more than 90% of them told IW/MPI Census of...

Small step, big possibilities: EADS to locate Airbus engineering facility at former U.S. Air Force base.(AIRBUS)(European Aeronautics Defense and Space Co.)
January 1, 2006... CONSTRUCTION OF AN AIR-bus engineering center is expected to begin this month in Mobile, Ala., the first step in what could eventually develop into a large-Scale production complex. The Toulouse, France-based aircraft manufacturer will open...

Fine tuning the flow: Mold-Masters Ltd.'s automated order-entry process reduces lead-time and administrative costs.(Best Practices: CUSTOMER ORDER MANAGEMENT)
January 1, 2006... FOR JONATHON FISCHER, president of Georgetown, Ontario, Canada-based Mold-Masters Ltd., vision is the No. 1 ingredient for a successful, competitive company. The privately held company, which designs and manufactures hot runner systems,...

Growth expected but spoilers remain: for the world's major economies, respectable growth is expected in 2006 and 2007. But higher energy prices, among other developments, could be a spoiler.(INDUSTRIAL ECONOMIES)(Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)
January 1, 2006... IT COULD BE A VERY HAPPY NEW year for the U.S. and other industrialized nations in both 2006 and 2007. The latest economic forecast from the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) projects...

Not so happy new year: sluggish growth at best-and it could get worse.(On the economy)(Column)
January 1, 2006... For those people who default on their homes, or are forced by family or business situations to put their homes on the market and move in short order, it could get ugly. JUST AS THE STOCK MARKET BUBBLE ARTIFICIALLY prolonged the U.S....