Industry Week articles from October 2004

Industry Week archives from October 2004

Online poll.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Should the Federal Open Market Committee again boost the basic U.S. short-term interest rate, raised to 1.5% in August, when it meets on Sept. 21? IndustryWeek.com readers respond: No 75% Yes 25%

Production workers can be your competitive edge: leadership determines whether employees add cost or add value.(Editorial)
October 1, 2004... WITH ALL THE TALK DEFENDING LABOR arbitrage, with its "Why pay more?" philosophy dominating leadership thinking these days, it's time to review the research on employee management best practices that answers that question, IW's research...

Beware the next big thing.(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2004... I have been in the aluminum casting business for over 30 years and your article ["The Next Manufacturing Craze," August 2004, Page 68] brought back many memories of the wonderful programs that would allow us manufacturers to produce better...

Manufacturers catch the biotech wave.(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2004... I enjoyed reading "Making Waves" [August 2004, Page 31]. The future certainly will bring in a hybrid industry structure where the boundary between traditional industries will be blurred. It's important to explore the various possibilities that...

If the fight comes to food: producers are taking steps to prevent a terrorist attack. But are they doing enough?(Security)
October 1, 2004... AS IT DID FOR SO many other sectors of manufacturing, the world changed dramatically for food processors in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11,2001. For example, last year the estimated 420,000 domestic and foreign facilities...

Partnership in promotion: Home Diagnostics Inc. employs a savvy co-branding strategy to compete against the Goliaths of the home diabetes testing business.(3 Quick Questions)(Interview)
October 1, 2004... Home Diagnostics Inc. CEO J. Richard Damron Jr. admits that his firm doesn't have the marketing dollars of its big-name competitors, such. as Johnson & Johnson. That hasn't stopped the Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based manufacturer of the TrueTrack...

Movement on two fronts.(Time Machine)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... It was just six issues ago that INDUSTRYWEEK outlined unresolved issues important to U.S. manufacturers on the agenda of the World Trade Organization (WTO), including the so-called Byrd Amendment. Since April's "The Two Sides of Trade,"...

These CEOs are optimistic: higher sales. Increased capex. More jobs.(Economy)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... ALTHOUGH SLOWER-than-anticipated U.S. GDP growth could cause them to scale back their projections, chief executives of major U.S. corporations foresee higher sales, capital spending and domestic employment between now and early 2005. ...

Looking ahead.(Bookshelf)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... Right from the beginning let me acknowledge that I bring two biases to "Seeing What's Next" (2004 Harvard Business School Press). Any book by Clayton M. Christensen commands my attention. And I have long believed that manufacturing CEOs in...

Legal wrangling: survey shows employment, contracts and product liability keep manufacturers concerned.(Litigation)
October 1, 2004... MANUFACTURERS MAY be leading the cry for tort reform, but they aren't above starting their fair share of legal entanglements as well. Possibly even more than their fair share, according to the results of recent research. Some 97% of...

Plasma window reinvents electron beam welding: eliminating downstream vacuum chamber improves weld quality and performance; brings energy efficiency and floor-space savings.(Emerging Technologies)
October 1, 2004... CONSIDERING ELECtron beam welding? Get ready to evaluate a process innovation designed to deliver high quality without dependence on a vacuum chamber. (As with traditional electron beam methods, the new approach uses a hard vacuum at the beam...

Nanoporous Electrodes.(Emerging Technologies)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2004... A new nanoporous structure shows promise for heightened interaction with liquids and gases. Fuel ceils, batteries and sensors could benefit, say researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. Fabricating starts with generating...

Suffocating under that golden parachute? Stop blaming yourself fire me instead.(Brandt On Leadership)
October 1, 2004... Doesn't it make more sense to fire someone who knows nothing about your business--who actually doesn't give a rat's behind what yon do--and who can never hurt you by going to work for a competitor? IT'S NOT SURPRISING IN THESE DAYS OF...

