Tenneco Automotive to set up engineering center in China
Rockwell to help companies with predictive maintenance
Jobless claims decline in most recent week
NAM praises Labor Department on new overtime rules
New York pledges nearly $20 million to help train workers
Green tea compound to clean up industrial machining
Timken Co. names NAM president to board of directors
White paper helps MRO managers speak ROI language
World economic growth to ramp up in 2004 and 2005
Workers willing to relocate may find jobs faster
Leading indicators on the rise
Economist describes industrial production impact as limited
Scientists create production process for nano-sorbent
OSHA cites wire rod maker following worker fall

The new center will provide engineering resources for the company's ride control and emission control businesses and will support aftermarket and OEM customers.

"One of Tenneco Automotive's key growth strategies is to expand in new markets, and China represents a tremendous opportunity in this area," said Mark P. Frissora, chairman and CEO of Tenneco Automotive. "We anticipate a growth rate there of approximately 10 percent annually over the next five to seven years."

Tenneco Automotive is in the process of surveying customers and local government officials in finalizing implementation plans and site selection.

The company established its first joint venture in China in 1995 and is currently China's No. 1 supplier of exhaust systems to OEMs, excluding pass-through catalytic converters. 

Reflecting its strong growth in China, the company recently announced two new joint ventures:
• Chongqing Walker Exhaust System Co. Ltd. - a joint venture with China-based Chengdu Lingchuan Mechanical Plant to supply emission control products and systems to Changan Ford Co.;
• Walker-Eberspacher Automotive Exhaust System Co. Ltd. - a joint venture with Eberspacher International GmbH to manufacture and distribute emission control products and systems for BMW and Audi vehicles produced in China.

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Rockwell to help companies with predictive maintenance
Rockwell Automation created the Rockwell Automation Center for Integrated Condition Monitoring in Houston, a resource for process and petrochemical manufacturers.

The center will help companies improve performance metrics by maximizing production uptime and reducing maintenance costs through predictive maintenance strategies.

Staffed with dedicated specialists experienced in developing and implementing predictive maintenance solutions for process applications, the center's mission is to promote improved production performance by monitoring and protecting the effectiveness of plant assets.

The center will help organizations integrate cutting-edge monitoring and protection technology into a facility's existing networking infrastructure and optimize their maintenance activities based on actual asset condition, rather than more costly scheduled, routine maintenance.

"In industries with continuous flow and process applications, each hour of unplanned downtime can be extremely costly, in some instances thousands of dollars an hour," said Mike Laszkiewicz, vice president of asset management for Rockwell Automation. "The center is a resource to help manufacturers tap into never-before-imagined opportunities to monitor and protect their plant assets. By proactively identifying developing faults in equipment, corrections can be made before production, safety or reliability is impacted."

The center's activities will be closely linked with Rockwell Automation's Integrated Condition Monitoring Solutions business headquarters in Milford, Ohio.

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Jobless claims decline in most recent week
The number of new claims for unemployment insurance declined 9,000 to 353,000 for the week ended April 17, according to the Labor Department. The four-week moving average of jobless claims increased 2,250 to 347,000 during the same week.

The four-week moving average is generally considered by economists to be the more reliable of the two because it smoothes out week-to-week volatility. Both rates remained below 400,000, which is the level economists use to define a weak labor market and a stable one.

Continuing claims for unemployment insurance increased 52,000 to 3 million for the week ended April 10. Continuing claims are those older than two weeks.

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NAM praises Labor Department on new overtime rules
The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) congratulated the Department of Labor for being the first in decades to tackle the challenge of revising the nation’s 50-year-old regulations governing white-collar exemptions from overtime pay.

“There have obviously been major changes since the proposed rule was issued last year. Everyone on all sides of this issue would do well to carefully digest all 500-plus pages and keep their powder dry before playing election-year politics,” said NAM human resources policy vice president Sandy Boyd.

Employers today are more likely to be sued for alleged violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act – enacted in 1938 and laden with anachronisms like the term “straw boss” – than any other labor statute.

“An aggressive trial bar combined with vague, outdated regulations makes for bad policy that benefits neither employers nor their employees,” Boyd recently wrote in a letter to Congress. “What employers want...in the final regulation is clarity and protection from senseless litigation.”

