Industry Week articles from January 2007

Industry Week archives from January 2007

AU natural: Alcoa is using plants, soil and microbes to reduce pollutants and cut water discharge.(SUSTAINABLE MANUFACTURING)
January 1, 2007... WHEN ALCOA'S NEW SMELTER in Iceland becomes operational, most likely in the second or third quarter of 2007, it will benefit from natural sustainable technologies previously employed at the company's smelting operations in Mount Holly, S.C. ...

Oreck Corp. opens Tennessee plant.(U.S. JOBS)
January 1, 2007... At least 100 new jobs for Cookeville, Tenn., a majority of them for assembly workers, material handlers and skilled trades. That was the prospect as New Orleans-based Oreck Corp., a maker of vacuum cleaners, air purifiers and other home...

No dip for these chips: global semiconductor sales seen rising to $321 billion in 2009.(Semiconductor Industry Association)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... FACTORIES THAT MAKE semiconductors promise to be busy from now through 2009. The San Jose, Calif.-based Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) is projecting global sales of $321 billion worth of microchips in 2009, with a compound average...

Performance Fibers' German Yarn.(FOREIGN INVESTMENT)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... THREE MONTHS AFTER IT ACQUIRED INVISTA Resins & Fibers GmbH's polyester yarn business in Germany, Richmond, Va.-based Performance Fibers is expanding one of the acquired facilities. The company is making a multimillion-dollar investment in...

ERP Breaks: ERP software offers companies a single version of the truth.(SETTING YOUR IT PRIORITIES)(Enterprise resource planning )
January 1, 2007... Enterprise resource planning (ERP), a software application that started within the manufacturing sector, has crossed industry lines to benefit business in all arenas. Now more than ever there is an increased need for a comprehensive system that...

Improving financial performance: how manufacturers put ERP to work.(Enterprise resource planning)
January 1, 2007... In New Age lingo, enterprise resource planning (ERP) is holistic. It's about big-picture stuff. ERP represents a big investment. This isn't about picking a package or two of software off the shelf at Staples or Office Depot. And...

Reducing the electric bill: there's a lot you can do to control your energy spend, if you're willing to commit to a strategy focused on efficiency rather than initial costs.(ENERGY)
January 1, 2007... THE BIG TARGET: ELECTRIC MOTOR efficiency. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) says motors in industrial processes use 63% of the electricity consumed by industrial plants. The potential savings? Up to 18% in electrical consumption if...

Energy management best practices.
January 1, 2007... As electricity costs rise, lifecycle cost analysis of motors is influencing more buying decisions, says Baldor's John Malinowski (below), motor product manager. Consider that over a motor's life, 97.3% of the cost of owning and operating the...

Operations intelligence augments business intelligence: business intelligence leverages the data captured in ERP systems.(SETTING YOUR IT PRIORITIES)(enterprise resource planning )
January 1, 2007... When asked, business users will grudgingly concede that they have realized some value from their enterprise resource planning (ERP) investments. They have done so by standardizing global processes such as order-to-cash and procure-to-pay, and...

Beyond the executive branch: companies are moving business intelligence into formerly uncharted areas to maximize its benefits.
January 1, 2007... In the early days of business intelligence (BI) systems, users of the applications belonged to a very exclusive club. They were the senior-level executives and business analysts who used the tools to view narrowly focused performance metrics,...

Online marketplace evolution: in their infancy, many online marketplaces kept their focus too narrow. Those that saw the big picture survived.(SUSTAINABILITY)
January 1, 2007... IMAGINE THAT YOUR JOB AS A PROCUREMENT manager involved sourcing your company's needed resources from 500 different marketplaces. If you needed steel, you would go to a steel marketplace. If you needed gypsum, you would go to the gypsum...

What's in demand?(FORECAST)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... The Freedonia Group Inc., a Cleveland-based industry research firm, offers demand projections on numerous direct and indirect materials. Reports are available for purchase via the company's Web site: www.freedoniagroup.com. Injection...

Supplier collaboration lowers costs: manufacturers tap suppliers' expertise to lower packaging and raw materials costs.(BEST PRACTICE)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... THE BEST WAY TO RUN A MANUFACTURING company is to extract knowledge from every corner of the business. C-level executives tap managers' knowledge to help them be first to market. Managers tap factory floor employees for help in streamlining...

