Industry Week articles from July 2005

Industry Week archives from July 2005

Online poll.(Brief Article)(Illustration)
July 1, 2005... OnLine Poll How extensively has your business implemented lean-manufacturing methodologies, both on and off the production floor? IndustryWeek.com readers respond: Less than 25% of the business 51% 25-50% ...

Globalization, freer trade and labor.(EDITOR'S PAGE)(Editorial)
July 1, 2005... WE'RE ON THE CUSP OF ACHIEVING SIGNIFICANT new breakthroughs in freer trade, and many signs suggest that we're not going to succeed. Ratification of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) fell deeper in doubt as May turned into June....

Panchak inspires.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2005... Re "Wanted: Inspired Leaders, Engaged Employees," Editor's Page, May 2005, Page 7: It was very refreshing to see someone take the employee point of view. Ms. Panchak hit the nail on the head and I feel if folks are honest with themselves they...

Elephants and satire awards.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2005... Re "Invasion Of The Profit Snatchers," Brandt On Leadership, May 2005, Page 21: You should be congratulated for having the guts to say the things you said. Today's boards operate like there's an elephant in the room. but no one wants to say...

Correction.(Letters)(Correction Notice)
July 1, 2005... CORRECTION: In the article "A Toast To 10 Years," [June 2005, Page 38] the chart, Top Performers By Industry, did not include Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. (No. 178). Anheuser-Busch had a 15% profit margin and 5.6% revenue growth.

The sustainable enterprise: Cascade Engineering's Keller takes a human approach to running a better business.(Cascade Engineering)(FRED P. KELLER)(Interview)
July 1, 2005... FRED P. KELLER IS FOUNDER, CHAIRMAN AND CEO OF CASCADE ENGINEERING, a Grand Rapids. Mich.-based maker of engineered plastic systems and components. His firm emphasizes "sustainable" business practices that invest equally in three things:...

U.S. repeats as No. 1: China drops under weight of negative opinions.(COMPETITIVENESS ; industry)
July 1, 2005... U.S. MANUFACTURERS continue to complain about what they perceive to be an uneven international playing field. Yet the U.S. again ranks No. 1 in world competitiveness, according to IMD, a leading business school based in Lausanne, Switzerland....

Ford's challenge.(Ford Motor Co)(Brief Article)(Cover Story)
July 1, 2005... THE HEADLINE ON INDUSTRYWEEK'S FEBRUARY 2003 cover is as apt now as it was then. "Ford's Formidable Challenge," it read, referring to multiple challenges that both Ford Motor Co. and William Clay Ford Jr., its chairman and CEO, faced as they...

Creative decay.(RICHARD FLORIDA)(views on creative competetion)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... AUTHOR RICHARD FLORIDA IS BOTH DRAMATIC and dire in sounding the alarm that the United States is losing the global race for talent. In "The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent" (2005, HarperBusiness), the...

In good company: IndustryWeek salutes finalists of 2005 IW Best plants competition.(RANKINGS)
July 1, 2005... INDUSTRYWEEK'S 2005 BEST Plants finalists demonstrate a wealth of common characteristics: outstanding performances and a dedication to continuous improvement that starts but doesn't end at the plant floor being just two. But as the list of...

Coalition wants FMLA reform: groups say workers abusing "serious illness" leave.(National Coalition to Protect Family Leave)(Family and Medical Leave Act )
July 1, 2005... THE WORK/LIFE BALANCE that the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was suppose to help create is, well, out of balance, according to manufacturers and other business leaders. A Bush administration signal that the 1993 legislation will be...

ExxonMobil[R] introduces breakthrough grease dispensing and transporting system.(Grease One-Way Logistics and Distribution System)(fluid-bag containers)(Advertisement)
July 1, 2005... When it comes to storing and dispensing lubricants, such as grease, most industrial companies and trucking fleets rely on heavy, steel drums, steel (or plastic) totes or permanent bulk tanks. As most facility managers know, drums and tanks...

Banish the battery room: rapid-charging technology is replacing battery rooms for lift trucks with decentralized intelligent charging systems.(Emerging Technologies)
July 1, 2005... BY THE FOURTH QUARTER of 2006, Ford Motor Co. plans to have phased-in a battery room replacement at all of its 19 assembly plants in North America. Instead of a room dedicated to charging, storing and exchanging batteries for lift trucks, the...

Thermal management.(temperature control)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... THINKING SMALL? IN ELECTRONICS THAT IMPLIES THINKING BIG about handling the thermal management challenge of miniaturization. Tiny case in point: Sony Electronics Corp.'s notebook computer, the VAIO VGN X505. Conventional strategies of fans or...

Middle-aged managers beware: comb-overs and mini-skirts won't bring back your youth.(Brandt on leadership)(Column)
July 1, 2005... SEASONED EXECUTIVES HAVE BEEN THROWN into a tizzy by a recent rash of stories about age 50-ish managers who have found themselves out of a job--more or less permanently--and out of step with the baby-faced employers who could rectify their...

New roles for robots: once viewed largely as a way to save on labor costs, robots today have taken on more significant roles in manufacturing. They're part off global competitiveness plans and are seeing, moving and servicing better than ever.(PLANT STRATEGIES)
July 1, 2005... GET READY FOR NEW ROBOT relevance. When General Motors Corp. deployed the first industrial robots in 1961, their roles at a Ternstedt, N.J., plant were justified in terms of handling the 3-D tasks--dangerous, dirty and difficult. In contrast,...

