We will be assisting them in developing a public relations campaign and trade show efforts among other services.

© 2010, Jeff Klingberg. All rights reserved.

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A recent LinkedIn post asked for experiences from foreign national corporations who have had trouble introducing their products and services to the North American market. From our experience in this area, foreign national corporations typically encounter the following issues.

1. Send a foreign national to open the operation just because someone believes there is a large untapped market in North America, but no research is done and no plan is formulated before coming.

2. They attempt to apply their current sales policies and distribution channels they utilize in their home country in North America, which typically is unsuccessful.

3. They send people to manage the North American operations who have little to no understanding of the culture, and given limited time and resources to learn it.

4. If they hire a Canadian or United States national to manage their operation, there is a communication issue between the North American operation and the home country. Typically, the reason is the North American operation does not have a seat at the executive table when decisions are made, and little training or effort was given to introduce this person to their new employer.

5. Very limited financial and human resources are allocated for operations, sales and marketing — especially sales and marketing.

6. No or limited inventory of product is on hand in Canada or the United States and long lead times to get product sold to North America.

7. Cut and run. For as much as foreign corporations talk about managing for the long term, they tend to apply short term thinking when entering the North American market, which leads to huge turnover of employees and management teams which ultimately results in cutting their losses and closing shop after 3, 4 or 5 years.

If a foreign national wants to be successful in North America, they must:

Understand the market before you come here.

To accomplish this you will need to assign a staff member to conduct market research or hire a firm in North America to help you with the process. By doing so, it will help you:

• Determine the market potential, the pricing structures, the sales cycle, etc.
• Learn who your target audience is, where they get their information from, and who your competitors are.
• Uncover how products/services are bought and sold.
• Discover what the points of resistance will be.
• Find out the work and visa rules for foreigners, and if there are government regulations involved in the sale of your products or services (e.g., UL, CSA, CE).
• Ascertain what your strengths and weaknesses are at the HQ and your facilities (do you have the personnel in place to support a North American operation, do you have the manufacturing facilities to produce product for North America, etc.).
• Become versed in the culture.

Based on our experience, here are few key points to begin your understanding process and develop a plan for success.

i.   Developing a North American operation will be a 10-year process to really gain a foothold in North America because introducing a new company and product/service takes a lot of pioneering. Pioneering takes time.

It could take less time depending on how the company is structured, and the human and financial resources that are allocated.

ii.  Having only one person covering Canada and the United States — and possibly Mexico — and expecting exponential growth is unrealistic. There are only approximately 200 business days in a year. Finding distribution channels and making sales presentations to prospective clients and managing projects at accounts you pick up along the way will require that person to be living on a plane and hotel every day of the year.

Some of that time and those expenses can be eliminated by fully utilizing the communications tools that are available today, but even then, there is the risk of falling into the out-of-site-out-of-mind trap, which can stunt growth.

iii.        Hiring a master distributor and expecting them to do all sales and marketing with their own money and at the same time expecting exponential growth is unrealistic.

iv.        Having no inventory in North America and expecting repeat sales and exponential growth is unrealistic.

Have a plan.

Coming to North America without a plan and flying by the seat of your pants is a recipe for disaster. It’s one reason why foreign nationals continuously turn over management teams when the headquarters feels success hasn’t been obtained because there are unrealistic and immeasurable goals.

Hire the right people.

Your North American staff and management team are crucial to your success. The only way to hire the right people is to take your time and make sure you have a job description prepared with the traits you are seeking. For the President/Managing Director, there are 3 methods to finding or developing the right person.

One, find someone from North America who has experience dealing with foreign nationals and has expertise in the specific products you make or industry you’re in. Two, send a person from the corporate headquarters that has been to North America for an extended period of time and is comfortable with the culture. It can be quite the shock to the person’s system to send someone who is unfamiliar with the culture, has to find someplace to live and setup operations while at the same time attempting to learn English and grow business. Three, hire a Canadian or United States national bring them to your facility for a minimum of one year so they can learn the home country culture and operating methods then return them to run the North American operation. And, make sure they have a seat at the executive table.

Hire a marketing communications firm.

Getting the word out about your company and products/services is very important to your success. A marketing communications firm can help you craft the messages needed to gain attention in the press and influence decision makers. Also, they will help you make sure the English in your literature is localized.

Be willing and able to invest a minimum of $50,000 to $100,000/year, if possible, for at least the first 5 years to get your message out, and for it to gain traction. This investment will go towards the development of case studies, translation of literature, public relations, advertising, trade shows, and other channels of communication. As sales increase, so will your marketing investment.

