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May 31, 2007

The Award Goes to the Most Creative and Inefficient

The competition to design a Rube Goldberg-like machine began in 1949 by two engineering fraternities at Purdue, and was held until 1955. It was revived in 1983, and this year’s task was to create a machine that could make juice from an orange and pour the juice from a pitcher into a cup — in more than 20 steps.

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Is Ford Making A Comeback?

Say what you will about Ford Motor Company — we certainly have — but the reality is that Ford’s slash-and-burn strategy is showing albeit-slight signs that it is working. At least, that's what the automaker's top analyst thinks.

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May 30, 2007

Reuse Design Or Start from Scratch?

There's a lot to be said for entirely new and original design. However, the major benefit of design reuse is that starting with an already completed design allows engineers to avoid starting from scratch. It's an easy idea in theory, yet its challenges are many. Here's how best-in-class firms respond to the challenges of design reuse.

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May 29, 2007

Global Energy Use: To Keep Going and Going and Going...

Despite high world oil and natural gas prices, demand is expected to keep growing. Demand will be especially high in Asian countries outside the Organization for Economic Cooperation Development, according to the Energy Information Administration, which expects world energy consumption to climb by 57 percent through 2030. The industrial sector alone accounts for 27 percent of the total projected increase in liquid energy use.

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May 25, 2007

Light Friday: Towel Day, Patently Godly, Rock Paper Scissors...

... Spy Drone, Ball Deglosser, Green Yellow Cabs, Purple Gets Owned, Venus Near the Moon, Memorial Day and MORE!

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May 24, 2007

Universally Cheap and Poisonous?

Without all the facts, it’s hard to place blame. Yet recent allegations of Chinese manufacturers including solvents in toothpaste that was shipped to Latin American countries, and contaminated pet food arriving in the U.S., raises serious questions about inspections, oversight and manufacturing miseries.

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May 23, 2007

The Big Boom: Freight Rates, Congestion, Capacity and Trade

At one point mid-last year, overcapacity contributed to declining rates for containerized shipping. Not anymore. This year shipping lines appear to be holding firmly to their positions, without giving in to rate reductions. It's Fleet Week, and the ship may have hit the fan.

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May 22, 2007

Clever Ideas for Creative Thinking

Some ideas are brilliant and complex, while others are good and simple. Creativity may be a haughty term, but businesses need it to stay innovative and competitive. You can also approach brainstorming in a practical way. Here are some tips on how to get your creative juices flowing.

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Smart Manufacturing Machines

Tomorrow’s machine tools will take the drudgery out of working with them. A smart machine can make real-time decisions about manufacturing processes, and with plenty of adaptive controls and better machine vision, operators will be able to spend more time on creative work and less time on repetitious tasks.

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Critical Biz Data: Gather, Store, Analyze, Repeat

Gathering and understanding accurate information is the lifeblood of businesses across all industries today. Critical data must be aggregated, searched, presented and analyzed -- no doubt, a complex process. Although technology is only part of the story, something big is happening in business intelligence.

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Burning Question

Will intelligent robots some day destroy us?

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With Packaging, It's the Thought that Counts

Counterfeiting may be wreaking havoc across the supply chain, but manufacturers are not without recourse, nor are they standing still. The arrival of a broad range of printable-electronics technologies, advancements in smart materials and a sizable market for RFID is making smarter packaging possible.

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Competitive Intelligence vs. Espionage

Business intelligence, corporate intelligence, manufacturing intelligence, industrial intelligence -- whatever you call it, we do it openly but prefer the target company be unaware. How do we pursue aggressive but legitimate competitive intelligence-collection activities without being liable for espionage?

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Employees Tell Managers to Shut Up and Listen

Famed French management theorist Henri Fayol said that management consists of five primary functions: planning, organizing, leading, coordinating and controlling. Yet the behavior of today’s managers in several fundamental areas of practice — including listening to employees — is not meeting employees’ expectations half the time, a new study says.

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Bots with Brains: Future Robotic Overlords?

Science fiction has portrayed machines capable of thinking and acting for themselves with a mixture of both anticipation and dread, but what was once the realm of fiction has yet again become the subject of serious debate as robots become more intelligent.

