Industry Week articles from May 2006

Industry Week archives from May 2006

Reader feels railroaded.(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... I take exception to Traci Purdum's report in the March 2006 edition of INDUSTRYWEEK ("Trucking Costs Continue To Climb," Page 13), accusing railroads of reducing track and creating an additional burden on trucking infrastructure. Railroads...

Evans full of hoo-ha.(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... In your article ["Tax Cheats Snub Spend-Crazy Feds," On The Economy, Page 48, April 2006] you stated, "If people hadn't cheated on their taxes, the federal government would not have had a budget deficit last year." Hoo-ha! That's like the...

Managing quality's future: the new focus: broadening quality agendas to maximize innovation, says the American Society for Quality, now celebrating 60 years.(MAXIMIZING INNOVATION)
May 1, 2006... THE QUALITY CHALLENGE IS to not only understand the customer today, but to improve and optimize the innovation to satisfy the customer 10 years from now," says Jerry Mairani, president of the Milwaukee-based American Society for Quality (ASQ)....

Rigid to flexible automation.(MAXIMIZING INNOVATION)(DaimlerChrysler AG. Chrysler Group)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... IF PRODUCTION FLEXIBILITY IS SO DESIRABLE, WHY HAVE MANUFACTURERS LIKE THE CHRYSLER Group (See Chrysler's Winning Formula, Page 34) waited so long? What is now rendering obsolete high-volume, rigid automation plants? Answer: "A new cost...

Retaining knowledge and expertise: an aging workforce has manufacturers rethinking the roles of the boomer generation.(WORKFORCE SHORTAGE)
May 1, 2006... EVERY DAY THIS YEAR 7,918 people will celebrate their 60th birthday, according to projections by the U.S. Census Bureau. That works out to 2.89 million folks getting ready to either retire or rethink their work schedules. For manufacturers,...

Moving beyond 'make-to-stock': how Swagelok Co. became more than a manufacturer and began solving problems for customers.(3 QUICK QUESTIONS)(Interview)
May 1, 2006... PRIVATELY HELD SWAGELOK CO., CLEVELAND, has been evolving from a traditional manufacturer of fluid system valves and fittings to an innovative and adaptive global provider of products and services. It is transitioning from a "make-to-stock"...

New home for SeeChain.(Teradata Corp. acquires SeeCommerce (Palo Alto, California))(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... IN DECEMBER 2004 THE SEECHAIN INVENTORY software application from SeeCommerce Inc. was named one of INDUSTRYWEEK's Technologies of the Year, a component of IW's annual Technology and Innovation Awards Program. A little more than one year later,...

Dragon racing: China poised to pass U.S. in manufactured exports.(TRADE)
May 1, 2006... AFTER PULLING EVEN WITH the United States last year in manufactured exports, China, whose symbol is the red dragon, this year "will almost certainly" surpass the U.S. to become the world's No. 1 exporter of manufactured goods, says Ernest H....

Leadership lessons from Willy Loman.(Questions of Character)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 1, 2006... JOSEPH L. BADARACCO JR.'S THESIS IS SIMPLE: You can learn about leadership from literature. From Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman." From Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Sharer." And, among others, Sophocles' "Antigone." Serious...

Smart decision.(IW CONFERENCE)
May 1, 2006... WHO SAYS YOU CAN'T FIND AN EVENT TAILORED TO THE NEEDS OF the small and midsized manufacturer? INDUSTRYWEEK's SMART/mfg conference, slated June 14-16 in Las Vegas, specifically aims to address the unique opportunities and challenges faced by...

Customers we love to hate: moochers, freeloaders and others for whom we just can't do ... too little.(BRANDT ON LEADERSHIP)(Capstone Screw, DNR Motors and Bloat-Mart)
May 1, 2006... WELCOME ONCE AGAIN TO CAPSTONE Screw's annual customer awards program, at which we recognize those customers who did the most to make our lives a collective living hell over the past year. Time prevents me from going into detail about every...

Big China's build out: so extensive is the building and rebuilding of infrastructure in China that the construction crane has become the state bird, quips one U.S. executive. But he and China are serious. From constructing airports and roads to providing logistics facilities and services, billions of dollars worth of opportunities exist for American firms.(EMERGING MARKETS)
May 1, 2006... IN PREPARATION FOR THE 2008 SUMMER Olympic Games, Beijing Capital International Airport is undergoing a $3.2 billion expansion, its third since the airport opened in 1958. But as impressive as that investment is and as impressive as is the...

Chrysler's winning formula: hot cars + flexibility.(REBUILDING U.S. MANUFACTURING)(Company overview)
May 1, 2006... HOT NEW MODELS ARE BEHIND CHRYSLER Group's renaissance, a profit rebirth that Tom W. LaSorda, president and CEO, wants to support and grow via a program of flexible manufacturing. The concept: empower Chrysler Group's North American plants...

9 lives and counting: in its latest version, MRP is one of several tools used for capacity and materials planning.(REPLENISHMENT & SCHEDULING)(material requirements planning software)
May 1, 2006... AROUND FOR DECADES, THE trusty material requirements planning (MRP) system continues to be used in one form or another by many manufacturers. Sure, at most medium-size and larger companies, MRP has been overshadowed by its fancier,...

Energy without a net: the August 2003 blackout showed manufacturers the havoc a widespread power failure can wreak, yet nearly three years later many would face the same consequences were the lights to go out again.(OPERATIONS)
May 1, 2006... THE NOW INFAMOUS BLACKOUT OF AUGUST 2003 illustrated in spectacular fashion how dependent the economy is on the smooth, reliable operation of traditional grid-supplied power. The economic cost of the outage, which shut down power across parts...

Meeting at the crossdock: Eastman Kodak extends lean to its logistics operations.(REDUCING INVENTORY)
May 1, 2006... LOGISTICS IS A CRITICAL function for manufacturers because it's the process that links all parts of their supply chains. Even so, manufacturers often don't consider the warehouse a priority for implementing continuous-improvement initiatives....

Gateway for new medicines: Pfizer Inc. consolidates its St. Louis-area R&D operations for greater collaboration.(ST. LOUIS)(Pharmacia Corp.)
May 1, 2006... RESEARCHERS IN THE ST. Louis area played a key role in developing antiinflammatory medications such as Celebrex and other drugs for Pharmacia Corp. before New York-based Pfizer Inc. acquired the company in 2003. Pfizer maintained research...

Economic insight.(manufacturing production, capacity and employment)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... MANUFACTURING PRODUCTION (2002=100) INCREASED OUTPUT OF DURABLES more than offset a decline among nondurables and kept U.S. manufacturing output from declining in February. [GRAPHIC OMITTED] MANUFACTURING CAPACITY UTILIZATION (%)...

Rx: the market: with real wages for workers weakening, the case for market decisions determining health care becomes stronger.(ON THE ECONOMY)
May 1, 2006... DURING THE PAST CENTURY PLUS A COUPLE OF decades, there have been two prolonged periods when the average real wage of workers declined in spite of general economic prosperity. The first was the 1890s, which was followed by a raft of progressive...

Benchmark to stay competitive.(manufacturing companies)(Editorial)
May 1, 2006... CURIOSITY IS AN IMPORTANT COMPONENT OF success in all endeavors but is especially vital to achieving manufacturing competitiveness. Executives and managers at plants across the U.S. and the rest of the world want to know how their performances...