Regulations
MoldMaking Expo 2009: Get Organized
Surveys conducted by sister publication, Plastics Technology (www.ptonline.com) as well as MapYourShow (www.mapyourshow.com)—developed in 2005 by Gardner Publications, Inc. to provide state-of-the-art trade show mapping and planning solutions.
Read MoreAre You Charging or Recharging?
It goes without saying that shops and plants around the U.S. are facing intense economic and business pressures. For most of us, it was no bed of roses before today’s global credit crisis began last year—we’ve seen the competitive landscape shift dramatically over the past decade. A few weeks ago, I was talking to an old friend and fellow business owner in Ohio. He told me that his company was certainly feeling these pressures and he had to make some tough decisions to reduce costs—among them were reducing prices to maintain business and cash flow, and the hard choice to cut staff.
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Top 10 Machine Vision Improvement Opportunities
As the global manufacturing market continues to get more competitive, it is important to ensure that automation processes are running at peak efficiency levels. Any process-related malfunction is considered downtime, and directly impacts company profitability. Machine vision is an area that, when set up correctly, can reduce process inefficiencies.
Read MoreThink Global, Act Local!
Scan the headlines today and the news ranges from simply insane to the absurd.
Read MoreThe American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition
This grassroots effort pledges to raise awareness on this country’s current trade policy and effect change to level the playing field in regards to U.S. manufacturing.
Read MoreDeveloping Relationships
A large amount has been written about American moldmakers losing work to overseas competition.
Read MoreDedicated Mold Design Software Offering Complete CAM Integration
Missler Software (Addison, IL) launched the 2009 version of its TopSolid CAD/CAM software range at the EuroMold trade fair in Frankfurt, Germany last month.
Read MoreInnovation May Be the Answer
The results of a recent MoldMaking Technology magazine survey (January 2008) show “foreign competition” as the #1 challenge for the moldmaking industry.
Read MoreMy Olympic Experience
Last month I wrote about the shifting fortunes of China, and how excited my wife, Debbie, and I were to have tickets to attend the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. I promised to report what we found there, so here’s what we experienced: nothing. We didn’t go. As it turned out, the “company” that we purchased our tickets through last year turned out to be a scam. From what we’ve been able to learn, this “front” created an incredibly elaborate network of physical and online attributes—offices, phone numbers, Web sites, messaging—that fooled thousands of others around the world.
Read MoreChina’s Shifting Fortunes
The 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing were seen as China’s maturation as a culture, an economy and a global power. They also mark a crossroad for China. Nixon’s historic visit in 1972 set in motion events that would change—and are changing—our world. And not much has changed more in the past 30 years than manufacturing. But, this type of change is never without its challenges, and China is finding itself at a stage of maturity where its trajectory toward manufacturing/economic dominance is slowing down a bit.
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