© 2010, Jeff Klingberg. All rights reserved.

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We will be assisting them in developing a corporate identity and marketing materials, and conducting business development and public relations efforts among other services.

© 2010, Jeff Klingberg. All rights reserved.

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In our previous article we discussed the need to develop programs to teach engineering, and specifically fluid power principles, to children starting in kindergarten or pre-K to spark interest in the profession and the industry. We briefly stated the reason for this need for new programs is the declining math and science scores of United States youth as they get older, and the shortage of people with fluid power skills.

Why is there a workforce shortage?

The American Baby Boomer generation is retiring or will be retiring over the next 20 years — taking with them their many skills. At the same time, Americans aged 25–34 today do not possess higher skills than do their baby boomer parents according to The Accelerating Decline in America’s High-Skilled Workforce: Implications for Immigration Policy.

Read more…

© 2009 — 2010, Jeff Klingberg. All rights reserved.

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We will be assisting them in developing and disseminating an email marketing campaign, and conducting business development and public relations efforts among other services.

© 2009 — 2010, Jeff Klingberg. All rights reserved.

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Fluid power isn’t sexy. That’s the conclusion the international fluid power industry came to in 2007 as the reason why there is a shortage of people with fluid power skills influencing design decisions regarding which motion control technologies to use. The fluid power industry isn’t the only industry seeing this image problem. It’s a systemic crisis that permeates the entire US culture.

A 2008 Harris Interactive study for the American Society for Quality found that 44% of kids, ages 8–17, don’t know much about engineering, and 30% of the respondents want a more exciting profession than engineering. While 97% of parents stated they believe that knowledge of math and science will help their children have a successful career, only 20% encourage/will encourage their sons or daughters to become engineers.

Read more…

© 2009 — 2010, Jeff Klingberg. All rights reserved.

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What’s your top 10 inventions? Who are your top 10 designers/engineers?

Since the dawn of time, humans have been full of curiosity. They’ve asked what if, and used their ingenuity to create products and machines that have solved a problem, and made people’s lives easier, more efficient or safer. Some of the millions of marvelous inventions that have changed world in small and major ways, include the steam engine, electricity, the telephone, the television, the radio, the microwave oven, air conditioning, the automobile, the airplane, the printing press and the semiconductor.

The designers and engineers — men and women like Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Leonardo Da Vinci, Johannes Gutenberg, Harriett Russell Strong, Henry Ford, Denis Papin, Ben Franklin, and Josephine Garis Cochran — for the most part have worked in obscurity and only become famous posthumously. In most cases, they never get the recognition they deserve because educators, students and the public at large don’t understand what engineers do.

In fact in a survey for the American Association of Engineering Societies, Harris Interactive found 61% of respondents didn’t consider themselves well informed about engineering and engineers, and 70% of respondents thought that the media did only a fair or poor job covering engineering.

Product Design and Development magazine feels that the design engineers should get the recognition they deserve for a lifetime commitment to the profession, and are creating PD&D Design Engineering Hall of Fame. They’re asking design engineers to email them with their top 10 list of design engineers. Upon compiling the submissions an advisory panel will select the first five inductees. Mountain Stream Group is proud to be one of a member of the advisory board.

To learn more visit PD&D at the following link. http://www.pddnet.com/news-design-engineering-hall-of-fame-070709/

© 2009, Jeff Klingberg. All rights reserved.

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Six steps to your organization’s social networking success.

The Internet, more specifically social networking has changed the way people and organizations connect, create, stay in touch or seek help from others.

Citizen journalists are using social media tools like blogs, microblogs, and video sharing to inform the world of the events surrounding the 2009 Iranian election protests when traditional journalists were banned from the country. Musicians utilize services like Myspace and YouTube to launch careers and connect with fans. Companies employ wikis to collaborate on product develop, manage projects and customer relations, and provide technical support. E-tailers and restaurants apply reviews and opinions to increase traffic and drive sales.

However, many organizations are jumping head long into social networking before they know what it is, how to use it, what platforms their stakeholders may or may not use, and what social technographics define their stakeholders for fear they are going to be left out.

Others leap in because it is going to be a ‘cheap’ way of marketing themselves without having goals, strategies and tactics established, knowing the human resource and time allocations needed to get results, defining a method for measuring results, and determining what message(s) they’re going broadcast.

The following 6-step process will help any business successfully take advantage of the numerous opportunities social networking offers to engage—and connect—with stakeholders: physically, rationally or emotionally.