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New York pledges nearly $20 million to help train workers
New York Governor George E. Pataki announced the creation of a $19.5 million New York Skilled Manufacturing Resource Training (NY SMART) program.

The governor pledged in January to create a new, targeted job-training program that will help New York’s manufacturers create jobs and foster the most skilled and productive workforce in the nation.

The NY SMART program will provide new job training assistance to help small, medium and large manufacturing firms upgrade the skills of new and incumbent workers.

“One of the key factors any company considers when deciding where to locate or expand their business is having access to a highly skilled and educated workforce,” said Pataki. “New York already has the best trained workforce in America, but we know we can make it even better. I am confident that with our new NY SMART program and other job training programs, we will achieve our ambitious goal of creating 1 million jobs by the end of the decade.”

The creation of this new, targeted manufacturing job-training assistance program is one of the five key components of Pataki’s aggressive new plan to strengthen New York’s manufacturers. 

Other points of his plan include:
• dramatic reforms to New York's workers’ compensation system that would reduce costs for businesses by more than 15 percent;
• providing a new Single Sales Factor tax benefit for manufacturers;
• extending the highly successful Power for Jobs program; and,
• creating a new Manufacturing Assistance Program (MAP) to coordinate federal, state and local assistance programs and link manufacturing companies to the appropriate research and development grant funding.

For more information on taking part in the NY SMART program, visit the New York Department of Labor Web site.

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Green tea compound to clean up industrial machining
Derived in part from green tea, a new biodegradable machining compound for computer hard drive manufacturing is three to four times more effective than toxic counterparts.

In an industry where more than 161 million hard drives leave assembly lines each year, the new compound could significantly improve manufacturing efficiency and minimize environmental risks.

Engineered by John Lombardi of Ventana Research Corp. in Tucson, Ariz., as part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant, the chemical is part of a slurry that polishes the ceramics, made from aluminum oxide and titanium carbide, used in computer hard drive read-write heads.

"The potential merits of this compound are impressive," said James Rudd, the NSF program officer who oversees Ventana's award. "If confirmed in industrial settings, the three- to four-fold increase in efficiency could mean substantial reductions in hard-drive manufacturing costs, and all with a product that is less corrosive and more environmentally sound."

The new compound is part of a family of machining fluids that bind to polishing debris and rapidly remove tiny particles from the polishing surface. The fluids are critical because imperfections in read-write heads must be less than 10 angstroms high; larger defects can cause the head to crash into the disk, causing data loss.

Ventana formulates its fluid using a combination of synthetic proteins derived from common commercial chemicals and compounds extracted from green tea and other plants. Compared to many natural machining fluid compounds, which are often rare and expensive, the plant chemicals in the Ventana fluid are abundant and easily extractable.

Those chemicals, the same ones responsible for forming tenacious stains in coffee pots and drinking mugs, grant the Ventana fluid its ability to bind to the particle debris formed while polishing read-write heads.

According to Lombardi, the fluid’s possible biocompatibility and high affinity for ceramics and metals may lead to applications in wastewater treatment, where the compound could remove heavy metal contaminants from water, and medicine, where the compound may have advantages for delivering certain cancer treatments.

NSF awards SBIR grants to small businesses for risky, novel research with a potential for commercialization. Through SBIR and the related Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, NSF encourages partnerships between the small business and the academic sectors to develop a technology base for commercialization.

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Timken Co. names NAM president to board of directors
National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) president Jerry Jasinowski will serve a three-year term on the Timken Co.'s board of directors. Jasinowski was elected to his term, which will expire at the company's 2007 annual meeting, at Timken's most recent annual shareholder meeting.

James W. Griffith, John A. Luke Jr., Frank C. Sullivan and Ward J. Timken were also re-elected for three-year terms expiring 2007.

The remaining eight directors include:
• Robert W. Mahoney;
• Jay A. Precourt;
• Ward J. Timken Jr.;
• Joseph F. Toot Jr.;
• Joseph W. Ralston;
• John M. Timken Jr.;
• W. R. Timken Jr.; and
• Jacqueline F. Woods.

