Personally, I have never made a New Year’s resolution, at least not in January.   Business-wise, however, that is another story.

The turn of the New Year is a very good time to take stock of your business from all angles, not just from the IRS angle.

It’s a good time to measure your success and to identify what you can do better in the coming year and to make specific plans to achieve those goals.

Customer service has always been ACS Industrial’s number one priority.  Whatever we can do to repair it faster, better, and for less money is where we shine our laser focus.  To that end, in 2012 ACS will be:

Getting ready for your annual or semi-annual plant maintenance shutdown?

To keep the budget and schedule intact, remember to keep your to-do list as short as possible and focus on the things that can only be accomplished during a major shutdown.  Everything else can be scheduled during normal minor shutdowns for preventive maintenance.

Of course, you can’t schedule an emergency and by now you have learned that the universe can turn on a dime and to expect the unexpected.  ACS won’t be shutting down, and your ACS repair team will be here to help you with your industrial electronic equipment repairs, even the unexpected rush electronic repairs.

Is your industrial touch screen monitor misbehaving?   Flickering? Not responding?  Most resistive touch screens are designed to last for more than 35 million touches in one spot before failing, as much as 4 times longer lasting than the display.  That sounds like a helluva lot of touches but that depends on the application.  For example, a touch screen used in a popular national-chain pizza delivery shop could get 35 million touches very quickly.

When problems do arise with industrial touch screens before it becomes aged, it is often due to misuse or an accident.  A good industrial touch screen should not require calibration for quite a long time, unless it is getting banged around in your shop, which, unfortunately, is not a rare occurrence.

Last fall, in the best interests of your servo motors, I wrote “Four Easy Ways to Keep Your Motor Up and Running”.   Maybe things haven’t gone so well and maybe you didn’t keep that motor up and running and now it’s failed.  Worse yet, it’s now out of warranty.  So what’s the good news?   The good news is, this is probably not the death knell for your motor and you DO have some options.

Buying used industrial electronic equipment or reusing shelved or mothballed equipment can indeed save a lot of money, BUT it can also result in some costly problems.

When you buy used you can end up buying someone else’s problems and if you dig out your own mothballed machinery, you can only hope that it was put away and marked properly.

No matter what size plant you operate, you can employ Predictive Maintenance technologies to evaluate the operating condition of used or mothballed equipment.  You probably already do this on some level, only you didn’t call it anything fancy.  You still don’t have to call it anything fancy, but applying some fundamental tests and organization to the process can help make it more effective thus saving time and money, and isn’t that what we all want to do?

Just yesterday I was listening to a sports interviewer (who shall go unnamed) baiting Terrell Suggs of the Baltimore Ravens by suggesting the team was great but  “stuck” with QB Joe Flacco.  It made me think for a few minutes about why Joe Flacco does not seem to get the media respect that he statistically deserves.  As  I explained to two of my three sons (while waiting for the school bus at 6:20 a.m.!), maybe it’s because he is a pretty low key guy and does not spend much time, for better or worse, tooting his own horn.

At last, Automation.com has released the results of its annual salary survey and this year they collaborated with InTech.  I anxiously await the results of this survey each year because it paints a unique picture of what’s going on in the engineering and manufacturing world.

In a nutshell, job satisfaction has increased among automation professionals with more than 80% indicating they are satisfied with their job – although these days some level of satisfaction can come from just having a job at all.

As of Monday, October 3, 2011, ACS will be ready to rock in their new digs.  That’s right, ACS is pulling up their tent stakes, hitchin’ up the mules and moving…all of a half mile northeast!

The new offices will be more efficient and sunnier too.  More windows = even happier customer service!  You might even feel the sunshine pouring through the phone from wherever you are.

Never fear, there will be no disruption to your repair services.  Only ACS’s administrative offices are moving on Friday, September 30^th so there should be minimal, if any, disruption to our phone and customer service systems.

Zirconium, niobium, hafnium, tantalum!  A magical spell?  No, just a list of exotic alloys used in the steel industry that are only a smidgen away from being “unobtainium”.  They are still fun to say even after having spent almost 20 years in the wonderful world of welding.

Speaking of unobtainium, magic spells, and the steel industry, did you know that as of September 10, 2011 domestic raw steel production is actually up 6.4% from the same time last year?  Pretty significant considering the amount of steel produced in the U.S. and the role steel plays in almost every facet of our lives.

My country, ’tis of Thee,
Sweet Land of Liberty
Of thee I sing;
Land  where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims’ pride,
From every mountain  side
Let Freedom ring.

Long Live the Spirit of Freedom everywhere!!