1. Discover

Before you, or your employees, think about using social networking for engineering, marketing communications, customer service, or anything else you must have an understanding of each of the different services and platforms available, and how their ecosystems operate. Acquiring this knowledge can done by first visiting Wikipedia’s list of social networking services or conducting a Google search. Then visit the service’s homepage and browse their ‘About Us’ section, which is full of useful information. Also, investigate the proprietary platforms to understand their ecosystems, and how they might be implemented.

Once you are comfortable, sign up, browse and watch for a bit before jumping into the conversation. Note: But, before you do it, find out if your company has any social networking policies in place, see comments in the definition phase.

You must gain insight on your stakeholders as well. This is crucial to the success of any social networking venture because each personality or technographic type plays a different role in the system. All your departments—engineering, marketing communications, sales, customer service, human resources, information systems, etc.—need to collaborate to determine who’s who.

Some questions to ask include. What reason(s) do they use social networking: to connect, to create, to stay in touch or seek help from others? How tech savvy are their stakeholders? Where are they going to find information and how do they find it? How active are they? What’s their age, sex and title?

Answers to these questions and others will go a long way in determining what type of personality or technographic they are: creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators and inactives? These categories are Forrester Research’s methodology for surveying consumers. Also, compare the answers against the demographics of the service, if available.

To help companies with technographic segmentation, Forrester Research has developed a profile tool. It can be found at http://www.forrester.com/empowered/tool_consumer.html for consumer profiles, and http://www.forrester.com/empowered/tool_b2b.html for business-to-business profiles.

The research isn’t just for external stakeholders, but internal as well. Conduct an internal company review. Ask your entire staff how familiar they are with the various platforms? Does your company have the creative and human resources available to create, manage and promote a social networking campaign with relevant and useful content and communication on a regular basis, or will you need outside assistance like copywriters, or marketing communications specialists? Are your employees adaptable and prepared to accept the change that social networking will bring to the company or do you need change consultants to guide them through the process? What is the employee morale level? Are they capable or willing to stay on message?

Don’t forget to learn about your competition’s use of social networking tools. Check out your competitors’ websites to see if they have any blog posts, wikis, specialized forums, etc. Do they use or supply tools like ratings or specialized widgets (applications)? Are they on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, etc.? If they are what types of information do they have? What subject matter are they discussing? Who’s following them? How active are they in their posts?

2. Define

While individual employees maybe championing the social networking need, it’s truly a corporate function, which needs goals, strategies, tactics and rules. Executive management along with every department head will need to be involved during this phase as well.

Just like your organization has corporate, product development, marketing communications, workforce developing and other departmental goals, you must also have goals for social networking—e.g., gain customer insight, reduce product development time, provide better customer support, gain competitive insight, enhance brand awareness & image, etc. Each goal for each stakeholder group will require a different set of strategies, tactics, resource needs and metrics. Additionally, the use of social networking, and its goals, must relate back to the your company’s objectives.

Hence, the need for a comprehensive social networking plan.

Social networking giveth, and it taketh away. It can be a great resource, but if misapplied or misused,  or your staff goes off message or misidentifies themselves, and your organization’s reputation maybe harmed or intellectual property divulged, lost or stolen. Therefore, you need to establish a set of rules for how your business intends to use social networking and how your employees should use it to make their job more efficient and practical. If your company doesn’t have a social networking policy in place, you need one quickly before you take the leap.

You must recognize that, while social networking can provide cost savings, it can be time consuming as well. Therefore, as part of the definition process, you must determine what technology and human resources will be required to engage your stakeholders and achieve your goals along with the frequency and duration your employees can participate.

It could be a discussion group on LinkedIn, a Facebook page, developing your own forum, wikis, etc., or a combination of all them maybe required. Do you need several social networking channels to cover each of the major stakeholder groups? Is it going to be a private platform requiring user name and password to get at information, or open to the general public to read like a wiki or knowledge base or maybe a combination of both? If you develop your own platform, where will it be hosted: on company or off-sight servers? What method(s) that you will use is(are) going to be dependent on the skill levels of those involved and your company’s objectives.

And, just like any ecosystem if there is no activity it will die. So if your organization decides to develop your own social networking platform or even if you’re going to use LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, you must also determine who are going to be the internal and external supporters to stir the pot and keep the conversation going.

