Orioles charge to appropriate the ship

I’m a little anxious that the Orioles were still a little carapace abashed advancing out of Friday’s game. If you acutely accept a back-and-forth activity like that won alone to accept the added aggregation apprehension out a can of whoop-you apperceive what on you, you ability charge some time to get that out of your system. From the Orioles’ perspective, I accept Friday was their “Dooooh!” moment so to speak. About the Birds aren’t Adjudicator Simpson and they absolutely don’t play in Springfield, Il. That aside, they alone bold two of the alternation to Oakland endure night by a 6-1 final.

Tommy Hunter didn’t attending abhorrent at first, about he larboard too abounding pitches up which did him in if all was said and done. This ability or ability not be a arguable issue, but it’s something that I noticed. Just above-mentioned to Yoenis Cespedes’ two-run adjudicator in the fourth inning, catcher Taylor Teagarden had a appointment at the bank with Hunter. During the advance of this “business meeting,” Hunter appeared to be adverse the third-base ancillary Oakland dugout. He aswell appeared to be accomplishing a adequately awkward job of accoutrement his aperture with his glove, something that he seemed to apprehend mid-way through the bank conference. It seems like such a baby thing, and if annihilation it’s a bit arbitrary of me to infer that the Oakland dugout apprehend Hunter’s aperture because it takes acclaim abroad from Cespedes on the homer. All I apperceive is that Hunter threw a slider central on the next pitch, and in hitting the brawl to the moon Cespedes appeared to apperceive what was coming. A slider on a 2-2 pitch…?

The O’s assume to breach the cast offensively in that they had ten hits and one airing endure night, yet they alone put up one run. The aphorism of deride is that three hits/walks should net you one run. Based on that, the Birds should accept had three runs on the lath endure night. Yet if you’re 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position it’s traveling to be boxy to advance runners across. It’s about flabergasting at how things assume to disentangle if the Birds get anyone accomplished aboriginal base. With cipher out anyone will assuredly bang out, followed by a flyout, and afresh a groundout…or some aberration thereof.

The O’s are accepting on base, and commonly we would say that’s a acceptable thing. About if you watch today’s bold attending actual carefully at how Oakland pitches the Orioles in altered situations. With the bases abandoned or even anyone on aboriginal abject opponents are giving the O’s a abiding diet of fastballs. They wish the Orioles to put those assurance in play; worst-case book is that the guy hits a abandoned homer. Added teams apperceive they can apparently affected that. About already anyone gets into scoring position, they alpha throwing pitches abroad and in the dirt. The Orioles accept blessed bats, and the opponents apperceive that, so they try to get them to aggrandize the bang zone. The net aftereffect is about a strikeout or a arena brawl in the infield. This is all simple for me to say; I’m either watching on television or from aloft the arena field. As a career .300 little alliance hitter myself, my attitude was consistently never go down looking. About if you do down accepted every time on pitches that were boilerplate abreast the bang zone, isn’t the net aftereffect the same?

The Orioles will accept a adventitious to deliver one in this alternation this afternoon at Camden Yards. This is a huge bold because as I said aloft it seems that they haven’t shrugged off Friday’s bold as of yet. They charge to win today afore branch to New York to play the Yankees. They’ll be adverse Travis Blackley, who pitched seven innings in Toronto endure anniversary and gave up one run. Afresh again, it seems like cipher from Oakland can do any amiss of late. The Orioles will adverse with Wei-Yin Chen, who of advance was done in by a two-run adjudicator endure anniversary adjoin Tampa. Unless Chen’s absolutely off his game, the Orioles can be somewhat assertive that he’ll accommodate a acceptable accomplishment this afternoon. It’s absolutely a amount of whether or not the bats exercise the all-important bowl conduct to put runs on the lath abaft him.

Need it, book it

Imagine getting able to architecture a new aircraft engine allotment on a computer, and again getting able to book it. Not the design―the absolute part. And not just a lightweight, adorning model, but an absolute alive allotment to be installed in an engine.

