Industry Week articles from June 2007

Industry Week archives from June 2007

Online poll.
June 1, 2007... Is your company currently taking steps to combat counterfeiting? IndustryWeek.com readers respond: Yes, programs are in place 36.96% We are exploring our options 6.52% Not at this time 17.39% It doesn't apply to our...

New online video.(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... Video keynote by Dr. Shankar Basu, President and CEO of Toyota Material Handling U.S.A. Inc. Filmed at the 2007 IW Best Plants Conference in Indianapolis, April 25, 2007 This video is sponsored by infor ...

Continuous improvement.(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... >> Continuous Improvement is about the ongoing evaluation and improvement of processes to make them work better. This newsletter discusses the practices, opinions, successes and failures that process improvement has spawned. Benchmarking data...

"You write the caption".
June 1, 2007... >> Congratulations to RussT, who has achieved the lofty title of CWE (Caption Writer Extraordinaire). You, too, can earn fame (but, alas, no fortune) by joining in the latest "You Write The Caption" contest, featuring gags from cartoonist Jerry...

Don't fall for green scheme.(IW READER FEEDBACK)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2007... Re "Daddy, Why Does Your Company Want to Hurt Everybody?" Just In Time, Page 7, April 2007. I would hope manufacturers would be very careful about adopting so-called 'green' methods and labeling. Good engineering and design that...

Women in manufacturing--it's a good thing.(IW READER FEEDBACK)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2007... Re "Standing Tall: How Women Keep A Foothold In Manufacturing," Web exclusive article, http://www.industry week.com/ReadArticle. aspx?ArticleID=13764 As a woman who graduated from engineering school in the late '70s, and has worked in...

Spin doctor Rx.(IW READER FEEDBACK)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2007... Re "The Spin Doctor Is In" Brandt On Leadership, Page 56, February 2007. A year ago, at an industry group board meeting, some of us decided we needed "ammo" against the younger generation's use of spin words in our conversations so we...

Fat cats giving back.(From The Forums)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... http://forums.industryweek.com/ showthread.php?t=820 Sunoco CEO John Drosdick recently gave up some of his perks, including a paid country club membership, a leased car and other benefits, after company stock plunged. The question: How much...

Benchmarking losers?(From The Forums)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... http://forums.industryweek.com/ showthread.php?p=2148#post2148 Benchmarking without correlating to the best practices that actually deliver the performance is a waste of time and resources. What the point of benchmarking should be is to...

The need for standard work: it's virtually impossible to improve a process that is a series of random activities.(CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT)(Column)
June 1, 2007... I recently worked with a group of office people in a nonprofit organization on a kaizen event to improve their internal processes. It's remarkable what you discover when you conduct one of these sessions. This office has multiple products...

Fit for safety: employees help drive safety initiatives at metal processing company.(FACILITIES)(Worthington Industries Inc.)
June 1, 2007... Worthington Industries Inc. has taken a new approach to purchasing protective equipment. The $3 billion Columbus, Ohio, steel processor asks its plant workers to test personal protective gear samples to gain feedback for future purchasing...

Quote of the month.(FACILITIES)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... "When the world is flat and 3 billion new consumers walk onto the flat world all with their own version of the American dream... we're going to burn up, heat up, choke up the planet faster than even Al Gore predicts. What does that mean? It...

Manufacturing booms near the Alamo: San Antonio region is becoming a popular destination for manufacturing.(FACILITIES)
June 1, 2007... When Toyota Motor Corp. opened its new Tundra plant and supplier park in San Antonio late last year, Texas Gov. Rick Perry touted the development as "the shot in the arm" that the state needed to transform its economy. Indeed, the industrial...

Labor shortage hits global markets: survey shows companies worldwide face talent crunch.(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... U.S. manufacturers aren't the only ones pounding the pavement for talent. A Manpower Inc. survey released in march of nearly 37,000 employers in 27 countries shows that 41% of companies worldwide are having problems filling skilled positions....

Integrating IT with manufacturing: ODVA members Cisco and Rockwell Automation collaborate to simplify manufacturing connectivity.
June 1, 2007... REMEMBER WHEN the factory floor and enterprise IT were two separate, unconnected worlds? Unfortunately, integrating these two disparate departments still remains a challenge for much of manufacturing, according to Cisco Systems and Rockwell...

PLM market grows to meet integration challenges.(product lifecycle management)
June 1, 2007... Last year's record investment in product lifecycle management (PLM) is this year's systems integration challenge. The evidence: In 2006 manufacturers seeking business integration benefits spent a record $20.1 billion for PLM solutions, an...

