This is the time of year for graduations, weddings, and outdoor musical concerts. And of course, tomorrow many of us will be at a local park, picnic dinners spread out on a blanket beneath the stars waiting for the July 4th fireworks.

It’s been a grueling five years with the bailouts, rampant unemployment, declining home values, and rising prices, which have manifested as insecurity, fear, and stress, and for those who are employed—overwork.

The question, “Why do you ask?” is typically posed in response to an inquiry that is deemed a bit nosey. It’s actually more of a statement... along the lines of, “Mind your own business!”

Imagine smart tools or robotic delivery systems that instantaneously know where they are on an ever-changing shop floor, a system that could automatically orient a CAD model of an object on the shop floor to the local coordinate system without the use of targets or h

(SME: Dearborn, MI) -- The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) will offer a two-day, instructor-led workshop on design for manufacturing and design for assembly. The course will be held Oct. 4–5, 2012, in Glendale, California, at the Embassy Suites.

(Fabricating Partners: Hoboken, NJ) -- Fabricating Partners Inc. has launched Fabricating.com, an online request for quote (RFQ) marketplace designed to help U.S. buyers build U.S. supplier networks and manufacture made-to-order parts.

(Exact Metrology: Cincinnati) -- For years, engineers have anticipated the day when a full-color 3-D scanner can be picked up, plugged into a laptop computer, and ready to use. The Eva 3D Scanner from Artec now offers this.

(Konica Minolta: Ramsey, NJ) -- We eat first with our eyes, as the saying goes. It’s no surprise, then, that the food industry spends countless hours creating the ideal shades that we will see when we open a package.

(Creaform: Lévis, Québec, Canada) -- Creaform, a leader in portable 3-D optical measurement technologies and 3-D engineering services, and Faurecia Autositze GmbH are working together on a software solution for the measurements and positioning of dummies.

Patrice Boutier and Conrad Soltero wrote The Seven Kata: Toyota Kata, TWI, and Lean Training, (Productivity Press, 2012), to show how Training Within