Jasinowski, a one-time factory worker, joined the U.S. Air Force as an intelligence officer. He went on to become assistant professor of economics at the U.S. Air Force Academy. In the early 1970s, he managed research and legislative affairs for the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. In 1976, he served as director of the Carter administration's economic transition team for the departments of Treasury, Commerce, Labor, the Council of Economic Advisors and the Federal Reserve. He later was appointed assistant secretary for policy at the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Since 1990, Jasinowski served as president of the NAM, the largest industry trade group in the country, with 14,000 member companies across all industrial sectors. The NAM is one of the country's most respected authorities on political, economic and manufacturing trends and the most effective advocate of manufacturing interests.

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White paper helps MRO managers speak ROI language
As economic conditions continue to spur cost-savings initiatives in the manufacturing sector, one of the common targets is the maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) department.

A new white paper from Rockwell Automation educates MRO managers on how to effectively communicate the value of maintenance in terms that management understands, helping to improve the likelihood for support of new initiatives or additional expenses.

The white paper may be downloaded free at www.rockwellautomation.com/services.

The paper, Translating Maintenance Initiatives Into Meaningful Financial Benefits, explains the importance of positioning maintenance initiatives within the context of underlying business goals and outlines the criteria and key steps for developing an effective strategic plan.

Relying on case history examples and industry research, the paper shows how to calculate and report return on MRO investments and explains how even a modest improvement in maintenance efficiency can significantly boost company profits.

As manufacturers continue to align maintenance activities with company goals, MRO managers must be able to effectively communicate this value and explain why investment in maintenance makes solid financial sense.

By focusing on the language skills and supporting documentation needed to present a persuasive strategic plan, the paper helps MRO managers present their case using documentation and business language understood by management.

"Demonstrating the value of maintenance requires a significant investment in time and energy to sell management not only on the tactics but also on the concept of maintenance as a business strategy," said Mike Laszkiewicz, vice president of asset management business for Rockwell Automation. "It takes effective communication skills, properly applied knowledge and the ability to speak the right language. MRO managers can learn to bridge the communication gap and become effective translators between the front office and the plant floor."

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World economic growth to ramp up in 2004 and 2005
Led by strong performances of the United States and emerging Asia, especially China, world economic growth will reach its highest rate in a generation in 2004 before moderating somewhat in 2005, according to the semiannual global forecast from the Institute for International Economics.

High world oil prices and the threat of a further price spike pose some near-term risk to this happy scenario. Other important policy challenges cloud prospects for the longer term. In particular, the United States needs to get employment growth up and its budget and current account deficits down, while China needs to tame the excesses of an overheating economy and correct its undervalued exchange rate.

Former International Monetary Fund chief economist Michael Mussa forecast a 4.75 percent rise in world real gross domestic product (GDP) for 2004, followed by a 4 percent rise for 2005. This would be the strongest two-year rise in world output since the recovery from the worldwide recession of the early 1980s.

Martin Baily, the chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton, said rapid productivity growth and a modest recovery in real GDP since the recession of 2001, mainly “explain” the weakness in job growth.

Over a longer time horizon, rapid productivity growth will raise real wages and employment. However, the U.S. economic expansion may prove difficult to sustain, and its benefits will surely not spread as broadly as they should unless job growth soon accelerates.

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Workers willing to relocate may find jobs faster
A 22 percent drop in job-search times for the highest-paid managers and executives may foreshadow improved hiring in the coming months for workers at lower levels of the corporate ladder.

In order to take advantage of accelerated hiring, job seekers are advised to follow the lead of top-earning executives and increase their willingness to relocate for the best available opportunities.

Twenty-nine percent of job seekers earning more than $100,000 with their former employer relocated for a new position in the first quarter, according to the latest Challenger Job Market Index. The index comes from a quarterly survey of 3,000 discharged managers and executives conducted by global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

The first-quarter relocation rate was 22 percent higher than the fourth quarter of 2003 (23.7 percent).

By contrast, only 13 percent of managers and executives earning below $100,000 relocated for new jobs in the first quarter of 2004. Among this same group, the Challenger survey found that the median job-search time was 3.9 months, down only slightly from 4.2 months in the first quarter of 2003.

"Without a doubt, the odds of finding a job faster are significantly enhanced by casting as wide a net as possible, which means expanding the job search beyond the limited geographic borders of one's hometown," said John A. Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

He added: "Unfortunately, many people think only in the short term and see such dramatic changes as too risky. As a result, they do not even consider the option as a growth opportunity. However, this could prove to be a serious mistake in today's competitive job market."

