Industry Week articles from November 2003

Industry Week archives from November 2003

New online.(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... PERSONAL COMPUTING: Arm yourself for the computer virus wars, declares syndicated columnist Reid Goldsborough in his latest Personal Computing column. Exclusively online. www.industryweek.com/Columns/Viewpoint VIEWPOINT: Get tips for...

Curing the health-care costs blues: could lean be the remedy we've longed for?(Editor's Page)(Editorial)
November 1, 2003... IT'S STARTING TO SEEM THAT after two decades, everybody has tried everything and looked everywhere to reduce--or at least slow--the exploding rise of health-care costs. But we haven't. We haven't forced--or cajoled, or encouraged, or even...

Too late, too true.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2003... [Re: Bush's Manufacturing Plan: Too Little Too Late, Page 7, October 2003] Too little and too late for our company. Fibre Form Corp., a loudspeaker component manufacturer in business from 1938 that since the 1970s had successfully focused on...

Blame it all on Wal-Mart.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2003... Regarding your "Bye-Bye to Buy American?" article [Page 25, September 2003], it should be noted that while Wal-Mart employs the most Americans, the majority of Wal-Mart's employees are paid minimum wage and do not receive benefits. Hardly a...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
November 1, 2003... Correction: "New Dimensions for 3-D Measurement" [Page 18, October 2003], AFI 4000 is undergoing beta testing at Toyota Tsusho, Northrop Grumman and General Electric.

When soldiers come marching home: understanding federal regulations helps employers ease the transition back to the workplace.(Workforce)
November 1, 2003... MANY MANUFACTURERS HAD TO adjust quickly when valuable employees who are also National Guardsmen were called up to serve during the Iraqi conflict. As they return from their tours of duty, new questions arise: What are the responsibilities...

Revisiting reservist benefits.(Asap)(benefits for National Guard or Reserve)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... The Society for Human Resource Management, Alexandria, Va., recently asked its members how their organizations had adjusted their policies toward employees serving in the National Guard or Reserve in the last year. The online poll, which...

Benefiting from synchronized data: how much is bad data costing your company?(Emerging Technologies)
November 1, 2003... EXTRAORDINARY BENEFITS ARE MADE possible by identifying, capturing and sharing information among manufacturers, suppliers and customers. The irony is that as IT revolutionizes those business process connections, the penalties for bad or...

Wireless sensors.(Emerging Technologies)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Want to use off-the-shelf sensors in a wireless mode? That's the operating premise of the i-Bean wireless network concept of Millennial Net Inc., Cambridge, Mass. The i-Bean system can be applied to building and industrial automation, automatic...

Picking up the reins: Bill Carroll, acting president and COO of Dana Corp., talks about the recent death of company CEO Joe Magliochetti.(3 Quick Questions)
November 1, 2003... An outspoken voice in the automotive industry, Joe Magliochetti, Dana Corp.'s chairman and CEO, died on Sept. 22 at the age of 61 following complications from pancreatitis, for which he had been hospitalized. He had worked for the company for...

Juran on Juran.(Book Shelf)('Architect of Quality')(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... There's on irritating self-congratulatory quality to Joseph M. Juran's autobiography, "Architect of Quality" (2003, McGraw-Hill), and therein lies a danger. The self-celebration may so put off some readers that they'll not recognize or...

Comeback King?(Time Machine)(Tom Siebel of Siebel Systems Inc.)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... When INDUSTRYWEEK named Tom Siebel CEO of the Year, things looked good for the "King of Customer," as the article dubbed him (Cover story, February, 2002). The economic downturn hadn't turned too far down yet, and companies were still investing...

CEOs say their plans in need of a remedy.(Health Care)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... IT'S ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU SICK. ONLY about a third of CEOs at fast-growing U.S. companies rate their health-care plans as top notch, according to a PricewaterhouseCooper's LLC (PWC) survey. Thirty-six percent of the 402 CEOs the company...

Better days ahead.(Census Of Manufacturers)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... MANUFACTURERS MAY COMPLAIN loudly about excess regulations, rising healthcare costs and difficulty finding skilled employees, but their primary challenges these days remain directly related to the market. When asked to indicate their primary...

Notable/quotable.(C-level)(quotes about energy )(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... "Our civilization--such as it is--rests on cheap and convenient power." --Henry Ford in his book "Today and Tomorrow," 1926 "It we don't quickly pass a practical bill that lays the groundwork for a comprehensive national energy...

A long goodbye.(Executives)(National Association of Manufacturers president Jerry J. Jasinowski to retire in 2004)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... After 12 years as president of the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), Jerry J. Jasinowski will leave that job next fall in what the business group describes as a "planned retirement." Heidrick & Struggles, an...

Headed for the exits: more training and development may entice manufacturing workers to stay on the job.(Workplace)
November 1, 2003... MANUFACTURING EXECUTIVES IN THE U.S. have a lot more work to do to increase the loyalty of their employees. Indeed, workers in manufacturing, along with those in technology, are the most likely to leave their companies, indicates a study of...

