Bob Vavra, Editor
Articles
It’s time to turn optimism into action
As real as the recession was, the end of the recession should be just as real. Taking all the lessons we learned, we have to move away from the shallow end of the pool and ramp up for growth.
The Changing World of the Plant Engineer
Technology and an evolving global landscape have changed the plant floor
One last word on the Changing World…
If you started in the back of the magazine this month, thanks for coming here first. I appreciate it. But for this month, head to our cover story first (starting on page 35). Don’t worry. I’ll wait… (We’ll pause here while you read “The Changing World of the Plant Engineer” study and Bob whistles, “We Are the World” quietly to himself.
Spring into productivity
There was spring in the air and a spring in the step of the winners of the 2009 Product of the Year awards dinner. The unseasonably warm weather in Chicago March 29 contributed to a warm atmosphere at the Hotel Sofitel, where the 22nd annual Product of the Year awards were presented. Fluke Corporation’s Digital Multimeter received the Grand Award, which is presented to the product that r...
Who will write the new book on quality?
They literally wrote the book on quality management – and more than 50 other books have been written about their quality system. Toyota and quality have been synonymous for three decades around the world – much to the chagrin of American-based automakers. Then stories began to emerge in January and February about millions of recalled Toyota cars and trucks after problems with a gas ...
Rethinking conventional wisdom on manufacturing
With the conventional wisdom about manufacturing blown to bits by the scope and depth of the 2009 recession, ARC Advisory Group president Andy Chatha said there needed to be a new paradigm as manufacturing tries to move forward. “Most of us have been doing a lot of rethinking in the last year or so,” said Chatha at the opening of ARC's World Industry Forum in February in Orlando.
Identify the opportunities for perfection
For people of a certain age, there was a certain way we learned how to do everything. To learn how to field ground balls and fly balls, I caught a lot of ground balls and fly balls. To learn to do multiplication, I ran down the multiplication tables. To spell, I got up in front of the class to participate in the spelling bee.
A light at the end of the tunnel
Just as people are not numbers, numbers are not people. Perhaps in no year since we’ve been doing the PLANT ENGINEERING Salary Survey has that been more apparent. The 2009 version of the Salary Survey was focused not just on how last year affected their wallets, but also on how last year affected their workplaces.
There’s still time to get this decade right
There were a number of lists making the rounds at the end of 2009. I’d say there were about 2,009 lists, to be exact, all touting the greatest achievements of the last decade – best movie of the decade, best athlete of the decade, best album of the decade. There were also a large number of lists celebrating the worst of the decade, but I see no need to be negative, except to point o...
An end in sight?
There’s a light at the end of manufacturing’s long, dark tunnel. How well you can see it largely depends on where you are standing right now. For the first time, the most compelling statistic that came out of Plant Engineering’s annual Salary Survey had nothing to do with salaries. The manufacturing recession was the topic that generated the most interesting response in this y...