Industry Week articles from March 2005

Industry Week archives from March 2005

Online poll.(Updated Each Business Day)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... How do you feel about creating private investment accounts to address the funding crisis in Social Security? IndustryWeek.com readers respond: Good Idea 58% Bad Idea 30% There Is No Social Security Crisis 12%

Profit pursuits are choking innovation.(Editorial)
March 1, 2005... A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE WORRIED ABOUT THE U.S.' innovation infrastructure, and I'm starting to be one of them. The concerns I'm reading and hearing about--from business leaders, academics, think-tank researchers and government officials--run the...

Evaluating Evans.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2005... Re "Four More Years," On The Economy, January 2005, Page 64: I do not always agree with Michael's views, but in this case he is right on. The bad news is we are stuck with George W. for four more years. The good news is those that voted for him...

Stand up for Kyoto.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2005... Re "Ready Or Not: Here Comes Kyoto," Editor's Page, February 2005, Page 7: Brings up the old question regarding budgets. Department A flies coach and makes their trip selection based upon frugal business criteria. Department B flies business...

After quotas what? Companies wonder if they have a future in the U.S.(Textiles & Apparel)
March 1, 2005... THE 1974 INTERNATIONAL Multifiber Agreement is history. And with its expiration on Jan. 1, following a 10-year phase-out, quotas on textile and apparel imports are gone. What's next for the industry? No one can be absolutely certain. "If I knew...

Don't just improve--innovate; machine tool leader wants all manufacturers to break the mold.( )(Interview)
March 1, 2005... MASAHIKO MORI, PRESIDENT OF MORI SEIKI CO. LTD., THE NARA, JAPAN-BASED machine tools manufacturer and recognized technology leader, says manufacturing executives must focus less on adapting old products and more on reinventing the manufacturing...

A new race to run.( )(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... IBM CORP. "ACHIEVED THE UNTHINKABLE INDUSTRY WEEK wrote nearly four years ago in describing how the Armonk, N.Y., company had taken the laptop computer sales lead away from longtime leader Toshiba Corp. ("ThinkPad Sets Pace In Laptop Race," May...

Familiar refrain: Manufacturing Extension Partnership program again faces severe cuts as government tightens spending.(Manufacturing Extension Partnership)
March 1, 2005... Supporters of a program aimed at helping small U.S. manufacturing firms become more competitive have another fight on their hands to retain federal funding. The fiscal 2006 federal budget submitted by President George W. Bush to the Office...

Sailing the ocean blue.(book about manufacturing industry)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Toyota. Dell. Canon. Sony. Ford. General Motors. Chrysler. They are among the best-known names in manufacturing. And, according to W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, professors at the prestigious INSEAD business school in Fontainebleau, France,...

Unplanned future: private company CEOs give little thought to succession planning, survey says.( )(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... MOST LEADERS OF THE United States' fastest-growing private companies can give you a time frame for their own departure from their firms, but far fewer have given thought to who will take over when they are gone. So says...

The analysis challenge: Abaqus sets an ease-of-use strategy for fracture, failure.( )
March 1, 2005... HOW DO YOU WANT YOUR product to fail? An engineering software vendor, Abaqus Inc., Providence, R.I., is setting a business strategy to begin delivering engineering analysis software for answering such questions quickly, easily and more...

U3D: PLM JPEG for graphics?(PRODUCT LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT SOLUTION)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... PLM, THE PRODUCT LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT SOLUTION, REVOLUTIONIZED product data access. Now it's time to revolutionize PLM with U3D, a graphics standard that can leverage CAD graphics throughout a business strategy, says Damian Smith, managing vice...

Beware the McGillicuddy: you might make the numbers, but you have to also stroke the boss.
March 1, 2005... I HAD A DRINK WITH YOUR BOSS McGILLICUDDY last night, and--I don't quite know how to tell you, so I'll just say it--I think you're shark bait. Corporate chum. Dead meat. Ready to be thrown overboard. OK, so you get my point. But do you get...

The tough get going; as consolidation in automotive supply chains continues, and OEMs hand off more R&D and production to Tier Ones, manufacturers are responding with a heightened level of collaboration.(Original Equipment Manufacturer)
March 1, 2005... COLLABORATION. THAT'S THE ONE word description of the rapidly evolving business practice that increasingly defines success for automotive suppliers. Some Tier-One suppliers, such as Michael J. Burns, chairman and CEO of Dana Corp., Toledo,...

In the driver's seat: high costs, decreased hours of service and a lack of trained drivers have trucking companies commanding and getting respect. Great for them, but what does it mean for manufacturers?( )(Cover Story)
March 1, 2005... SITTING IN MILES OF STOPPED TRAFFIC ON ICY 1-70 near Dayton, Ohio, just days before Christmas 2004, a driver rolled down the window of his car and yelled tip to a man in a black 18-wheeler, asking if he knew another route around the...

