By the Numbers

Staff -- Control Engineering, 10/1/2006

21% reduction in North American production (168,000 units) for fourth-quarter 2006 is what Ford Motor Co. expects, as of Aug. 18; the year is expected to result in 9% less Ford production (1.134 million cars and 1.914 million trucks) than in 2005. www.ford.com

3 things U.S. policies have mortgaged: our fortunes, principles, and way of life, says Sen. Byron L. Dorgan's book, “Take this Job and Ship It. How Corporate Greed and Brain Dead Politics Are Selling Out America.” www.takethisjobandshipit.com

10,000 is nearly the annual number of industrial robots produced by Kuka Robotics Corp. It has an installed base of over 60,000 units; 5- and 6-axis robots range from 3 to 570 kg payloads, and 635 to 3700 mm reach. Each has a common PC-based controller platform. www.kukarobotics.com

3 educational forums begin on Jan. 6 and 7, before the ProMat 2007 show in Chicago. Topics include material handling basics, supply chain synchronization, and lean material handling. Automation is part of the for-credit workshops. www.promatshow.com

28 members belong to FIPA (Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents), an IEEE Computer Society standards organization that promotes agent-based technology and the interoperability of its standards with other technologies. FIPA, originally a Swiss-based organization, joined IEEE as its 11th standards committee in 2005. Many FIPA ideas “are now coming into sharp focus in new generations of Web/Internet technology and related specifications,” FIPA says. http://standards.computer.org/fipa

43% increase in automated handling of goods resulted from investments in supply chain security, cited by 11 manufacturers and 3 logistics providers in the National Association of Manufacturers report, “Innovators in Supply Chain Security: Better Security Drives Business Value,” July 2006, part of NAM's Manufacturing Innovation Series. A 30% reduction in process deviations also was among benefits. www.nam.org

200 million scientific Web pages deliver results at Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of research literature and quality Web sources, according to Elsevier, a sister company of Control Engineering, supporting research. It references patents, journals, trade publications, and more with links to full-text articles and resources. http://info.scopus.com

$1 million is the per project cap available for businesses under the Combined Heat & Power (CHP) 2006 Program (part of the New Jersey Clean Energy Program) to generate power on-site, recover waste heat, reduce electric power grid demands and encourage emerging technologies, such as fuel cells. See cover story this issue and www.njcleanenergy.com.

20 minute audio file weekly broadcasts are available from Reed Business Information-UK's New Scientist publication. The weekly Podcast is dubbed sciPod. General science topics include “Race to create self-driving robot cars,” “Time stretchers,” and “Better than human.” www.newscientist.com/podcast.ns