A classic candy store offers a dazzling display of lollipops, gumballs and every variety of sprinkled, dusted chocolate and chewy, gummy delights. The bright colors and sugary sweet smell are designed to make an eight-year-old’s eyes bulge, mouth water and tongue hang out. IMTS is just like that, but for technical trade journalists. The show provides an immersive display of manufacturing technology and a seemingly unlimited supply of experts (some of them also colorful) to talk about applications of that technology.

Next month, much of our team will be heading to IMTS (Sept. 9–14 in Chicago) to explore all the latest technology in manufacturing. As always, the show promises to include a wide variety of ways for manufacturers to improve their quality, productivity and profitability.

Take this issue of Gear Technology, for example. It’s full of really great knowledge, including information about the latest technology for manufacturing; important gear-related events that have taken place or are about to; technical knowledge based on R&D, academic research and product development; and much more. In your hands, this issue has a lot of power. It can give you ideas about ways to help your company improve operations, become more profitable or make better gears. Maybe this knowledge could help you become better at your job. 

A single gear, by itself, doesn’t do much good. No matter how brilliant its design or how superb its quality, it has to mesh with another gear to achieve anything useful. The transfer of torque, the change of direction and the increase or reduction of rotational speed only occur when two or more gears come together. The same is true of you.

I joined the staff of Gear Technology 30 years ago, as a lowly editorial assistant. I had just moved back to the Chicago area after a brief stint working for a family business in Louisiana. The nice people at Randall Publications offered me an opportunity to put to good use my journalism degree as well as my enthusiasm for math and science.

OK, audience. I’m going to divide you into two groups. Everybody whose company is a member of AGMA, please move over to the left-hand side of the room, and everybody else, please move over to the right.

Last year, when I wrote this column about our annual State-of-the-Gear-Industry survey, I urged most of you to consider whether you were working for one of those gear industry companies engaged with the future or one of those ignoring it. I feel like I could run the same words again, and they would still apply.

Gear Technology TV is the home for original gear-related content created by our editors in conjunction with a lot of really smart people in our industry whom we’ve had the pleasure to interview on camera or include in one of our discussion panels. For years, we’ve been building our library of video content, and we’ve just added a bunch more.

Since our founding in 1984, Gear Technology’s goal has been to improve your knowledge, bringing you the best possible technical information about gear design, manufacturing, inspection, heat treating and much more. We keep you informed about the business of gear manufacturing, including the trends and technologies that will shape your companies in the coming years.

Electric vehicles are changing the gear industry. If your business is at all attached to the manufacture of automobiles, construction equipment, motorcycles, aircraft, I hope you’re paying attention. The gears you used to make are going to be changing if they haven’t already. E-mobility isn’t going away anytime soon.