Business' perpetual golden year: if only year 3 of every strategic plan ever came true....(Brandt On Leadership)
November 1, 2003... OF ALL MY YEARS IN BUSINESS, I have to say that my favorite is Year 3. You remember Year 3, don't you? That magical endpoint for every three-year budget and strategic plan you ever presented to the board? In every PowerPoint that memory...

Home economics: to compete in a globalized world. U.S. states, regions and communities are seeking to attract and retain advanced manufacturing. They're having some success. But former labor secretary Robert Reich argues they'd be better off focusing on skills rather than on selecting specific industries.(Part Six Of A Seven-Part Series)
November 1, 2003... GLOBALIZATION HAS COME HOME. LITERALLY. As they seek to attract new companies and hold onto those they already have, communities across the United States are wrestling with several of the same strategic issues that challenge the nation's...

Powerplays: rethink energy management with distributed power generation, higher-efficiency equipment and business-continuity planning.(Operations)
November 1, 2003... TO FIND VALUE IN BLACKOUTS, you'd have to think of them as recurring, costly reminders that power management is an ongoing fundamental challenge critical to manufacturing success. Virtually no one sees the need for enterprise power...

Lean health care? It works! A medical researcher has real-life proof that a TPS approach to health care slashes costs for all involved, and a group of Iowa manufacturers is making it happen.(Health Care)
November 1, 2003... AT THE COMMUNITY MEDICAL CENTER IN Missoula, Mont., Orthopedic Surgeon Doug Woolley was frustrated. A bottleneck in the recovery room limited to four the number of total joint replacements he could do each week; he figured he had time to easily...

In search of posi+ive return$.(Special Advertising Section)(Advertisement)
November 1, 2003... MANAGING A SUPPLY CHAIN that spans three continents and involves 127 firms isn't a task for the faint of heart. It's especially daunting when there are foreign languages to deal with, currency conversions to manage, and customers like Wal-Mart...

Digging for gold: enterprise asset management (EAM) delivers much more than a maintenance solution. The EAM approach also facilitates the use of asset performance data to support corporate decision-making and business performance.(Information Technology)
November 1, 2003... MANUFACTURERS ARE BECOMING INCREASINGLY aware of their need for an enterprise perspective on the maintenance of critical corporate assets. Leaders are migrating beyond point solutions that fail to link the maintenance of assets with...

Lean efforts get software assist: new package supports plant-level efforts.(E Commentary)(manufacturing software)
November 1, 2003... CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF among companies that have embraced lean manufacturing, at last there is some software that can help. As I wrote in this space in July, some ERP software firms in recent years have added lean modules....

Bigger, better, faster: Intel Corp. converts 200-mm wafer factory in Chandler, Ariz. The result: increased productivity.(Intel Corp.)
November 1, 2003... IN 1965 GORDON MOORE, WHO co-founded Intel in 1968, observed an exponential growth in the number of transistors per integrated circuit and predicted that this trend would continue. Dubbed "Moore's Law," it is a trend that Intel Corp. strives to...

The hunt for Red X: Maytag plant turns to Shainin techniques to reduce noise, vibration.(Best Practices)
November 1, 2003... WHAT TO DO WITH A WASHING MACHINE that takes a walk when it's supposed to be working. Or one that won-"t shut up. To ensure that customers won't have to suffer such annoyances, the management team at Maytag Corp.'s Herrin, Ill., plant turns to...

Harness the passion: every organization has the inner potential for greatness. Don't squander it.(continuous improvement)
November 1, 2003... LATELY, IN A DELIBERATE EFFORT TO hear how the other half lives, I've been talking to people outside of manufacturing about the operational issues they face. (If you want to hear about some monumental organizational problems, talk to anyone in...

Challenging China's currency: action could either help or hurt U.S. manufacturers.(Exchange Rates)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... BY THE END OF THIS YEAR, A Washington, D.C.-based coalition of 85 mainly manufacturing and agricultural trade associations could be ready to take an unprecedented action against China for alleged currency manipulation. For many months, the...

Complying CFOs.(Regulation)(chief financial officers)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICERS (CFOs) OF publicly traded companies continue to focus on complying with the executive certification and internal control and financial reporting procedures of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Indeed, 34% of the CFOs responding...

Shelf life.(Bottom Line)(report on unsaleable goods)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Total industry unsaleables for warehouse-delivered consumer-packaged goods cost the industry $2.6 billion last year, according to the Grocery Manufacturers of America's 2003 Unsaleables Benchmark Report. While unsaleable goods plagued many...

Our incurable disease: neither government nor business can pay for runaway health-care costs.(Evans On The Economy)
November 1, 2003... QUESTION: IF MEDICAL CARE costs rise 15% per year at the same time that wages rise 3% per year, and medical care currently accounts for 16% of total consumption, how many years would it take before medical-care costs account for more than 50%...