BRIC crumbling?(GLOBALIZATION)(Brazil, Russia, India and China)(Cover story)
January 1, 2007... Corruption in Russia and a Brazilian economy that continues to protect domestic producers are just two reasons to question the investment attention U.S. manufacturers have been giving to the BRIC countries--Brazil, Russia, India and China. But...

Infrastructure is integral to supply chain success: a company's highest supply chain priorities are demand forecasting, supply planning, inventory management, and sales and operations planning.(SETTING YOUR IT PRIORITIES)
January 1, 2007... BY AMR RESEARCH INC. Global outsourcing, leaner supply chains and the frequency of new-product introductions require substantially tighter collaboration and coordination among complex networks of trading partners. In response, corporations...

The perfect order: as customers get even more demanding, manufacturers are under pressure to get it right every single time ... or else.
January 1, 2007... As the pace of commerce has dramatically increased, the patience of customers has similarly decreased. "Better, faster, and cheaper" just isn't good enough any more; customers today are demanding perfect orders, shipped and delivered on time to...

Manufacturing matters, but who can deliver? Mature organizations are shifting from reactive to proactive strategies when it comes to capital and human asset productivity.
January 1, 2007... Manufacturing is finally garnering its long overdue share of the application software budget, claiming the No. 1 spot ahead of enterprise resource planning (ERP). The primary driver of this rediscovery of manufacturing is the need for asset...

Getting the most out of your assets: similar to squeezing the last bit of toothpaste from the tube, the practice of asset utilization is meant to get every cent out of your investment.(SETTING YOUR IT PRIORITIES)
January 1, 2007... The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. So why do many manufacturers insist on going around in circles? Rather than investing in tools that help them make the most of their assets-human and capital-manufacturers tend to do...

Models of energy efficiency: manufacturers are reducing their energy usage by becoming more efficient in their processes, products and procedures.(ENERGY)
January 1, 2007... WHEN IT COMES TO ENERGY PRICES, there's little reason to believe that what goes up must come down. And with manufacturing claiming nearly one-third of U.S energy consumption, the heat is on to develop methods to combat skyrocketing fossil fuel...

New IT strategy drives improved financial reporting at VF Corp.
January 1, 2007... In the apparel industry, business moves fast. For VF Corp., like any other major clothing manufacturer, that means thousands of critical decisions must be made every day. With some of the world's best-known clothing brands and sales in...

Online poll.(employee satisfaction )(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... How often is employee satisfaction formally measured at your company? IndustryWeek.com readers respond: 8% More than once per year 24% Once per year 19% Less than once per year 49% We have never ...

RFID gains credibility: manufacturers are starting to realize the strategic benefits of RFID.(TRANSPORTATION TRACKING)
January 1, 2007... EXECUTIVES AT THE DOW CHEMICAL Co. believe there's a future for radio frequency identification (RFID) within manufacturing operations. The Midland, Mich.-based chemical and plastics producer already has implemented an RFID system combined with...

Continuous improvement technology market to double.(ARC Advisory Group)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... The demand for continuous improvement systems is expected to double in the next four years from 2005 figures as manufacturers look to enhance their lean programs, according to a survey conducted by analyst firm ARC Advisory Group. ARC...

Feeling a little insecure?(IDC)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... All it takes is a lost laptop or BlackBerry device to put a manufacturer's proprietary information at risk. With company data so vulnerable and an increasing amount of accounting compliance requirements, the number of information security...

Strategic inventory management.(FORECASTING)
January 1, 2007... TRADITIONALLY VIEWED BY MANUFACTURERS as a way to become lean and reduce costs, inventory management could be a new competitive weapon in the battle for customers. At least that's what a recent study by analyst firm Aberdeen Group Inc....

Transportation costs trending down in 2007.(Morgan Stanley)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... ON THE TRANSPORTATION PRICING FRONT, the good news for manufacturers is that the cost of shipping goods by truck will grow only slightly, and at a much slower pace than in recent years. The recent Freight Pulse survey from equity research firm...

The prospects for lean material handling are looking up: by investing in the right equipment, companies can take their lean manufacturing practices to a higher level.
January 1, 2007... THE MAIN GOAL OF MATERIAL HANDLING is to move products quickly and efficiently through a warehouse. The less time a product sits, the better. The main goal of lean manufacturing is to eliminate waste in all facets of a business, particularly...

Changes abound in the tech sector.(Table)
January 1, 2007... Changes Abound In The Tech Sector The following scorecard highlights significant corporate moves in the supply chain technology sector since INDUSTRYWEEK's last update in the October 2006 issue. ...