3. Create

You’ve figured out what you need and how you are going to do it. Now you have to purchase and implement the required technology and information systems. Build, write and develop the blogs, wikis, knowledge bases, discussion groups, forums, and employee accounts for the various tactics that will be employed.

Generate the educational information (videos, documents, etc.) needed, if they aren’t already. More than likely, you will also need to develop a company-wide training program for your employees. So don’t forget that when generating your educational information.

Produce the marketing communications messages needed to notify your customers, employees, channel partners and vendors of the company’s social networking efforts.

You must keep your core brand values in mind in creating your social network because if the experiences and messages at each touchpoint aren’t consistent and cohesive—and in harmony with the values—that will create a disconnect, the conversation will end and the desired action will be terminated.

4. Test

Like any good product development process includes beta testing, developing a social network to meet the needs of your stakeholders also requires testing before it is launched. You’ll need to let key stakeholders test the systems, information and messages that are being employed to see if they are going to meet the needs of that particular stakeholder group.

5. Broadcast

Once all the content has been created, and the platforms have tested and tweaked, then they can be disseminated to the entire stakeholder population, and participation can begin.

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6. Track

Just like any good business or product development plan has metrics which are monitored, it’s necessary to establish metrics in the definition phase and track those metrics to determine if results are meeting expectations, and to establish the ROI and ROE (return on engagement) of your efforts.

Monitoring your company’s dedicated networks just isn’t enough. You must watch all forms of social networking to follow what stakeholders are saying. Tracking stakeholder communications will require technology, and there are numerous packages that enable organizations to do this easily and efficiently.

The insight gained from monitoring and analyzing metric data along with conversations should flow back to the beginning and be part of a continuous improvement process. Making the network better, the stakeholder connections stronger, and the company more successful.

If your company is seeking to gain more insight into social networking and effective strategies I recommend you read the book Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. If your company needs help in processing these 6 steps, hire a firm like ours to guide you and your employees through the stages.

© 2009 — 2010, Jeff Klingberg. All rights reserved.

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Business owners invest in their firms, not stocks is the headline AP Business Writer Joyce M. Rosenberg used for her article in Crain’s Detroit Business, June 24^th Small Talk section. It discusses how business owners, like you, are intending to invest in their businesses instead of the stock market, since it’s such a risk.

If business owners are truly going to (re)invest in themselves as the article states, then they really have to understand that marketing is an investment that they cannot do without. It’s one of the investments that, if done right, has the largest return-on-investment and impacts the business the most.

But sadly, I have to say, many companies start without any research. Many fly along by the seat of their pants. Many don’t have a clue who their competitors are, what their business structure is and how they are positioning themselves in the marketplace. Many don’t have an inkling who their stakeholders are, their customers’ needs and wants are, or how their customers get their information. Many don’t know what makes their own business unique.

If your business wants to gain the greatest return-on-investment possible, have the best conceivable brand image and awareness and have the largest sales increases attainable, you must do your due diligence before you invest. Hopefully, that is what you did when you invested in the stock market. So, the same principles must apply when investing in your company’s marketing because without knowledge the investment is worthless.

If you don’t have the above knowledge or insight, here’s a 5-step process to use to gain it.

1.   Classify

If you haven’t done it already assign coding to your client list—title, sex, age, head of household, income, company size, NAICS, product(s) bought, service(s) rendered, etc. Doing so will begin the process for defining your target audience and allow you to segment them.

You may be scratching your head wondering what is NAICS. It stands for the North American Industry Classification System. It assigns a code number to each and every type of business or organization from farmers to wholesalers to professional services to governmental offices. You can learn more about the system at www.naics.com.

2.   Ask

Have a conversation with your customers, employees, channel partners and vendors amongst others. During the conversation ask them in their eyes what makes your company unique. Allow them to use their experiences with other businesses in and out of your market to help identify what differentiates you from others. Ask them open ended questions (who, what, where, when, why, how) instead of yes/no type questions.

Questions like. How did they find you? What were they looking for? Why did they ultimately purchase from you? Was it the location, product quality, price, etc.? What businesses do they admire and why? What businesses don’t they like and why? Why did they seek employment at your company? What was it that caused them to say yes? How’s our customer service? What do you think of the quality of our products/services? What could be doing better?

Then go chat with your ex-clients, if possible, and ask them why they stopped using your company’s products and services. It maybe gut wrenching, but worth the embarrassment. Besides you never know, you might be able to win them back, if you want them back.

Be prepared. Develop your questions before having these conversations, but as issues and information come up ask follow up questions to illicit more details. And by all means take notes. If necessary record the conversations for future referral, but do ask if it is permissible to do so before beginning the interview.