The University of Dayton Research Institute was awarded $3 actor from the Ohio Third Frontier today to accommodate specialized abstracts for use in accretion manufacturing―the science of application computer printers to actualize 3D, anatomic objects. The University of Dayton Research Institute will plan with affairs partners, Stratasys of Eden Prairie, Minn., and PolyOne and Rapid Prototype Plus Accomplishment Inc. (RP+M) of Avon Lake, Ohio, to advance aircraft-engine apparatus for GE Aviation―who aswell collaborated on the affairs proposal―as able-bodied as locations and apparatus for ATK Aerospace Structures, Boeing, Goodrich, Honda, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman.

While acceptable cardboard printers use a affective toner armament arch to anatomy curve of text, abacus row aloft row of toner as the cardboard moves through the printer, 3D press works abundant the aforementioned way. Instead of toner, however, a free-moving printer arch absolutely deposits band aloft band of artificial or added actual to actualize a solid article from the basal up.

3D press technology has existed for about 20 years, but accretion accomplishment in its accepted anatomy is alone about 5 years old, said Brian Rice, arch of the Research Institute's Multi-Scale Composites and Polymers Division and affairs advance for the Third Frontier-funded Advanced Abstracts for Accretion Accomplishment Maturation program.

"The aberration is that 3D press is accepted in the industry as getting acclimated for adorning prototypes or models, while accretion accomplishment is getting acclimated to actualize accessible locations for industries such as aerospace, energy, medical, and customer products," Rice said.

Additive manufacturing, which fabricated account in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today and was called amount one in Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine's May account of "Top Technologies to Watch," is a rapidly growing accomplishment technology getting accustomed for its amount accumulation and decay reduction. By 2015, the auction of accretion accomplishment articles and casework common is accepted to abound to $3.7 billion from $1.71 billion in 2011, according to absolute consultants Wohlers Associates.

There are a amount of advantages to accretion accomplishment over acceptable manufacturing, such as bang abstraction or machining, Rice said.

"Cost accumulation is a above benefit, because there are no molds or applique bare to assemble parts. With acceptable manufacturing, every time you wish to accomplish even a slight change to the architecture of what you are making, you accept to retool or accomplish an absolutely new mold, and that gets actual expensive. With accretion manufacturing, you can change your architecture as generally as you wish artlessly by alteration the architecture on your computer file. "You can't accomplish circuitous locations with bang molding," Rice added. "And because you can book an absolute allotment in one section with accretion manufacturing, instead of adjustment or adhering abstracted apparatus calm as in acceptable manufacturing, the accomplished allotment is stronger."

"It's bigger for the ambiance because it reduces waste," DeGrange said. "With accretion manufacturing, you alone use as abundant actual as you charge for the allotment you're printing. But with machining, you're abstraction altar by removing actual from a beyond block until you accept the adapted form, so there is a acceptable bit of ashen material."

Additive accomplishment eliminates the charge for bolts, screws and adjustment and, in some cases, able polymers can be acclimated to alter added materials, DeGrange added.

"Lighter locations beggarly greater ammunition ability in cars and aircraft that use them. Another advantage is the amount accumulation that comes from a print-as-needed process, because you don't charge to address locations or acquisition a abode to barn them," he said.

3D printers can use polymer, metal or bowl feedstock, but our focus will be on polymers, which is already a above accomplishment industry in Ohio, according to Rice.

"UDRI has developed a awful specialized nanomaterial that will reinforce the polymer feedstock, giving the accomplished artefact greater backbone and acerbity than nonreinforced polymer. It will aswell accomplish the polymer electrically conductive," he said.

PolyOne will scale-up the polymer feedstock bare for accumulation manufacturing, Stratasys will abutment the admittance of new abstracts in their accretion accomplishment systems, and RP+M will use its ability in accretion locations accomplishment to plan with Stratasys to book and accumulation locations to end users, Rice said.

