Seems simple enough doesn't it? It is most decidedly not. Indeed, one can make the case that--aside from uppermost management (or ownership)-- no one else in a heavy/high-tech manufacturing concern has more ownership of the company's everyday needs and necessities than the purchasing department.

We are pleased to present our first annual Engineering Showcase, a celebration of some of the leading products and companies in mechanical power transmission. In the pages that follow, you’ll find examples of engineering excellence and technological know-how in the field of gears, drives, couplings, machine parts and other mechanical components.

If you attended IFPE 2014 in Las Vegas (colocated with ConExpo and Con/AGG), chances are you saw plenty of products and technologies set to redefine the construction and off-highway markets. It's a safe bet, however, that you didn't see everything. Between the outdoor maze of cranes and construction equipment and the eye-opening, innovative booths at IFPE, it's okay to admit that you may have suffered from a case of information overload. Here are a few points of interest for those that didn't attend IFPE this year or didn't see everything they wanted to see.

EECV in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, keeps on expanding and improving. In 2013 their transhipment of coal increased and they installed a new bucket wheel reclaimer with a capacity of 3,500 tons per hour. They chose a direct-drive system from Bosch Rexroth for this big bucket wheel. The drive system consists of a Hägglunds MB 1600 motor and a DUe drive unit.

Global economic activity remains good -- noise about China slowing, notwithstanding -- and despite the ObamaCare debacle, non-Christmas-related consumer spending looks pretty good. Europe is still Europe and China continues to grow 7-8 percent -- even as the government seeks to clamp down on its own shadow banking system. And India remains a mess.

When software goes bad, what do we call it? System failure? Human failure? A virus? A number of words will work. How about this? Glitch. It has that onomatopoeic quality that fairly screams, Downtime! And with good reason -- software-generated miscalculations can have very expensive -- if not perilous -- repercussions.

Collaboration moves bearing modeling and simulation software forward

PTE Video from SKF, LinkedIn contribution from Dassault Systemes, Twitter updates on IFPE 2014 and a shout-out to the Gear Technology blog.

Global economic demand remains solid - even if you couldn't tell by recent third-quarter results and despite all efforts by U.S. politicians of both political parties. Let's go through what happened and what is coming.

Our comprehensive 2013 directory of mechanical power transmission components suppliers by category.