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Street Smarts

From self-parking vehicles to those that know when getting too close can be dangerous, cars are getting smarter. Meanwhile, one major U.S. automaker is applying AI and knowledge-based technologies to its manufacturing process, and builders in urban areas are turning to space-saving automated parking garages.

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Recommended Reading

Current business ideas of lasting value, like perpetual innovation and the commercial superiority of good design, are examined in the elegantly written and intelligent Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win.

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May 21, 2007

Who Will Compromise, and What Will Be Left of Them?

The purchase of Chrysler has been a huge story recently. The automaker aims to return to profits in '08, but the main hurdle lies in its ability to clinch a new contract with the United Automobile Workers (UAW) union that reduces costs, particularly for health care. Will a private company be tougher for the auto union to deal with because the owners could be uncompromising, or can private equity investors fix Chrysler for good without a confrontation with the union?

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May 18, 2007

Light Friday: Found -- 585 New Species and Richest Shipwreck Treasure Ever...

... Forever Stamps, Political Food Stamp Challenge, Britain's Animal-Human Hybrids and The Mineral Moon Mosaic!

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May 17, 2007

Visibility Forecast: Occasionally Poor, Moderate or Good, Best-in-Class

While many in the service industry grouse over Sarbanes-Oxley's demand for transparency, one of manufacturing's enduring buzzwords is visibility. In the early days of the industrial revolution, the foremen carried the information about worker productivity, and perhaps supply levels, to the boss. Today it can all be automated on the plant floor.

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May 16, 2007

Revisiting Distribution Center Site Selection

Speed to market is key in logistics today, and distribution centers (DCs) are increasingly central to helping shippers achieve success. When selecting a site for the DC or warehouse, however, there are many factors that must be taken into account to ensure the right site without running into unexpected requirements that can hamper future operational costs.

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May 15, 2007

The Rise of Digital Humans in Auto Manufacturing

With Chrysler selling off 80 percent of its assets and Ford Motor Co. considering a similar deal according to analysts, where does the American car industry go from here? You do what any self-respecting car exec would do to irritate the workforce further: invest in ergonomics research!

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May 14, 2007

Going Once... Going Twice... Chrysler's Sold!

What was billed as “a marriage made in heaven” that never lived up to the name has ended in a deal that puts a major U.S. automaker in the hands of a private equity group for the first time, unwinding a 1998 merger that was meant to create a trans-Atlantic automotive powerhouse.

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May 11, 2007

Light Friday: Fiscal Affirmative Action, Wig-Wearing Cycling, an Integer for Mother's Day...

... Better Spacesuit Glove, Urine in Space, Dell Dinosaur Donated, a DIY Sugar-Sculpting 3D Fabricator and MORE.

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May 10, 2007

The Hidden Cost of Chemicals on Manufacturing

Given that most manufacturers depend on chemicals for some form of production and that, as a raw material expense, chemical costs are a key driver of profitability, the impact of rising costs is severe. In fact, if current conditions in the rising cost and availability of chemicals persist, a quarter of U.S. manufacturers will move some production overseas, according to a new report from AMR Research and NAM.

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May 9, 2007

Afterword on Adjusting Inventory

How do you adjust inventory so that you never lose customers due to delays while minimizing excessive inventory that isn't generating profit? Here is a simple view of how to forecast demand, following yesterday's IMT on Logistics & Transportation.

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May 8, 2007

Shipping: What to Look For in 2007 and Beyond

After a period of high demand and tight capacity, shippers across most modes can expect some breathing room in 2007, with demand slowing and capacity loosening as the overall economy slows. Here are some snapshots of what logistics buyers are currently facing and what can be expected in the near future.

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The Big List of Logistics Quick Tips

Fully grasping the logistics of the supply chain isn't easy. What should be priorities? What questions do you ask? Where do you even begin? Here we address these questions and more in this one-stop need-to-know guide to Logistics 101, as well as offer some basic tips and additional sources for all your logistics needs.

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Burning Question

What impact do energy prices have on your business?