Retreat from reform? The U.S. tax code is too cumbersome and confusing, manufacturers say. George W. Bush agrees. A presidential advisory panel this summer will suggest ways to make the system simpler and fairer. But U.S.-based manufacturers shouldn't count on seeing much in the way of tax reform anytime soon.(TAXES)
July 1, 2005... BARRING AN UNFORESEEN ECONOMIC CRISIS OR THE formation of an unexpected political coalition, you can just about write off the possibility of even relatively minor manufacturing-friendly tax reform being enacted in the U.S. this year or next....

Insights on logistics outsourcing University of Tennessee.(IndustryWeek's Sponsored White Papers)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... There are significant challenges to overcome in achieving the benefits of international logistics outsourcing relationships. These include learning new processes; managing communications across multiple systems, organizations, time zones,...

Achieving lean objectives in a project manufacturing environment Cincom.(IndustryWeek's Sponsored White Papers)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... If your manufacturing organization operates in a project-controlled environment, you may think that you will be forever relegated to the inefficiencies that project segregation often entails. But, if you make or buy common parts across...

Inventory liability: managing risk in the electronics supply chain Kinaxis.(IndustryWeek's Sponsored White Papers)(business logistics)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... As business cycles continue to speed up, supply chain processes must not only speed up, but also improve their ability to cope with unforeseen change. Supply chain systems that work in silos with static snapshot data or with smoothing...

The new rules: for CEOs and other senior executives in manufacturing, performance-related bonuses are up, stock options are less popular and performance-tied long-term incentives are more common. But will they make for better management decisions? That's not yet clear.(Chief executive officers)(Cover Story)
July 1, 2005... THINK CEO. THINK A HUMONGOUS SALARY THAT'S GROWING BEYOND BELIEF. THINK AN EVER-BIGGER BONUS THAT SEEMS UNRELATED TO VALUE CREATION OR ANYTHING ELSE. THINK LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS OF STOCK OPTIONS. Think again. Chief executive pay is...

Leading execution: once companies define corporate social responsibility and devise strategies, CEOs and other senior executives must creatively and effectively take the next step: lead the implementation.(MANUFACTURING & SOCIETY)
July 1, 2005... DEFINING SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY and devising corporate strategies are but two steps, although vital steps, in the difficult, dynamic and continuing job of connecting manufacturing and society. However, without executive leadership, definitions,...

Is software redundant in a lean supply chain?(Response Management)(Column)
July 1, 2005... The focus of lean manufacturing is execution--the actual transformation of materials into a product valued by customers. Today, however, lean thinking is increasingly moving into other areas of the enterprise to reduce non-value-added...

Forever connected: the Internet may be a recent tool within manufacturing, but it is undoubtedly one of the most, if not the most influential.(TECHNOLOGY)
July 1, 2005... AGAINST A RAFT OF DIFFERENT COMPUTER TECHNOLOGIES including computer-aided design, the programmable logic controller (PLC), the personal computer, and a host of other innovations beneficial to manufacturing, the Internet reigns supreme as the...

National survey: manufacturers refocus on branding.
July 1, 2005... New and formidable challenges arise every day for manufacturers, including: globalization, a worldwide supply chain with low entry barriers, almost permanent uncertainty across all sectors and shifting consumer markets of better educated...

Best Plants finalists spend smart on IT: manufacturers wringing value from investments in CAD, EDI and APS.(Computer aided design)(Electronic data interchange)(Advanced planning and scheduling )
July 1, 2005... HUNGOVER. That's the best way to describe the way manufacturers felt a few years ago when, having awakened from a spending spree on information technology, they found themselves in a brave new world of rampant cost-cutting and razor-thin IT...

Better data with Business Intelligence.(E-Business)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE (BI) IS BIG Business. Everywhere, it seems, corporate leaders are striving to use sophisticated software suites to gain greater insights into the goings on at their companies. Indeed, a recent survey of 1,300 international...

In with the new: Maverick Tube Corp.'s R&D efforts pay off as customers find new applications for coiled tubing.(Maverick Tube Corp)
July 1, 2005... ONE OF THE MOST SURPRISING things about the expansion of Maverick Tube Corp.'s Houston coiled-tube plant is that it has nothing to do with economic growth in China. Rather, chalk one up for good old American ingenuity. The $12 million...

Rapid response: when a new market opportunity opened for a fire-equipment manufacturer, the National Composite Center came to the rescue.(National Composite Center)
July 1, 2005... IT PAYS TO READ THE PAPER. That's what Andrew Schwartz, one of Lion Apparel's owners, was doing when he came across a story about the National Composite Center (NCC) in the Dayton Daily News. The timing was perfect: Lion needed help with its...

A slower 2006: but all sectors to expand except automotive.(FORECAST)
July 1, 2005... OVERALL, U.S. MANUFACTURING production will continue to expand in 2006. But the rate of growth will slow to 3%, below the 3.4% expected for this year and the 4.8% recorded in 2004, predicts the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI, an Arlington,...

Building manufacturing's future: new plant construction has nearly disappeared domestically as U.S. companies expand elsewhere.(ON THE ECONOMY)
July 1, 2005... SINCE 1980, U.S. MANUFACTURING employment has declined from 21% of total U.S. employment to 11%. That's 10 percentage points during 25 years. Yet boosters of the future of U.S. manufacturing often claim this statistic is misleading. Their...