Manufacturers get smart; new business intelligence software helps manage daily operations.(Information Technology)
October 1, 2004... THERE'S A QUIET REVOLUTION TAKING place in how manufacturers approach the use of information technology as a business tool, and ironically, it harkens back to an earlier era of corporate computing, but with a democratic twist. Known more than a...

Partially made in China; U.S. manufacturers abet China trade imbalance.(Census of Manufacturers)
October 1, 2004... IN THIS PRESIDENTIAL-ELECTION YEAR, THE DEBATE OVER FOREIGN outsourcing and trade imbalances and their impact on the U.S. economy rages throughout media. But there can be no debate over the extent to which one particular country--China--is...

The big leagues: the magic of teamwork performance for industry.(Best plants: the winners)(Cover Story)
October 1, 2004... AT>Cover Story INDUSTRYWEEK'S BEST PLANTS WINNERS, the top 10 factories for 2004 and those going back 15 years to 1990, all share a common scouting report. Beginning on the plant floor where customer value is most visibly created these...

A force to reckon with: Batesville Casket relies on creativity to get the job done.(Best plants: Batesville Casket Co.)(Batesville Casket Company Inc.)(Company Profile)
October 1, 2004... Batesville Casket Co. Manchester Operations Manchester, Tenn. Employees: 493, union Total square feet: 427,636 Primary product: Steel burial caskets Start-up: 1970 Achievements: Batesville Casket reports a 0.8% labor turnover rate, a...

Boeing's team Macon: the Macon, Ga., Boeing team pursues process optimization for all the best reasons--improving customer value to enhance a future for the bottom line.(Best plants: the Boeing Co.)(Boeing Georgia Inc.)(Company Profile)
October 1, 2004... Boeing Macon, Ga. Employees: 624, non-union Total square feet: 322,179 Primary product: Sub-assemblies for the C-17 Globemaster and AH-64 Apache helicopter including flight control surfaces, doors, large and small skin panels,...

Coddling customers: combined with a big push on lean manufacturing, customer care pays off for a Collins & Aikman plant.(Best plants: Collins & Aikman)(Collins & Aikman Plastics Williamston Operations )(Company Profile)
October 1, 2004... TREASA CLEMONS, A TEAM LEADER ON the production floor at Collins & Aikman (C&A) Corp.'s Williamston Operations in Williamston, Mich., always considered herself a stay-at-home woman. She seldom ventured far from her nearby, rural home in Holt,...

Change for the better Kentucky plant compiles incremental improvements into industry-leading performance.(Best plants: Dana Corp.)(Dana Corp., Perfect Circle Products Franklin Steel Products Plant)(Company Profile)
October 1, 2004... THE DANA CORP., PERFECT CIRCLE Products, Franklin Steel Products plant seems rather ordinary. On the outside, a modest 41,000-square-foot facility sets beside a two-lane road. Inside, thousands of stainless-steel oil ring expanders--a product...

Braced for the future: world class operational at dj Orthopedics speeds customer responsiveness and supports market success.(Best Plants: dj Orthopedics)(Company Profile)
October 1, 2004... IN ADDITION TO AN IDENTIFICATION CARD, management team members at the dj Orthopedics facility in Tijuana carry another card on the string around their necks. John Yots, vice president of manufacturing, handed them out in the spring of 2003 when...

Setting the pace: new medical devices and formal continuous improvement drive growth at Guidant Puerto Rico.(Best plants: Guidant)(Guidant Puerto Rico Dorado)(Company Profile)
October 1, 2004... Guidant Puerto Rico Dorado, Puerto Rico Employees: 1,028, non-union Total square feet: 113,000 Primary product: Pacemaker leads Start-up: 1989 Achievements: Recognized as one of the "Best 20 Employers to Work for in...