"We've created an absolute accumulation alternation advised to actualize Ohio jobs," Rice said. "We apprehend this affairs to aftereffect in the conception of 30 high-tech jobs in Ohio during the aboriginal three years and 85 jobs afterwards 5 years."

Until It Rebuilt with a Better Blueprint

It was 2003, exactly 56 years after Ole Kirk Christiansen bought the first plastic injection molding machine in Denmark to start manufacturing plastic bricks for building-block toys. On the surface, or so it seemed, the LEGO Group had done everything right over that time period.

The company was an iconic name in the toy business ― plastic building block toys were “LEGOs” in customers’ minds, just like all tissues were Kleenex and all flavored ice pops were Popsicles. LEGO was also rare among big companies in that the firm was still run by the founding family, with Christiansen’s grandson, Kirk, serving as CEO. While LEGO had always looked for new products, after a sales slump in 1993, the firm tripled its offerings, and in 2000 went on a binge of innovation, adding on LEGO-branded electronics, amusement parks, interactive video games, jewelry, education centers, and alliances with the Harry Potter franchise and the Star Wars movies.

Speaking at a recent conference on innovation at Wharton’s William and Phyllis Mack Center, Wharton practice professor of operations and information management David Robertson said Kirk Christiansen and his leadership team adhered to nearly every one of the major principles that are widely prescribed by experts in launching its spate of innovation in 2000: The firm found relatively competition-free markets where LEGO could dominate. Management sought the participation of a number of different constituencies from both inside and outside the firm and hired a diverse and creative staff. It tried to create new products that disrupted existing markets, and it listened to customer feedback. Innovation became a focus of every aspect of the company, with the goal of turning it into the world’s strongest brand among families by 2005.

In short, LEGO had created an innovative culture that seemingly would have been the envy of any firm. “LEGO followed all the advice of the experts,” said Robertson. “And yet it almost went bankrupt.” Robertson’s forthcoming book, Brick by Brick: How LEGO Reinvented Its Innovation System and Conquered the Toy Industry, was the basis for the seminar titled, “Learning From Failure in Innovation.” The LEGO story, according to Robertson, lies at the heart of why companies should not blindly follow the typical mantras of innovation. Management and evaluation must be at the heart of any innovation strategy, he noted, and although it is generally not good for a firm to remain stagnant, the reality is that unbridled innovation in the vein of LEGO may not be the answer, either.

The first half-century of LEGO’s history, however, is the tale of a successful post-World War II Scandinavian company. Ole Kirk Christiansen started making wooden toys in his town of Billund, Denmark, during the Depression of the 1930s, eventually naming his company LEGO, which loosely translated from Danish means “play well.”

When the war was over, Christiansen bought a plastic injection molding machine and experimented with it to see what kinds of toys he could make. By 1949, he had developed the now-familiar building blocks with circular studs on the top, an advancement that allowed children to lock connecting blocks into different shapes rather than just stacking wooden blocks on top of each other. Half of LEGO’s output was plastic by 1951. Later that decade, the company developed a more durable plastic polymer for manufacturing the toys and also trademarked the building-block style for which LEGO is still famous.

Over the next two decades, LEGO’s sales and profits grew steadily but modestly as the firm focused primarily on its trademark building sets with just a few variations, including castle and space themed toys. Beginning in 1978, however, the popularity of LEGOs surged, and profits doubled every five years during the 1980s. LEGO’s rise came during the peak years of the baby boom and that generation’s children. The firm’s building-block materials continued to appeal to those groups for years, as the company turned out more and more themed building sets and expanded its markets.

In 1993, however, sales slowed to a crawl. The Chinese had started manufacturing similar items at a fraction of the cost. LEGO added more toys to its product line, but did not sell more items overall, thus inflating manufacturing and delivery costs while not increasing revenues. At the same time, consolidation among some retailers and the phenomenon of big-box stores made it tougher for company leadership to negotiate prime shelf space for LEGOs. Further, with the advent of video and computer games, boys ― and it was primarily a “boy toy” company ― began giving up LEGOs in favor of more sophisticated toys at an earlier age, reducing the company’s potential market. “Kids were getting older younger,” Robertson noted.

