Chips (semiconductor) chips, I dream of you “Chips chips da ti du di du … I dream of you …” skats Italian jazz musician Paolo Conte in his 1981 masterpiece Via con me. This is the manufacturing community’s refrain as international borders threaten to harden into chokepoints for semiconductor-related commerce. In fact, the chip industry…

A new way of thinking One of the most valuable pieces of “real estate” in any magazine is the page facing the inside back cover. Over the years, I’ve known many publications — both trade and consumer — with must-read departments or columns in that sacred space. Many times, they’re on the lighthearted or even…

When team motivation becomes a dead end Engineering leaders are not immune to that constant management mantra of motivate, motivate, motivate. In fact, some managers I’ve known seem to do little more than try to motivate others, with flowery speeches and too-long-to-read emails ending in statements like “This is going to be THE YEAR!!!” But…

Leadership in Engineering Any time a manufacturer listens to and partners with its customers, its engineers will design and build the kind of products that can accelerate innovation. Engineers want to solve problems, whether with custom or off -the-shelf solutions — but they want their products to be reliable. After all, no one would build…

A thank you to two impactful editors With the new year always comes change. Here at Design World, we’re bidding adieu to two fantastic editors who are retiring after long and fruitful careers. Leslie Langnau, who served for more than a decade as this publication’s Managing Editor, has truly been my mentor here. She’s covered…

In this issue: Increasing supply to meet demand with 3D printing Partnering with 3D printing helps prosthetics developer create better products, gain workflow efficiencies, meet increasing demand, and shift to titanium 3D printing, all within in 6 months. Going small with 3D printing The scale of sizes that 3D printing machines can handle is impressive,…

The value of good advice There’s an old proverb that says, “Good advice is beyond all price.” This might be true, but people generally tend to ignore advice, at least the unsolicited kind. For business owners and entrepreneurs, the reason is simple: they’re too busy working. Overwhelm and multi-tasking means there’s little time for heeding…

STEM, diversity, and today’s manufacturer At the recent Danfoss Distributor Meeting in Orlando, I caught up with Eric Alström, the company’s President. The company is a year removed from the purchase of Eaton’s hydraulic business, and I asked him about some current issues facing manufacturers. One area discussed at the meeting was the importance of…

No, autonomous vehicles aren’t dead The hot-take artists wasted no time after the recent Argo AI shutdown. This was an unexpected move by Ford and Volkswagen, which were the two largest financial backers of the once-promising autonomous driving startup. But shortly after the news broke, many “experts” already signed the death certificate for the entire…

More on China’s strange future In June, I wrote about the insane-sounding predictions about China’s future and the repercussions they would have for the country’s manufacturing base. If you’ll recall, geopolitical analyst Peter Ziehan said the Chinese population is currently the fastest aging society in human history — and that, combined with a poor Covid-19…

Motion system applications take center stage the calendar year comes to a close, it’s time again for Design World’s annual Motion System Applications special issue. The fourth and final installment of our motion control-focused series, this edition houses a collection of case histories and in-depth looks at myriad real-world application challenges for motion systems. Here,…

Helping the world through engineering Today’s global engineering challenges require collaboration to solve. Engineering is a stepping stone to many opportunities Women don’t have to be perfect in math or science to consider becoming an engineer. Engineering skills can be applied to a range of fields and corporate opportunities. From engineer to author Today’s global…

How COVID continues to drive manufacturing COVID-19 changed so much in the world, from losing loved ones to financial distress for individuals and businesses. It also changed a lot of things in industry — fostered innovation in pharmaceutical and vaccine science, made remote working the norm for many workers, and made Zoom meetings more of…

Leading and not giving advice Engineers who move up the so-called corporate ladder and become team leaders sometimes struggle with managing other employees. That can be because it was simply not part of their educational experience — or because their organizations are lacking in meaningful internal leadership development programs. One habit that new leaders can…

Mark your calendars When the International Fastener Expo (IFE) launched more than 40 years ago, the aim was to bring manufacturers and distributors of industrial fasteners, precision-formed parts, and machinery tooling together. That goal is still the same. Impressively, IFE was and still is the largest fastener event in North America. What started as a…

How Engineering Can Clear The Air Early in the COVID-19 pandemic way back in 2020, we here at Design World did quite a number of stories on companies designing and building ventilators and other medical devices to accommodate the rapid uptick in need in the face of the COVID surge. This was still in the…

A shout out to the editors I work with a truly fantastic group of editors here at WTWH Media, and I probably don’t give them as much recognition in this column as I should. I’m very proud of their constant hard work, their editorial integrity, and their commitment to the industries we serve. They take…

Next EV Anxiety: Cold Weather If you wandered around the Society of Automotive Engineers’ annual trade show earlier this year, you would have seen a number of ideas aimed at cutting power consumption in electric vehicles. One development in that category was from a company called BetterFrost. It devised a more energy efficient windshield defroster.…

In May, I attended my first trade show in nearly three years. After months behind a screen, connecting with others via conference calls and Zoom meetings, it took leaving my home office before I realized how much I missed meeting new people and interacting with others — in person. Kudos to Fastener Fair USA for…

Hirschtick on the cloud, CAD, and the future I attended the recent Robotics Summit & Expo in Boston, and one of the highlights was hearing Jon Hirschtick’s keynote. Hirschtick is General Manager, Onshape and Atlas, PTC — and is famous in engineering circles as being the fellow who created Solidworks. He was also a member…

A frequency you can count on There are few constants in life, but what few there are might include death, taxes, and a U.S. grid frequency that doesn’t vary by more than ±0.5 Hz. However, the certainty of the grid frequency is coming into question, thanks to the rising percentage of renewable energy sources that…

Is China’s manufacturing future in trouble? At the recent NFPA Annual Conference, I was eager to hear Peter Ziehan, the famed geopolitical analyst, and his take on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ziehan has been predicting this type of aggression from Putin for years, based on his country’s terrible societal demographics, which indicate a country slowly…

5G IN 2022: AN ENGINEER’S PERSPECTIVE Welcome to EE World’s 2022 5G Handbook. We gathered a new collection of articles, some 15 in total that appear in the electronic version. The articles in this year’s handbook look at 5G across hardware and software. If you’re an IoT device designer that needs to connect to a…

EVs AS MOTION DESIGN KIN It’s deeply satisfying when new (and burgeoning) industries adopt the electric motors we in the motion-control industry know so well — especially for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), autonomous ground vehicles (AGVs), passenger hybrid vehicles, and all-electric vehicles (EVs). Multiple decades in the motion industry have imparted in this author a…

Back in person … finally! While we’re not quite past the Covid-19 pandemic, and many areas of the world are still struggling with this virus, it’s hopeful to see that business travel in the United States has picked up — and getting back together in person is becoming possible once again. After two-plus years of…