Plant & Facilities Engineering

This is the second recent U.S. recession with anemic job growth, particularly in the manufacturing sector. U.S. home sales are up for 3 months as are the stock market and many other economic indicators. The economy seems to be rebounding except for unemployment, which his expected to continue to decline well into next year. What does this mean for U.S. manufacturing? Are fundamental changes to U.S. manufacturing industries needed? If so, what are they and what will the new 'manufacturing reality' be?

The preceding article is a "sneak peek" from Plant & Facilities Engineering, a newsletter from GlobalSpec. To stay up-to-date and informed on industry trends, products, and technologies, subscribe to Plant & Facilities Engineering today.

National Manufacturing Week, a trade show for manufacturing industries held each year in Chicago, is no more. It used to fill 2.6 million sq.ft. of conference space. Now, it's held in a hall one-third the size in a Chicago suburb.

The preceding article is a "sneak peek" from Plant & Facilities Engineering, a newsletter from GlobalSpec. To stay up-to-date and informed on industry trends, products, and technologies, subscribe to Plant & Facilities Engineering today.

To reduce the costs of installing, verifying and troubleshooting production equipment, more OEMs are adding Web servers to their control systems for remote monitoring and service. However, this essentially puts your production equipment 'on the Web,' opening it up to potential cyber attacks. Do you have sufficient confidence in your network security to install Web servers on your production equipment? How do you plan to deal with this situation?

The preceding article is a "sneak peek" from Plant & Facilities Engineering, a newsletter from GlobalSpec. To stay up-to-date and informed on industry trends, products, and technologies, subscribe to Plant & Facilities Engineering today.

Stock markets around the world are recovering a bit, manufacturing sentiment is up, automobile lots in the U.S. are temporarily empty, and engineers are seeing small increases in their annual wage. The good news seems to be piling up, right along with rising unemployment numbers. Has the global economy turned the corner on the recession, or is the light at the end of the tunnel just another train heading down the tracks?

The preceding article is a "sneak peek" from Plant & Facilities Engineering, a newsletter from GlobalSpec. To stay up-to-date and informed on industry trends, products, and technologies, subscribe to Plant & Facilities Engineering today.

The National Society of Professional Engineers licenses structural, civil, and electrical engineers, but does not have the power to license engineers that do work or research for industrial and commercial interests. Now it is suing to remove an exception that has allowed industrial and product engineers to not have to pay licensing fees. Would the engineering profession be better off if it had a single association to monitor all engineers?

The preceding article is a "sneak peek" from Plant & Facilities Engineering, a newsletter from GlobalSpec. To stay up-to-date and informed on industry trends, products, and technologies, subscribe to Plant & Facilities Engineering today.