Machine Tools

Reflecting robust expansion of the Japanese economy, machine tool orders for the first half of 1990 surged 17.2% over a year ago to a record $4.7 billion, the Japan Machine Tool Industry Assn said.

DETROIT — The effect of the Japanese crisis on the U.S. economy is far greater than realized, a top trade group said. American companies and industries rely heavily on Japanese-made automotive products and high-tech electronics, but the U.S. Business and Industry Council said in a report released Wednesday that there was an even greater dependence on less well-known Japanese products. These include industrial equipment like machine tools and energy-generating turbines. In 2009, Japan accounted for about 15% of the turbines for generating energy sold in the U.S., up more than 2,000% from 1997, according to the council.

Machine tool orders by U.S. manufacturers shot up 44% in September from the previous month, two trade groups said in a report that suggests growth in the industrial economy still has momentum. A rise in orders means manufacturers are confident enough about future demand to spend money on their factories. The Assn. for Manufacturing Technology and the American Machine Tool Distributors' Assn.

With the scale of the disaster in Japan still being measured, concerns are growing that last week's earthquake and tsunami could lead to a long-term disruption in the world's supply of automobiles, consumer electronics and machine tools. Japan is the world's third-largest economy and a huge exporter of cars, electronic components and industrial equipment as well as steel, textiles and processed foods. In turn, it's a voracious consumer of petroleum, imported agricultural products and luxury consumer goods.

U.S. machine-tool demand fell in January from the previous month, but was still up from a year ago, two industry groups said in a report. The American Machine Tool Distributors' Assn. and the Assn. for Manufacturing Technology said January demand fell 16.6% to $656.42 million from $787.43 million in December. But January's figure was up 12.4% from $583.81 million a year earlier.

Industry groups said the General Motors strike cut July demand for machine tools 18.7%, to $533.2 million from a revised $655.6 million in June. That was down from $655.4 million a year ago, according to the American Machine Tool Distributors' Assn. and the Assn. for Manufacturing Technology. The groups said orders in the first seven months of 1998 were estimated at $4.6 billion, down 7.7% from a year earlier.

Orders for machine tools rose in November after dropping a month earlier, leaving orders for new metal-cutting and forming equipment on track to end the year on a high note, industry statistics showed. Orders rose 0.8% to $474 million from a revised $471 million in October, according to the Assn. for Manufacturing Technology and the American Machine Tool Distributors' Assn. Previously, October orders were estimated at $484 million.

Giddings & Lewis Inc. has acquired Chatsworth-based Fadal Engineering Co., a leading maker of equipment that makes machine parts, for $180 million. Fadal produces about 54% of all U.S.-made vertical machining centers, which make machine parts, and about 33% of those sold. It has been especially successful in the small vertical machining center market, which Giddings does not currently serve.

For all the recent very public indignities surrounding the unfortunately euphemistic-sounding "end-of-life issue," it is refreshing to see the final stages of one woman's life and eventual death treated with such humanity, compassion and dignity as is the life of the mother of author Elinor Fuchs in her memoir of those last years, "Making an Exit."

Graphic designer Sheridan Obrien is fed up with the flood of ads for vacation cruises and penny stocks that routinely emerge from her fax machine. The unsolicited pitches use up her toner and paper and wake her late at night. "I feel very invaded and very angry and very helpless," said Obrien, 53, who works from her home in Orange County. That kind of frustration has led to dozens of lawsuits and two major court rulings in the last six months against faxed ads.

U.S. machine tool orders rose for the first time in three months, another sign the economy is strengthening, according to an industry survey. Bookings for domestic and foreign-made tools surged 67% to $244.6 million in June from $146.36 in May, the Assn. of Manufacturing Technology and the American Machine Tool Distributors Assn. said. Orders rose 3.3% from June 2002, the first time monthly orders grew from the corresponding year-earlier period since November 2000.

Joseph L. Burg, an entrepreneur and co-founder of Burgmaster Corp., a company whose machines helped speed manufacturing in the 1950s, died Saturday of a rare blood disease at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He was 80. The company, started in 1944 in a Hollywood garage by Burg's father, Fred, was the largest machine-tool manufacturer west of the Mississippi in the 1960s.

The symptoms are ominous. The pulse of business is slow, orders are feeble. The stock market suffers from fits and fevers. And yet "it doesn't feel like a recession," says longtime investment banker Eric Lomas after visits to companies across the U.S. For the vast majority of businesses, finances are healthy, unsold inventories are moderate and companies are responding quickly to the slowdown.

Orders for machine tools rose in November after dropping a month earlier, leaving orders for new metal-cutting and forming equipment on track to end the year on a high note, industry statistics showed. Orders rose 0.8% to $474 million from a revised $471 million in October, according to the Assn. for Manufacturing Technology and the American Machine Tool Distributors' Assn. Previously, October orders were estimated at $484 million.

A duo of computer scientists has created something science fiction writers have thus far only imagined: self-evolving and self-generating machines. From start to finish, a computer system designs and builds the robot-like creations, described in today's issue of the journal Nature.

Re "Mechanics Say Alaska Air Rushed Jets," May 22: There is nothing unusual about Alaska Airlines. Airplanes are like machine tools: If they're not running, they're losing money. Management of any airline wants them back in the air ASAP. Having run an airline maintenance company, I speak from experience. Once, a plane was in such bad shape that I made my crew remove the wheels so that the airline couldn't move it. The airline was not pleased. CARL HOKANSON Los Angeles