3.   Investigate

Become a Sherlock Holmes or a James Bond and gather of crucial business intelligence. Search the Internet; look in trade journals and publications, newspapers, magazines; and alike for your competition, industry trends, and customer and industry insight.

Review the websites of your competitors and of the leaders in other industries for the types of information they provide. Download their literature, or call and request information. Read it. Look for keywords and phrases on how they might be positioning themselves. Study the design of the literature and websites. How does it impact you: physically, rationally and emotionally?

Visit trade shows and community festivals observe, listen, and ask questions.

Call them. See how they answer their phones.

Visit them. Look at their building. See what type of signage they have on their building and business vehicles, if any. Go in, if possible, and review their office, store or shop. Look at how it is lighted, designed, laid out, what items they’re selling, what types of information are available and how is it presented, etc.

Window shop and review their pricing, or call a dealer, distributor or someone who sells their products or services to find out how comparable products/services are priced.

If they don’t know you, ask them what makes them unique.

4.   Think

Everyone is a consumer. Think about how you go about finding information and selecting a supplier for the items you purchase for your business and home.

5.   Analyze

Once you have gathered all your information, examine it and compare it against your current situation. The following are just a representative sampling of the types of questions you must ask yourself when analyzing the collected data.

Is your value proposition the same as what your employees, customers, and vendors say it is? Is it different than your competition?

Is your client base representative of the marketplace makeup? How are you doing in respect to the trends of the industry? Are you meeting or exceeding customer wants and needs? Are your distribution channels in line with where your customers buy their products/services?

Does the information gathered match up with your current messages? Are you broadcasting your messages in the outlets your customers get their information from? Is it the information consumers are seeking?

Once you’ve acquired the appropriate knowledge you can than formulate a solid foundation with a strategic plan, market strategy, and a value proposition that differentiates your business from the rest. Additionally, you can develop a comprehensive marketing communications plan with strategies and tactics tied to the company’s goals—which are obtainable and measurable. Then create messages and experiences that will connect you with your stakeholders.

If you are afraid, or don’t have the time to do these things. Hire a communication firm, like ours, to guide and assist you through the process because having the business intelligence to form a solid foundation is essential to connecting with your stakeholders: physically, rationally and emotionally—and your business’ success.

© 2009, Jeff Klingberg. All rights reserved.

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A recent post in the Hydraulics & Pneumatics magazine’s discussion group on LinkedIn asks: Is fluid power on the decline?

As a person who worked in the industry for 10 years and has provided consulting services to the industry for the past 16 years, I believe it is—especially in the United States. And, if they don’t wake up immediately, they’ll find themselves in the history books and museums alongside dinosaurs—extinct.

Like a precision military assault, the fluid power industry is getting hammered on several fronts: technology competition, the environment, government regulations and knowledge loss. The environment, government regulations and knowledge loss have teamed up to open a gaping hole in the fortress allowing a full frontal attack by technology competition.

And, like Great Britain during World War II, the industry has done very little to combat the forces working against them. While some have acknowledged defeat and quit the battle, most of the industry, it seems, have yet to realize they’re under attack or their survival is at risk.

In order to understand why the struggle for survival is being waged, we have to understand a bit of the industry’s history and the product lifecycle curve.

The use of compressed air dates back over 2000 years to ancient Greece. The industry’s genesis came in the 1880s during the industrial revolution. What some call the beginning of the modern fluid power era came just after World War I, and the industry really took off after World War II.

In the 1980s, foreign competition, like Festo, Joucomatic (now ASCO Numatics) and SMC, started coming to the United States and establishing operations. Also, during this period the industry had its largest sales levels.

Starting in the mid 1990s and continuing into the new millennium, the founders of some of the industry’s powerhouses became of retire age. During this period component shipments remained relatively constant, cost per component decreased and profit levels shrank to high single digits. This combination commenced the consolidation of the industry that continues today.

These are clear indicators of an industry in decline, as shown above. Now, let’s take a look at how the assault is being waged.

The environment and government regulation opens the hole.

December 1970, the US Environmental Protection Agency was established to protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment—air, water, and land. Over the next 27 years scientists and governments worldwide came to the conclusion that the earth was warming, and much of its cause can be attributed to the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) due to the generation of electricity through the use of coal.

In 1997, industrialized nations signed a treaty to reduce GHG emissions called the Kyoto Protocol. A year later, the US Department of Energy announced the Compressed Air Challenge. Its goal was to reduce the consumption of electricity used to generate compressed air by improving its efficiency 20% by 2010.

