Find young people you determine are worth investing in, and then support their studies. That, says one who should know, is the best way to bond their interests to those of this industry and to your company.
The plastics industry and other manufacturing industries face a dramatic workforce shortage in the very near future. By 2012, it is estimated the United States alone will be short 3 million skilled workers, according to Barbara Fossum, president of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME). In a recent interview with Khaled Al-Mana, executive VP, polymers at plastics supplier Sabic, we asked him to identify challenges facing his company. He swiftly cited “human resources” as a global challenge facing Sabic, its competitors, and its customers, processors such as you.
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Dig deeper into the magazine for our cover story on e-commerce. Talking about e-business went out of style with the dotcom bubble’s explosion 10 years ago, but in fact processors are using the Web and other digital tools to very good advantage; we talk with two of them, one each in the United States and China, plus offer tips on making the most of your own website.
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In internal matters, I’m happy to announce that Canon Communications LLC, the parent company of Modern Plastics Worldwide, Injection Molding Magazine, the PlasticsToday.com Web portal and related products, plus the Plastec, Medtec, MD&M, and other industry-specific trade shows, was acquired for $287 million by United Business Media, making it one of the largest business-to-business (B2B) publishing deals this year.
The sale was announced on Sept. 16 but was subject to Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) antitrust clearance. With the sale now final, Canon will be renamed UBM Canon, but otherwise no major changes are planned.
Canon acquired four leading trade publications—Design News, Electronic Design News (EDN), Packaging Digest, and Test & Measurement World—earlier this year, and we here in the plastics group are working closely with editors of those and the other Canon publications to help bring you the best information a worldwide network of seasoned journalists can provide.
UBM claims the acquisition makes it the leading worldwide provider of trade show and related media for the growing medical device design and manufacturing market and adjacent advanced manufacturing sectors such as plastics processing. We’ve always felt comfortable in a leadership position and look forward to maintaining and further developing it.