Responsiveness vs efficiency.(The Greatest Innovation Since the Assembly Line: Powerful Strategies for Business Agility)(Brief article)(Book review)
June 1, 2007... The Greatest Innovation Since the Assembly Line: Powerful Strategies For Business Agility Michael Hugos Meghan-Kiffer Press, 2007, 226 pages, $24.95 Organize to be more responsive to customer needs." That theme, from The Greatest...

Kanban can make a difference: an e-kanban solution helps manufacturer reduce inventory by 43%.(Commercial Vehicle Group Inc. using Ultriva Inc.'s electronic kanban software)
June 1, 2007... Implementing a kanban system with suppliers helps manufacturers reduce the risk of over-stocking or running out of stock. It's a best practice that a majority of Industry Week's Best Plants winners use to become world class. Specifically, 49%...

Commercial spending on the rise.(commercial consumption expenditure index)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... According to Visa's commercial consumption expenditure (cce) index, annual commercial spending in the united states grew to more than $17 trillion in 2006. The CCE index "enables Visa and its member financial institutions to more closely...

A stitch in E-Time: online database addresses the needs of the apparel industry.(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... If you are in the apparel industry and need help with global sourcing and inventory, eSourceApparel.com, developed by ESA Trade Group LLC, maybe worth the mouse click. According to the New York-based company, every facet of the apparel...

Supplier deliveries.(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... The delivery performance of suppliers to manufacturing organizations was slower for the 45th consecutive month in March, according to the March 2007 Manufacturing ISM Report On Business. ISM's Supplier Deliveries Index registered 51.3% in...

Labor procurement: what makes people tick? Money, of course.(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... And to get your money's worth, nextSource Inc.'s the People ticker, a real-time rate and salary benchmarking tool, can help manufacturers hire the right employees at the right price point based on skill set, experience and geographic location....

The face of American manufacturing: the United States is the world's most productive country, but the global landscape has changed dramatically in recent years and even more changes are on the way.
June 1, 2007... IT SHOULD SURPRISE NOBODY TO LEARN THAT THE NUMBER OF U.S. WORKERS EMPLOYED in manufacturing has been on the decline over the past decade, with annual employment dropping from 17 million in 1997 to just over 14 million in 2006. Those are the...

Manufacturing giants: propelled by Big Oil and high-tech, the 2007 IW U.S. 500 companies accounted for $5 trillion in revenues. With 50 new companies on the list, this group of manufacturing leaders is demonstrating how to stay competitive in a global economy.(Cover story)
June 1, 2007... "THE GREAT AMERICAN WORKER... HAS MADE OUR nation strong and prosperous. It is by the labor of the worker that our economy is the greatest and most productive in the world." It seems fitting that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said...

Close up on key verticals.
June 1, 2007... A.G. Lafley, president and CEO of Procter & Gamble, No. 11, joined the company in 1977 as a brand assistant for Joy dish detergent. John Deere founded Deere & Co., No. 45, in 1837. WhatC started out as a one-man blacksmith shop now employs...

Mapping manufacturing: seeing where the bulk of high-revenue-generating companies reside can be a telling tale.(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... A quick glance at the map below says a lot about manufacturing in the United States. Plotting out where the IW U.S. 500 companies call home shows heavy concentration in California (56 companies call the Golden State home) and Texas (52...

Metrics.(Industry week's US 500 manufacturing industries list)
June 1, 2007... Through The Years--Companies That Have Grown Revenue By At Least 100% Rank 2007 Company Primary Industry 3 Chevron Corp. Petroleum & Coal Products 62 ...

Just-in-time remains justifiable; worried about how bird flu, hurricanes or civil unrest could impact a lean supply chain? Despite such inherent risks, the benefits of just-in-time manufacturing may still be too much to pass up.
June 1, 2007... EXECUTIVES AT MATTRESS MAKER SEALY CORP. LEARNED the hard way in 2005 how much a natural disaster could disrupt a supply chain. That's when hurricanes Katrina and Rita battered the Gulf Coast and caused major damage to petrochemical processing...

Open for business; Linux and other open-source software can offer competitive advantages where cost and customization pressures are concerned.
June 1, 2007... IT IS FAIR TO SAY THAT IF YOU INTERFACE WITH A COMPUTER OF any kind for a living, you already are a user of Linux. As the operating system that runs on the most diverse range of computer architectures--from servers to desktops to PDAs and cell...