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Boost Profits with Ship-It-Now Mentality

Between storage, tracking, billing and hiring, warehouse managers face myriad challenges. Although most warehouse managers strive to reduce costs for customers, 60 percent were unable to accomplish this goal between 2004 and 2006. The following are some actions you can take to be in the other 40 percent.

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Remove the Pain from 'Return to Sender' Refrain

Product returns cost U.S. manufacturers and retailers $100 billion annually and can reduce a manufacturer’s profitability by 3.8 percent. That is why reverse logistics is fast emerging as a core driver of competitive advantage and financial performance among manufacturing leaders.

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Confronting Toxins, Terrorism and Other Cargo Threats

Theft, construction and congestion have threatened reliability of transportation systems for decades. Although shippers have learned to adapt to and work around these obstacles, unpredictable delays, longer transit times and higher costs associated with inspections may make the past look like the good old days.

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Sporting an Olympic-Size Material of the Future

Considered a transparent plastic cousin to Teflon, ETFE is replacing glass and plastic in some of the most innovative buildings being designed and constructed today. Far from being a new material, it seems set to surge in notoriety due to its major role in remarkable structures being built for worldwide sporting events, including the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

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French Engineers Set Rail Record — With a Bullet

In April, a French-engineered high-speed train with a souped-up engine broke the world speed record for conventional rail trains, surpassing 354.1 mph. The French engineering team is not the only one on track to provide super-fast trains, though, nor was its intention simply to break a record. It is also big business.

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Think You're Smarter Than Donald Trump?

The middle class in the U.S. is waning, and not since the Roaring Twenties have the rich been so much richer than everyone else. Yet intelligence doesn't explain it, according to a new report that says IQ has really no relationship to wealth. So the rank-and-file are likely to be just as smart as millionaire CEOs? You don’t say.

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Recommended Reading

The ability to establish, grow, extend and restore trust with customers, suppliers and co-workers is the key leadership competency of the new global economy, writes Stephen M.R. Covey, whose “The Speed of Trust” offers an unprecedented and practical look at how trust functions in every transaction and relationship.

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May 7, 2007

Monitoring Supplier Collaboration: By the Numbers

Improvements in supplier performance are critical for increasingly more companies that rely on their supplier base for a huge variety of supplies and goods. Yet a recent Supply Chain Consortium survey of 100 top retail and consumer goods companies revealed that holding suppliers accountable through punitive compliance programs may not be working, as shown by the following key stats.

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May 4, 2007

Light Friday: Chevy Transformers, 5-Day Workweek, Brutal Firings...

... Engineering a Spidey Suit, Robots in Washington, Fusion Man, Middle Ages Tech Support and MORE!

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May 3, 2007

Unlimited Cross-Border Trucking: Hola o Adiós?

Saturday marks Cinco de Mayo, the Mexican national holiday — or what seems a perfect time to highlight the reemerging debate over Mexico-U.S. cross-border trucking, which transportation officials readdressed this week.

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Overhauling Innovation Funding

The Science and Technology Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation recently approved legislation to reauthorize the competitiveness and innovation initiatives of the National Institute of Standards and Technology — "the first time Congress has taken a comprehensive look at NIST since 1992." The bill would double the funding for two key innovation and competitiveness initiatives over the next 10 years.

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May 2, 2007

Report Details Crumbling Iraq Reconstruction 'Successes'

Problems with maintenance and other aspects of sustaining Iraq reconstruction projects threaten the future usefulness of some U.S.-built facilities, according to a new report. Poor construction, improper design, substandard materials and lack of maintenance have caused the failure of seven of eight such reconstruction projects recently reviewed by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.

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May 1, 2007

Obvious or Ingenious, Revisited: Overhauling Invention Ownership

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday made it more difficult for inventors to get patents on works that build on previous inventions. And interested parties have a greater ability to challenge patents and a greater possibility of prevailing. As such, we could see thousands of cases asking the Patent Office to re-examine patents it has already granted.

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Canadians Feel the Pinch, Too

Many U.S. citizens have long felt the ravaging effects of globalization. Our good neighbors to the north, too, are struggling with this juggernaut in the face of plant closures and millions of industry jobs lost over the last few years. Yet Canadian manufacturers seem upbeat about production and hiring prospects.

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