Lonely at the top: Maytag Jackson learns from misstep how better to keep the repairman at bay.(Best plants: Maytag Corp.)(Maytag Jackson Dishwashing Products )(Company Profile)
October 1, 2004... Maytag Jackson Dishwashing Products Jackson, Tenn, Employees: 657, non-union Total square feet: 557,065 Primary product: Dishwashers Start-up date: 1992 Achievements: Maytag Jackson reports that scrap and rework costs...

Zeroing in on the customer: to improve its products, Northrop Grumman's flagship Defensive Systems Division plant goes to war--literally.(Best plants: Northrop Grumman Corp.)(Northrop Grumman Corp. Defensive Systems Division)(Company Profile)
October 1, 2004... Northrop Grumman Corp. Defensive Systems Division Rolling Meadows, Ill, Employees: 2,027, non-union Total square feet: 1 million Primary product: Complex defense electronic systems Start-up date: 1967 Achievements: With...

Bearing necessities: Rockwell Automation's Marion, N.C., mounted roller bearing plant creatively puts people, production processes and IT software to work with industry-leading results.(Best plants: Rockwell Automation)(Rockwell Automation Roller Bearing Plant )(Company Profile)
October 1, 2004... Rockwell Automation Roller Bearing Plant Marion, N.C, Employees: 102, non-union Total square feet: 174,000 Primary product: Mounted spherical and tapered roller bearings Start-up date: 1996 Achievements: With nearly 100%...

Instability? Not a problem; shrugging off successive ownership upheavals, a 10-year-old TRW Automotive plant stays the course to excellence.(Best plants: TRW Automotive)(TRW Automotive Holdings Corp.)
October 1, 2004... TO BECOME A WORLD-CLASS MANUfacturer, it surely helps to be a greenfield plant. Designed from scratch to build a specific product and accommodate leading-edge production processes and practices, such facilities have a built-in advantage over...

Smart outsourcing: it's more than just contracting with lower-labor cost offshore suppliers. Pay attention to hidden costs. And after optimizing your production processes, ask whether offshoring still makes sense.(The Workforce)
October 1, 2004... It's more than just contracting with lower-labor cost offshore Suppliers. Pay attention to hidden Costs. And after optimizing your production processes, ask whether offshoring still makes sense. WISHING THE ADVICE HE WAS GETTING WERE...

IBM'S offshoring adventure: Big Blue dips in its toe gets burned but creates more jobs in the process.(The Workforce)(International Business Machines Corp.)
October 1, 2004... WHEN FUTURE HISTOrians recount the swirl of controversy surrounding "offshoring," 2004 undoubtedly will be noted as a watershed year, and IBM Corp. likely will be remembered as a major player. Whether that's hero or villain, however, depends...

Eh, what's up, Doc? Health-care industry finally wakes up to IT.(E Commentary)(Editorial)
October 1, 2004... IF YOU THOUGHT MANUFACTURING WAS slow to embrace information technology, check out the health-care industry. These people are finally starting to find their way after decades of wallowing around in a Sargasso Sea of paper. For a $1.5 trillion...

A bit of relief: as summer ends, oil and natural gas prices decline.(Energy)
October 1, 2004... TERRORISM AND POLItics could change the U.S. energy price situation dramatically. But as summer drew to a close around the country, something remarkable happened: Prices for crude oil and natural gas declined, with, notes UBS Investment...

Don't fool yourself with metrics: when it comes to performance indicators, be mindful of what you measure.(Continuous Improvement)(Editorial)
October 1, 2004... WHEN TRAVELING FROM THE U.S. to a country that uses Celsius and the metric system, the first few days are glorious. You can drive faster (a blistering 110 kph vs. a grandmotherly 68 mph). You can eat whatever you want because the pounds no...

A recovery built on Quicksand: U.S. mired in sluggish growth.(On The Economy)
October 1, 2004... IT IS NORMAL FOR AN ECONOMIC RECOVERY to pause a year or two after the upturn has started. In the initial phase of the expansion, inventories are rebuilt, and consumers and businesses catch up on purchases they postponed during the recession....