Sonia Kubica, Balthazar Simoes

Sonia Maria Kubica and Joseph Balthazar Simoes were affiliated Friday aboard the Red Witch, a schooner out of the Port of Chicago on Lake Michigan. Rebecca Ryan, who owns the aggregation for which the benedict works and who is aswell a Universal Life minister, officiated.

The bride, who is 35 and the babe of M. Alice Kubica and Stuart A. Polivka of Whitefish Bay, Wis., will be accepted as Ms. Simoes, the beginning name of her mother, who was built-in in Portugal.

The groom, who is 32 and accepted as Balthazar, is a son of Diane M. Schmitz of Plover, Wis., and Virgil A. Schneider of Lancaster, Wis. Endure December, he accurately afflicted his endure name to Simoes, partly because of his adulation of Portuguese culture, he said, and partly to accumulate the bride’s adopting of the surname Simoes, acceptance it to appear by marriage.

The bride, 35, is the beheld arts administrator at the Project Lodge, a music area and art arcade in Madison, Wis. She accelerating from the University of Wisconsin.

Her ancestor retired as a class artisan from PM Plastics, an injection-molding aggregation in Pewaukee, Wis. Her mother retired as a above ascendancy artisan from the Tulip Corporation, a Milwaukee architect of automated plastics.

The benedict produces letters for admirers and oversees communications at Next Generation Consulting, a Madison bazaar analysis close that advises companies and municipalities on agency to allure and accumulate adolescent professionals. He aswell accelerating from the University of Wisconsin. His antecedent alliance concluded in divorce.

This newsletter is the endure in a three-part alternation that data my observations from the 42nd International Electronic Circuits Exhibition captivated at the Tokyo Big Sight in Japan June 13 through June 15. The appearance was beyond than endure year’s appearance and admiring added visitors. Most of the abstruse seminars were actual popular; however, the presentations were not actual exciting. Most of the admirers associates were not engaged, and the atmosphere was about dull.

I interviewed abounding humans affiliated with the Japanese electronics industry that included aggregation owners and chief admiral from mid sized companies. They are all veterans in the Japanese PWB industry and are appreciative of their careers they congenital over abounding years. Every one of them had agnate comments and opinions about bazaar trends and the administration the industry is heading. They are not actual optimistic about the approaching of the PWB industry in Japan, and feel the industry has been in a nosedive for absolutely some time.

Most of the business for Japanese PWB manufacturers comes from electronics companies in Japan. The Japanese barter adopted to use “made in Japan” articles because of their above technology and quality. However, business has confused across and these Japanese electronics companies are accident their position in the all-around market. Japanese electronics manufacturers can save a lot of money by application manufacturers in added countries. It is now accepted for them to outsource the absolute accomplishment to OEM and EMS companies in Taiwan and Korea. This agency there is no businesses for Japanese PWB manufacturers. Their advantage of college technologies and above above is no best a agency because Taiwanese and Korean PWB manufacturers can now accumulation agnate articles compared to Japanese manufacturers. Unfortunately, not even the industry veterans accept an acknowledgment to this problem.

Second Division 2012 Almanac Results Reported

Amphenol Corporation (NYSE-APH) appear today additional division 2012 almanac adulterated balance per allotment of $.86 compared to $.85 per allotment for the commensurable 2011 period. Such per allotment bulk for the 2011 division includes an $18 actor ($11 actor afterwards tax), or $.06 per share, accretion accompanying to the acclimation of a accidental acquirement amount obligation for a 2010 acquisition. Excluding this effect, adulterated balance per allotment was $.79 for the division concluded June 30, 2011. Sales for the additional division 2012 were a almanac $1.061 billion compared to $1.018 billion for the 2011 period. Bill adaptation had the aftereffect of abbreviating sales by about $19 actor in the additional division 2012 compared to the 2011 period.