Global sourcing checklist.(Sara Ireton)
January 1, 2007... Sara Ireton, a supply chain management consultant with JPMorgan Chase Vastera (www.jpmorganchase.com/vastera), offers 10 basic points manufacturers should focus on when looking to source internationally: 1. Total Landed Cost. "It is easy to...

A team effort: consumer products companies embrace collaboration to speed innovation and product development efforts.(BEST PRACTICES)
January 1, 2007... THERE'S NO DOUBTING THE IMPORTANCE Procter & Gamble Co. places on innovation. The Cincinnati producer of consumer brands, including Pampers, Pringles and Tide, delivers that message frequently in multiple venues. Indeed, while announcing...

Idea engineering.(Lightning In A Bottle)(Book review)
January 1, 2007... Lightning In A Bottle (2006, Sourcebooks Inc.), a new book by authors David Minter and Michael Reid, likely overpromises with its secondary title, "The Proven System to Create New Ideas and Products That Work." "Proven" is one of those words...

Congress renews R&D tax credit: permanent extension remains goal.(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... THE SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY Association (SIA) was among organizations praising Congress following its last-minute renewal of the U.S. research and development (R&D) tax credit as part of broader legislation passed in December. "We hope this...

Shape-shifting plastics.(MATERIALS)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... Talk about agility. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers say they have invented a new class of materials that can assume three different shapes depending on how much...

Missing the (power) point: when bullet points fly, attention spans die.(Column)
January 1, 2007... SO YOU'RE LOOKING FOR SOME FEEDBACK ON THAT PowerPoint presentation you just delivered. Well... I guess I can honestly say that I've never seen anything quite like it. What's that? You want to know what I liked, specifically? Gosh, it's...

Driving in reverse isn't a best practice.(Editorial)
January 1, 2007... Setting any sort of priority is a difficult task. Much thought and soul searching is involved in trying to decide what really matters most. Asking manufacturers to set priorities for their information technology (IT) initiatives isn't any...

Technology enables supply chain innovation at Sun.(Sun Microsystems)(Column)
January 1, 2007... When discussing a company's prospects for growth or cost savings, supply chain efficiency is rarely first on the list. However, at Sun Microsystems, we have found that by streamlining and increasing the efficiency of our supply chain, we have...

Compete or retreat: a new report on competitiveness suggests that offshoring low-value production jobs while focusing on high-value services is the best strategy for U.S. manufacturers.(JUST IN TIME)
January 1, 2007... IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE WE'VE HEARD FROM Michael Porter, the Harvard professor who back in the mid-1980s wrote Competitive Advantage, which not only got people in the United States thinking seriously about competitiveness, but in fact laid the...

Is PLM right for your business? Considered the backbone of many business initiatives, product lifecycle management helps speed products to market, among other things.(Product lifecycle management)(Column)
January 1, 2007... Achieving profitable growth requires converting market-driven innovation into actual business benefits. The growth side of this equation is driven in a number of ways, including internally developed new product introduction (NPI) and acquired...

Winning with PLM: originally adopted by automotive and aerospace manufacturers, product lifecycle management solutions have become a performance necessity across all of industry. The key incentives: the need to become more collaborative, integrated, adaptive, flexible and responsive.(Product lifecycle management)
January 1, 2007... The growing ubiquity of product lifecycle management (PLM) applications in manufacturing signifies more than management reaching for incremental improvement. It reflects the emerging challenges of a developing business globalism defined by...

What the new Congress has in store for manufacturing: don't expect any tax relief from the Democrat-led Congress, but a renewed emphasis on R&D is likely.(Column)
January 1, 2007... THE DEMOCRATS' TAKEOVER OF CONGRESS WILL certainly raise the level of attention to issues affecting manufacturing. Many Democrats (and a good number of Republicans) grounded their campaigns, at least in part, on the need to do more to protect...

Making machine tools smarter.
January 1, 2007... Companies have reengineered manufacturing to the extent that workers and capital assets are capable of four times the output of 20 years ago. That productivity growth helped yesterday's mass production succeed, but the new challenge for machine...

More machine intelligence.(Oklahoma State University)(Brief article)
January 1, 2007... AS NOVEL AS SMART MACHINE Platform Initiative type programs are for machine tools, other industrial market sectors are already commercializing the potential. Examples include maintenance diagnostics on GE aircraft engines and its Genyus...