Cargo crunch! Manufacturers are bringing sourcing back to North America, using more air freight and building inventories in response to tie-ups at West Coast ports.(Cover Story)
March 1, 2005... AS SURE AS EARTHQUAKES SHAKE AND VOLCANOS erupt, what happened to thousands of manufacturers, distributors and retailers last fall will happen again. The only questions are, when, and how bad? Last autumn's logjam that snarled the Ports of Los...

Power hungry: as manufacturers' demand for energy grows, an aging infrastructure, environmental concerns and political instability of traditional energy producing countries are wreaking havoc on energy availability and cost. The energy landscape is changing, and manufacturers must be ready to adapt.( )
March 1, 2005... GARY D. HUSS RECENTLY described the toll rising natural gas prices is having on his small manufacturing firm. "At Hudapack Metal Treating, we have struggled with increases in group insurance and workers comp insurance, but these increases...

Sky wars: the plane truth is Airbus and Boeing are buttling for control of commercial aviation. Here's some history and what the next five years promise.( )
March 1, 2005... THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, SEVEN MANUFACTURers, with such storied names as Aerospatiale, Boeing, Douglas, Lockheed, De Havilland, Hawker Siddeley and Vickers competed in the world's commercial aircraft market. The Anglo-French supersonic Concorde...

Defining social responsibility: it's much more than good works and charities.(Manufacturing & Society)
March 1, 2005... PHILANTHROPY IS NOT ENOUGH. However well-intentioned or whatever the amount of the contribution, support of local good works and charities is not all there is to manufacturing's responsibility to society, to the people who are its...

A case for continuous sales and operations planning.( )(Advertisement)
March 1, 2005... Classic sales and operations planning (S&OP) is typically defined as a process that coalesces projections for all areas of a business--customers, sales, marketing, development, manufacturing, sourcing, and financial--into one integrated set of...

Hosting gets hot; users cite increased flexibility, lower cost and fewer management headaches as benefits.
March 1, 2005... IF THERE'S A HOT SPOT IN THE enterprise software business, it's hosted applications. The reason hosting is taking off is simple: why buy the $500,000 red Ferrari when you can drive it any time of day or night for a fraction of that amount? ...

Dell strategy includes U.S. presence; North Carolina plant is one of three new U.S. sites to answer increasing demand for PCs.
March 1, 2005... THE NEXT TIME SOMEONE complains about all the good U.S. manufacturing jobs moving overseas, be a contrarian and tell them about Dell Inc.'s new plant in Winston-Salem, N.C. The $47.3 billion computer manufacturer expects to employ 700 people in...

Rapid recovery: Core Systems shores up safety program in response to on alarming injury rate.
March 1, 2005... FIVE YEARS AGO, WHEN Maggine Fuentes joined Core Systems as HR manager, she knew she would have to make injury reduction her top priority. Accidents at the 500-plus-employee plastic injection molding and manufacturing company based in...

Offline? So are profits: network downtime drains manufacturers.(Information Technology)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... EVERY TIME A SERVER crashes or a switch goes dark, IT managers aren't the only executives worried as they watch millions of dollars drain from the coffers of their companies across North America. Large companies, including manufacturers, lose...

Pharmaceutical misallocation.( )(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... ALL MANUFACTURING EXECUTIVES must worry about wisely allocating resources. But in pharmaceuticals, mistakes come at particularly high costs. Back the wrong product with big commercialization dollars, and the results can be uneven flow in the...

Degussa Admixtures Inc.(appointment of Alan Nedza)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... * Degussa Admixtures Inc., Cleveland, Ohio, has named Alan Nedza vice president of sales. A veteran of the Degussa Fine Chemicals Division. Nedza brings with him more than 20 years of experience and a strong background in sales. marketing and...

Chicago White Metal Casting Inc.(appointment of Eric Treiber)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... * Eric Treiber has been appointed president and COO of Chicago White Metal Casting Inc., Bensenville, Ill., custom producer of high-technology die cast components in aluminum, magnesium and zinc alloys. He becomes the third generation to head...

Airgas Inc.(appointment of David E. Levin)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... * Airgas Inc., Radnor, Pa., has appointed David E. Levin as vice president/hardgoods, with responsibility for product management of all welding/MRO hardgoods and safety products. Levin had been vice president/safety products since April 2003....

Events.( )(Calendar)
March 1, 2005... March 7-10 National Manufacturing Week McCormick Place Chicago www.manufacturingweek.com March 7-8 Aluminum Assn. 2005 Spring Meeting Inter-Continental Hotel & McCormick Place Chicago www.aluminum.org April 15 Metals Industry Dinner...

More jobs will be lost: manufacturing workers will be hurt, but not the U.S. economy generally.( )
March 1, 2005... WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE U.S. ECONOMY as manufacturing employment continues to shrink? During the past decade, U.S. manufacturing employment fell by 2.3 million jobs. Retail employment rose by 1.6 million. Government employment rose b 2.2...