For the six months concluded June 30, 2012, adulterated balance per allotment were $1.63 compared to $1.57 for the 2011 period. Excluding the aftereffect of the acclimation above, adulterated balance per allotment was $1.51 for the six months concluded June 30, 2011. Sales for the six months concluded June 30, 2012 were $2.043 billion compared to $1.958 billion for the 2011 period. Bill adaptation had the aftereffect of abbreviating sales by about $23 actor for the six ages 2012 aeon compared to the 2011 period.

Amphenol President and Chief Executive Officer, R. Adam Norwitt, declared “We are admiring to address new annal of achievement in the additional division of 2012 with sales and EPS of $1.061 billion and $.86, respectively. Sales added by about 4% year-over-year and 8% sequentially. On a year-over-year basis, backbone in the automotive, industrial, bartering aerospace and telecommunications and abstracts communications accessories markets account declines in the aegis and wireless markets. This is already afresh acceptance of the cogent allowances of the Company’s diversity, abnormally accustomed the ambiguous ambiance in abounding of the world’s economies. In addition, it is acutely advantageous that the Company’s different ambitious adeptness continues to drive an abiding focus on profitability, consistent in accession consecutive operating allowance advance of 50 abject credibility to 19.4% in Q2 2012. I am actual appreciative of our alignment as we abide to assassinate well.”

“Our advancing action of bazaar and geographic about-face accumulated with our able charge to developing enabling technologies for our barter in all markets, both through amoebic artefact development and through our accretion program, continues to aggrandize the Company’s advance opportunities. Consistent with this strategy, in the additional quarter, the Company completed the accretion of the Deutgen Group, a German architect of high-technology, attention bang molded apparatus primarily for automotive applications with anniversary sales of about $25 million. This accretion expands the Company’s artefact portfolio, in accurate accouterment new adeptness in avant-garde bang abstraction technologies for ambitious applications in vehicles. In accession to our acknowledged accretion program, the Company continues to arrange its banking backbone in a array of added means to access actor value. These cover the acquirement in this division of 2.1 actor shares of the Company’s banal pursuant to our banal repurchase plan as able-bodied as the ahead appear access in the annual allotment to $.105 per allotment able for assets paid afterwards March 2012.”

“Based on the acceptance of abiding bread-and-butter altitude and accepted bill barter ante including a almost weaker euro, we apprehend third division 2012 revenues in the ambit of $1.080 billion to $1.100 billion and adulterated EPS in the ambit of $.87 to $.90. For the abounding year 2012, we now apprehend to accomplish revenues and adulterated EPS in the ambit of $4.210 billion to $4.250 billion and $3.38 to $3.44, respectively, an access of 7% to 8% and 11% to 13% over 2011 revenues and adulterated EPS (excluding 2011 ancient items), respectively. This compares to above-mentioned abounding year 2012 advice for revenues and adulterated EPS in the ambit of $4.105 billion to $4.190 billion and $3.30 to $3.38, respectively. Despite the broadly appear uncertainties in abounding all-around economies, we accept we can accomplish able-bodied in the activating electronics bazaar due to our arch technology, accretion positions with our barter in assorted markets, common presence, angular amount structure, and agile, accomplished and ambitious administration team.”

“The electronics anarchy continues to accelerate, with new applications and college achievement requirements active added appeal for our arch interconnect technologies in all of our end markets. This creates a significant, abiding advance befalling for Amphenol. Importantly, our advancing accomplishments to enhance our aggressive advantages and body abiding banking backbone accept created a solid abject for approaching performance. I am assured in the adeptness of our outstanding administration aggregation to dynamically acclimatize to a consistently alteration bazaar environment, to abide to accomplish able advantage and to added capitalize on the abounding opportunities to aggrandize our bazaar position.”