McCormick Place, Chicago. A manufacturer's dream. Acres and acres of machine tools up and running - cutting chips, filling molds, moving material, bending, shaping, smoothing, measuring. Computers, robots and lasers everywhere - George Lucas goes to engineering school. Sounds, light and, most important, over 100,000 people, moving around, taking notes, asking questions and, above all, buying. This was IMTS '94. A heady, if tiring, experience.

A little more than ten years ago this month, the first Gear Technology came off the presses. It was a fledgling effort in every respect. The gear industry had never a magazine of its very own before. Those of us involved in its production were like first-time parents; we were proud and excited, but unsure of what we'd let ourselves in for. None of us knew if this baby could really fly.

IMTS 94, the Association for Manufacturing Technology's biennial machine tool extravaganza opens September 7 at McCormick Place in Chicago. As always, the size of this show is astonishing. Over 100,000 visitors, enough to populate a medium-size town, will converge on Chicago's lakefront to visit more than 1,200 exhibits spread over the entire McCormick Place complex.

Getting and keeping a work force capable of meeting the demands of the 21st century is one of the key challenges most U.S. manufacturers face today. That's not even news anymore. I - and others - have been talking about it in editorials and speeches for ten years now. It's also not news that the job is a tough one and that industry-wide response often has not been particularly effective.

ISO 9000 is the latest hot topic in marketing and manufacturing circles. Everyone seems to be talking about it, but few seem to understand it completely. depending on whom one talks to, it's either the greatest thing to hit industry since the assembly line, another cash cow for slick consultants, a conspiracy on the part of Europeans to dominate global markets, or the next necessary step to compete in the global economy of the twenty-first century. It may be all of the above.

Another year has passed and, because of the short term ups and downs of the economy, it's still hard to judge whether we are in an appreciably different place than we were a year ago. The economy doesn't seem to be worse than it was, but it also doesn't seem to be a whole lot better.

This issue of Gear Technology marks another milestone in the life of our magazine. After publishing 51 issues - nearly 200 articles containing close to 2,500 pages - we're ready to try something new.

Two items of interest have crossed my desk in the last couple of weeks. One of them is a copy of a speech by Harry E. Figge, Jr., Chairman and CEO of Figge, International Inc., and the other is an article by Peter Brimelow in the July 19, 1993, issue of Forbes. The two items are directly related to one another, the Brimelow article being a response to the points raised in Figge's speech and in much grater detail in his book, Bankruptcy 1995: The Coming Collapse of America and How to Stop It. Both the speech and the response are well worth our attention.

Gear Expo '93 - another trade show, another plea to send people and/or equipment out of town, away from the office or plant. Another bid to spend time, money, and effort. Oh, please! Hasn't anybody heard that these are the "lean and mean" '90s?

In this issue of Gear Technology, we are focusing on using computers to their greatest advantage in gear design and manufacturing. In a sense, that's old news. It's a cliche to suggest that computers make our work life easier and more productive. No company that wishes to remain competitive in today's global manufacturing environment can afford to be without computers in all their manifestations. We need them in the office; we need them next to our desks in place of drafting boards; we need them on the shop floor.