Been thinking about innovation, outsourcing, and the world in general.

Have spent most of the day on the phone interviewing folks on various subjects. The morning began with a conference call announcing Rockwell Automation's 3Q 2010 results. Things are looking good for the Milwaukee-based company. The short take is this:

    * Revenue up 25 percent year over year and up 9 percent sequentially
    * Diluted EPS from continuing operations of $0.83
    * Company raises fiscal 2010 EPS guidance to $2.95 to $3.05 

I hadn't seen Nancy Bartels' excellent blog post while I was on vacation before I wrote this, which is the draft of my August editorial.

Enabling the Plant of the Future

Two articles have caught my eye in recent days that point out the weird disconnect between the crummy employment numbers and the fact that some manufacturers are going begging for employees. Both are from the New York Times. The first puts a "human face," as we used to call it in journalism class, on the vexing problem of trying to hire qualified people for manufacturing jobs.

9:41 a.m. #APW10 Santacana announces intent to build new $90 m high voltage cable factory in USA. Site select by Q3 and online by 2012.

 What Manufacturing Chief Financial Officers Have to Say

On March 22 Thorugh April 5, 2010, Grant Thornton LLP Conducted a Survey Among Chief Financial Officers. 496 U.S. CFOs and Senior Comptrollers were Surveyed. Among this Large Group, 92 Officers were from Manufacturing Companies. See What These Manufacturing Chief Financial Officers Had to Say...

It's interesting to watch an idea come of age. I've been covering manufacturing of one sort or another for more years than I'm usually prepared to admit to, and from the beginning, about once a year, someone would come up and say, "You know, you really oughta do a story on the decline of American manufacturing. The kids don't want to do this. The companies are moving everything overseas. What are we going to do when we don't make anything here anymore?"

The Conference Board Employment Trends Index (ETI)™

From ISA Past President Kim Miller-Dunn:

 This was sent to the Automation Federation board by Mike Marlowe, its director...

A while back (in 2006) I wrote an editorial titled "Would you want your kid to do this job?" If you want to re-read it, or read it now for the first time, here's the URL:

http://www.controlglobal.com/articles/2006/041.html

Recently, a reader named Bob Kluck sent me a comment on it: