Client: Wilcox Associates
Customer: Jet Propulsion Lab
Product: PC-DMIS Enterprise Metrology Software
Publication: Quality Magazine, March 2009

Coming Soon To a Planet Near You: Artist depiction of the MSL (Mars
Space Laboratory) rover shown here without its nuclear power supply.

Interoperability Boosts Lean Inspection

Common metrology software at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory accelerates
the part validation workflow for the Mars Science Laboratory.

The pressure is definitely on at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, CA, where scientists, engineers and technicians are working evenings and holidays to design, manufacture, and test the cruise stage and descent stage instruments and rover for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) scheduled to launch in the fall of 2009.

Gerald Clark, a Senior Quality Engineer and lead person for QA inspection services for the Jet Propulsion Lab, explained that the MSL project is a galactic scale prototyping operation with tens of thousands of parts in various stages of product development. In most cases, the assigned team will only make three or less of any single component for this project.

Follow the link to -> Quality Magazine

EMS Sleuth Is Alive And Well

Time marches on and so does EMS Sleuth the wily metrology detective who solves manufacturing problems using Wilcox Associate’s industry-leading PC-DMIS EMS (Enterprise Metrology Suite) of measurement software products. This column has appeared regularly in TOOLING & PRODUCTION magazine since its inception in 2005.

Coming Soon: Sleuth Measures Big Honking Trucks. EMS Sleuth columns are written by Joel Cassola and illustrated by Rob Fabiano

Here are some links to recent columns:
 
NOV 2007
http://www.toolingandproduction.com/features/2007_November/1107em_sleuth.aspx
 
FEB 2008
http://www.toolingandproduction.com/features/2008_February/0208_em_sleuth.aspx
 
APR 2008
http://www.toolingandproduction.com/features/2008_April/0408_em_sleuth.aspx
 
JUN 2008
http://www.toolingandproduction.com/features/2008_June/0608_em_sleuth.aspx
 
SEP 2008
http://www.toolingandproduction.com/features/2008_September/0908_em_sleuth.aspx
 
NOV 2008
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/nelson/tp_20081112/index.php?startid=42
 
The popular EM Sleuth columns are scheduled to appear 5 times in 2009.

Meet E.M. Sleuth, ostensible author of a column on Enterprise Metrology appearing regularly in TOOLING PRODUCTION Magazine. Enterprise Metrology is a discipline that involves using open software and an integrated dimensional information database to enhance productivity throughout a manufacturing operation.

The Sleuth Column is Sponsored by Wilcox Associates a software firm specializing in products that help manufacturers realize the promise of this discipline. If you are like Wilcox Associates and sell a range products or services that meet important and here-to-fore unanswered needs-- you might want to contribute a regular column to advance the concept.

It's not an everyday thing, but sometimes companies with unique expertise get invited to write regularly-appearing columns in important trade publications. Wilcox Associates is a case in point.

Based on JCA's and our client's excellent relationship with TOOLING & PRODUCTION magazine, we were invited to develop a concept for column that would be fun, educational and non-commercial in nature. In other words, it had to read like unbiased editorial as opposed to an advertisement for the clients products.


Before the publication made a final commitment we submitted 6 ideas for columns that we could write immediately. This demonstrated that the concept for our Enterprise Metrology Sleuth detective columns was sustainable. Once the publication said go, we contracted the services of a talented Illustrator, Rob Fabiano, who brought exceptional visual appeal to the 5 columns which appeared in 2005.

Multiple Appearances. The columns not only appeared in the print edition of the publication, which has a circulation of 70 thousand, but also on its web site. The first to column to appear in 2005 was "Kneecaps Lost In Space". The final column of the year, in response to a contest-winning reader who suggested the topic, was "A Case Of Inflexible Gaging."

While the columns made no attempt to sell products, you can bet that readers know exactly who to call for advanced metrology software.

Meet Dick Hunt, Publisher of TOOLING & PRODUCTION, a highly respected trade journal that has been covering manufacturing for decades. Dick said, "In spite of our fascination with the web, engineers and other manufacturing professionals are still reading trade publications at the same levels as in former years. T&P's editorial content is tightly focused, and audits show that the quality of our readership is exceptionally high."

But why should this even matter if you have a web site that customers and prospects can find with search engines like Google?

"That's easy," said Dick. "A web site is just a passive medium. It's sitting out there in space waiting for visitors. But they won't be coming in appreciable numbers unless you have active media like advertising and editorial that drives them there."

He said that Tooling & Production's total package of advertising, print editorial and web content delivers around 11,500 visitors a month to the web sites of companies whose ads and news appear in the book or on the T&P web site. About 20% of those visitors will eventually make a phone call to the company or one of the company's distributors. So web sites and advertising are powerful complementary tools.

"Desktop Engineering" has published the second part of a two-part series discussing Wilcox Associates Enterprise Metrology Concept. Part 2 focuses specifically on the company's inspection planner software. To link to the article, click here.

In tough economic times, trade magazines shrink in proportion to lost ad revenues. Everybody knows that. What many people don’t know is that depleted editorial staffs at trade pubs open up more, not less, opportunities for by-lined feature articles. During the past year, I have found trade publications very receptive to “feature pitches”. I have even been approached by a trade magazine this year to develop a regular column for one of my clients. There is very little financial risk involved in developing abstracts for proposed magazine articles, and in today’s market, these abstracts are likely to generate extremely valuable feature publicity opportunities.

Newsletters are a great way to reach customers and prospects with information about your products and services. In spite of the superior communications value of newsletters, some marketers are wary of them because of the production, printing and distribution costs. Fortunately, there is a way to produce an effective newsletter for every organization’s budget.

Print It. Consider the traditional 8 1/2 by 11 four-pager. You can reduce costs by making it a self mailer. But print it in full color because color printing is very cost-competitive today and it adds lots of pizzazz. If you want to reduce mailing costs, consider downsizing your newsletter to a single page tri-fold format and letting it ride along free with invoices. You can even do micronewsletters on over-sized postcards to drive customers to your web site.

Email It. If you want little, if any, production cost, then an email newsletter may be the way to go. Keep the content short and germane to the reader's interest. Use bullets, bold heads and color to help them find their way quickly. You can embed your newsletter in the message window or use the message window as a cover letter for another type of file such as Microsoft Word or PDF.

Post It. If you have a lot of useful information to share with customers and prospects, think about posting the newsletter on your web site. Technically, this is not a newsletter because it is sitting there waiting for your readers to find it. You solve this problem by sending out an “ email alert” or postcard encouraging recipients to visit your site and check out the latest issue. This approach lends itself to a short easy email that opens quickly. What's more, the posted content of the newsletter represents a substantial update to your web site.

A simple and effective way to update most websites is to post information on the What’s New or newsletter page (see above) at least once a quarter. This information could include significant contracts, new products and services, marketing white papers and other company news. This content keeps your web site fresh (and fresh content is the reason most frequently sited for revisiting websites).

Now here’s where saving money comes in. The editorial content on your web site is exceptionally good raw material from which you (or your ad agency) can develop powerful sales literature and advertising. It saves expensive information gathering and keeps writers focused on the most important messages.

The same content can also be readily packaged for your key trade publications to use in news items So by energizing your entire sales and marketing program, timely web content can save a lot of money.

And if you really want to be timely, consider setting up a blog as an almost instantaneous pipeline of useful information from you to your customers and prospects. Within the past year a wide range of tools have been made available to simplify the mechanics of creating and posting attractive blogs. With these tools eliminating the technical details, all you have to worry about is having something useful to say and doing it in a way the connects with your target audience.