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Leading indicators on the rise
The Conference Board's U.S. leading index increased 0.3 percent in March after pausing in February. The leading index increased 4.4 percent from its most recent low in March 2003, although growth slowed somewhat in recent months.

Six of the 10 indicators that make up the leading index increased in March.

The positive contributors – beginning with the largest positive contributor – were vendor performance, real money supply, average weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance (inverted), building permits, manufacturers’ new orders for consumer goods and materials, and index of consumer expectations.

The negative contributors – beginning with the largest negative contributor – were interest rate spread, stock prices, average weekly manufacturing hours, and manufacturers’ new orders for nondefense capital goods.

The leading index now stands at 115.3 (1996=100). Based on revised data, this index remained unchanged in February and increased 0.4 percent in January. During the six-month span through March, the leading index increased 1.8 percent, with seven out of 10 components advancing.

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Economist describes industrial production impact as limited
Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI chief economist Daniel J. Meckstroth said last Friday's dip in industrial production should worry American manufacturers very little.

"A small decline in March industrial production follows a strong gain in the first two months of 2004," said Meckstroth. "It shows what every manufacturer knows: Business is volatile, growing in spurts, not in a smooth pattern."

Meckstroth said the report should be seen as a brief pause in an otherwise solid period of industrial expansion.

"From fourth quarter 2003 to first quarter 2004, industrial production grew at a 6.6 percent annual rate, which is substantially faster than the 4.5 percent to 5 percent growth expected in the overall economy during the same time period," he said.

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Scientists create production process for nano-sorbent
Researchers at NanoScale Materials Inc. developed scaled-up production processes for an advanced nano-engineered family of products designed to provide first responders, hazmat teams and other emergency personnel with a single technology to counteract a variety of toxic industrial chemicals.

FAST-ACT (First Applied Sorbent Treatment Against Chemical Threats) is non-toxic, non-corrosive and non-flammable and is particularly useful when response personnel are confronted with a chemical spill whose exact nature is unknown.

While substances such as activated carbon only physically absorb toxic substances, FAST-ACT neutralizes, destroys and renders them harmless. Independent testing by chemical warfare experts showed that FAST-ACT removed more than 99 percent of such agents as VX, soman and mustard gas from surfaces in less than 90 seconds.

The initial research that led to FAST-ACT was conducted by the Kansas State University laboratory of Kenneth Klabunde. The National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program supported NanoScale’s research to make the production processes commercially viable.

This scaling-up required dramatic process changes, development of quality control standards and testing to confirm the safety and efficacy of FAST-ACT.

The active ingredient in FAST-ACT, NanoActive Magnesium Oxide Plus, has a large surface area that gives it the ability to capture and destroy toxic chemicals. A little less than an ounce of the material has the surface area of almost three NFL football fields.

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OSHA cites wire rod maker following worker fall
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited Connecticut Steel Corporation (CSC), of Wallingford, Conn., a manufacturer of wire reinforcing rods, for a total of 47 alleged willful, serious and other workplace safety and health violations.

OSHA inspected CSC after a worker was injured in a fall.

"To ensure that injury and illness rates continue to decline, we must make sure that employers protect employees from workplace hazards," said Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao. "The significant penalty of $149,500 in this case demonstrates the administration's commitment to promoting the health and safety of American workers."

OSHA's inspection identified several fall and tripping hazards, including unguarded floor holes and an unguarded pit opening, defective ladders, missing guardrails and failure to wear body belts with a lanyard while working in an aerial lift.

Other hazards included numerous instances of unguarded moving machine parts, blocked and locked exits and missing exit signs, failure to test confined spaces and train workers in confined space hazards, lock-out/tag-out deficiencies, inadequate training of forklift operators, unmarked, uninspected and damaged slings, inadequate hazard communication training and labeling as well as exposed live electrical parts.

These citations were classified as serious and carry $99,200 in fines.

CSC was issued a willful citation for failing to implement an effective hearing conservation program for workers exposed to excess noise levels. A fine of $49,500 is proposed for this item.

The company faces an additional fine of $800 for an incomplete OSHA 300 illness and injury log.

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