Linux = lean?(INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY)
June 1, 2007... "Manufacturing CIOs have the opportunity to contribute to their company's lean initiatives by doing what their colleagues in operations do every day--reduce waste in their environment," claims Lucy Guatta, industry manufacturing marketing...

BI: the Sizzle of the data steak.(business intelligence software application)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... A good business intelligence (BI) software application is like a glass-bottomed boat, offering managers (with the courage to look) a clear view from C-level on down to the ocean floor of their business data. According to Ben Barnes,...

Ready for launch.(Right Hemisphere's Collaboration solutions for manufacturing industries)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... No matter the industry, a new product is never a stand-alone proposition. Every SKU comes with a trail leading from initial design documents all the way through to training manuals, parts catalogs and sales and marketing materials. As AMR...

How to make better transportation decisions: TMS technology has evolved to become a popular tool throughout entire supply chains.(transportation management systems)
June 1, 2007... Every year, U.S. companies spend more than $600 billion on transportation. Not included in that amount is another $1 billion, more or less, that companies are spending on transportation management systems (TMS), which are software solutions...

DHL launches program to develop next-gen technology: DHL explores whether RFID can monitor the temperature of crucial medical shipments.(SUPPLY CHAIN & LOGISTICS)
June 1, 2007... Global logistics provider DHL has teamed up with technology giants IBM Corp., Intel Corp. and SAP to establish the DHL Innovation Center in Germany, headquarters of DHL parent Deutsche Post World Net. The goal of the center, according to DHL,...

TMS, in 25 words or less.(transportation management system)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... A transportation management system (TMS) is a software program that automates a company's shipping process, from carrier selection to routing and scheduling. TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY PRIORITIES ...

U-M offers master's program in SCM.(University of Michigan)(Supply Chain Management)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... The University of Michigan's Stephen M. Ross School of Business will begin offering a Master of Supply Chain Management (MSCM) program beginning January 2008. The admission deadline for the inaugural class is Aug. 1, 2007. The...

UPS launches intercept service.(United Parcel Service of America Inc.)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... UPS delivery intercept is a new automated service that allows customers to intercept and reroute packages before they're delivered. Using this web-enabled service, a customer would use a UPS package application such as UPS Worldship, UPS...

The multiCAD challenge: top performers pursue an "insulated" approach.
June 1, 2007... To mangle an old saying: No manufacturing firm is an island. It relies on suppliers, customers and partners to get the job done. If it's a global manufacturer, the extended network is likely even larger. The same holds true most of the...

Navistar shares engineering expertise.(Navistar International Corp. contracts with International Engineering Solutions)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... There's good news for manufacturers looking for product development help that exceeds their in-house capabilities--particularly if you're located in the Midwest. Navistar International Corp. Has launched an engineering service to provide...

Try out your nanotechnology: demo facility opens for polymer nanocomposites.(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... Does nanotechnology make sense for use in your composite products? If you'd like to find out without the expense and risk of major investment dollars, the University of Dayton (Ohio) Research Institute (UDRI) may be able to help. The...

Virtually everywhere: UGS launches presence on Second Life virtual world.(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... Already a global provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software, UGS Corp. Now is taking on the virtual world. The technology firm has launched its UGS innovation Connection on the Second Life 3-D virtual world at...

Highlights from the IW 2007 Best Plants Conference.(Industry Week 2007)
June 1, 2007... Indianapolis, home to the NCAA Hall of Champions and the Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts, was the host city for another impressive gathering of champions: the INDUSTRYWEEK 2007 Best Plants Conference. Celebrating the spirit of continuous...

Great to best: great companies motivate their employees. The best companies motivate their competition.(Editorial)
June 1, 2007... There's a simple premise behind our annual profile of the country's biggest and best manufacturers--in fact, it's so simple an idea that it's one of the very first things we teach our children: how to share. What we do here at Industry Week,...

Neanderthal Inc.: stop asking so many questions and get back to work.
June 1, 2007... Here we go again: no sooner do I hire new human resource types but then you guys start thinking up ways to spend money by "investing in Human Capital" or "building a Learning Culture." Listen up: I've been CEO of Neanderthal Inc. for a lot of...

Stellar results; this year's list of IndustryWeek's 50 Best Manufacturing Companies includes companies that have excelled in the midst of tough situations.
June 1, 2007... Each year INDUSTRY WEEK sets out to identify the 50 Best Manufacturing Companies (IW50 BMC) in the United States. The list not only affirms that manufacturing is alive and well in the U.S.A., but it also enables us to get a glimpse into what...