Sometimes in the pressure to meet deadlines and handle the Crisis of the Day, we lose sight of the forest for the trees. As a partial cure for this syndrome, I recently reviewed the six interviews with gear industry leaders that have appeared in our pages during the last year, trying to get a grasp of a larger picture. It struck me with renewed force how six men, each with a lifetime of experience in this business, see the gear industry forest the same way.
Knowing the right thing to do isn't hard. Most often, it's very obvious. Actually doing it is something else again. For example, we all know that we probably eat too much refined sugar and fat, but when the double chocolate cheesecake come by, it's easy to convince ourselves that one piece won't hurt.
Beginning with this issue, one of the last bits of the "old" Gear Technology is gone. From now on we'll be running the new picture of me you see on this page. It was time, my art and editorial staff explained to me, to move ahead with the rest of the updated art and editorial in the magazine. (I emphatically deny that the real motivation for the new picture was putting a stop to the ever-increasing number of jabs from certain friends about my "Dorian Gray" look.)
"Values" is one of he buzzwords we hear everywhere today. Family values. Traditional values. Alternative values. Along with a balanced budget, less government and more fiber in our diets, "values" - and their practical counterparts, "ethics" - are being promoted as one of the simple, obvious solutions to what ails us as a country and as individuals.
The passage last year of both NAFTA and GATT has gone a long way toward leveling the playing field for American manufacturers and other hoping to compete in the global economy. Add to this news the fact that the domestic economy keeps growing, and it seems as though good times are ahead for the gear industry.
Welcome to the new Gear Technology. With this issue we begin bringing you a new look - a new cover, new graphics, a new, broader and more inclusive editorial focus. Our goal is to be an even better resource for the entire gear industry.
McCormick Place, Chicago. A manufacturer's dream. Acres and acres of machine tools up and running - cutting chips, filling molds, moving material, bending, shaping, smoothing, measuring. Computers, robots and lasers everywhere - George Lucas goes to engineering school. Sounds, light and, most important, over 100,000 people, moving around, taking notes, asking questions and, above all, buying. This was IMTS '94. A heady, if tiring, experience.
A little more than ten years ago this month, the first Gear Technology came off the presses. It was a fledgling effort in every respect. The gear industry had never a magazine of its very own before. Those of us involved in its production were like first-time parents; we were proud and excited, but unsure of what we'd let ourselves in for. None of us knew if this baby could really fly.
IMTS 94, the Association for Manufacturing Technology's biennial machine tool extravaganza opens September 7 at McCormick Place in Chicago. As always, the size of this show is astonishing. Over 100,000 visitors, enough to populate a medium-size town, will converge on Chicago's lakefront to visit more than 1,200 exhibits spread over the entire McCormick Place complex.
Getting and keeping a work force capable of meeting the demands of the 21st century is one of the key challenges most U.S. manufacturers face today. That's not even news anymore. I - and others - have been talking about it in editorials and speeches for ten years now. It's also not news that the job is a tough one and that industry-wide response often has not been particularly effective.