On December 12, 2008, the European Union signed an agreement—to surpass the Kyoto Protocol—which will reduce greenhouse gases emissions by 20% from 1990 levels, increase energy efficiency by another 20% and double the use of renewable energy by 2020. Germany has a loftier goal of 40% and doubling energy productivity—currently at 27%.

Hydraulic oil is considered a hazardous waste. Companies not disposing of the used oil in accordance with federal and state laws can be and are sued. Some states, like Illinois, are not only going after the waste disposal companies, but are suing the end user who sold the oil to the disposal company. I learned this when I recently spoke to one plastic injection and blow molding firm who was sued by the Illinois EPA because the firm they hired to recycle and disposal of their hydraulic fluids didn’t dispose of the used oil properly.

To mitigate this type of liability in the future, the firm has worked with all their injection and blow molding equipment suppliers to change all of their 30+ machines to all electric actuation. Industries like HVAC, one of the largest users of pneumatic actuators, have begun eliminating compressed air actuation of dampers and moving to electric actuation. So because of the environment and governmental regulations hydraulic and pneumatic actuation is being replaced at a much greater pace than most realize.

Some companies, like SMC, have begun promoting the reduced air consumption and energy savings of their actuators and valves. But at the same time they, like Festo, Parker Hannifin, Bimba, Norgren and many others, have begun transforming their pneumatic cylinders into electric actuators. At Pack Expo, the Festo salesperson who met me in their booth was more excited to tell me about their electric actuators than he was their servopneumatic systems, which he knew nothing of.

And like any good prize fighter, electric actuator companies, like Intelligent Actuator, see their opening and are pounding away at the fluid power industry with their ads promoting eco-friendly products and lifecycle costs significantly less than pneumatic actuation.

Consolidation not limited to manufacturers.

When looking at the characteristics of the different product lifecycle segments, you’ll recognize that the fluid power industry is in decline. This is evident by the reduction of profitably and the inability to grow organically. This is leading manufacturers and distributors alike to consolidate to grow and to mitigate or eliminate pricing pressures. But there are issues with consolidation, such as elimination of workforce and product integration problems.

Consolidation is not only a trend from a manufacturing and distribution standpoint. It’s also a trend at the end user level. End users are consolidating suppliers to make purchasing and inventory control less costly. That’s why you’re seeing fluid power distributors take on other motion control components and systems—so they can be a one-stop-shop vendor. And, the distributor trade association change its name to The FPDA Motion & Control Network.

Fluid power isn’t sexy.

As a mature industry that arose from the baby boom generation, the industry is seeing this generation of engineers and leaders retire and pass away causing a loss of the technical knowledge and intellectual property that built the industry. The industry acknowledged they’re in trouble from this standpoint at a 2007 international summit in which heads of all the world’s fluid power trade associations agreed to find a solution to the problem.

The problem being that the engineers, designers and mechanics coming out of school over the past decade or so have little to no interest in, or knowledge in the fundamentals of, fluid power. As a May 2007 Design Product News (Canada) article put it, fluid power is not sexy. Electricity is. Therefore, these engineers, designers, and mechanics are specifying electric actuation as the main mode of motion control.

Is the industry prepared for the realities of a changing world?

Today, electric motion control is equivalent to the pneumatic fluid power sector, or roughly $9 billion dollars. All reports indicate that electric motion control growth is expected to stay even with or outpace pneumatic motion control. It’s also expected to dig deeper into the hydraulic sector as well, especially since some of the major earthmoving equipment manufacturers have started to replace hydraulics with electric actuators in certain applications.

While there will be a place for all 3 motion control actuation methods in machinery design, the industry needs to pull their collective heads out of the sand and wake up to the reality at hand. Where is the industry—the NFPA, CETOP, etc.—in driving and promoting energy efficiency.

The United States is nearly 10 to 15 years behind Europe and Japan in technological studies in efficient fluid power product design.

Why hasn’t the industry taken steps to promote efficient and practical machine design to reduce the consumption of compressed air and electricity? At every trade show I attend, I see machinery, shake my head and say to myself who designed this. The fluid power actuation systems being used are rudimentary, impractical and inefficient. Who’s fault is this? It lays at the feet of the industry because the trend in machine design is to seek assistance from the technology manufacturers and distributors who are supposed to know their products.

Why haven’t they been more proactively promoting alternative fluids, such as vegetable-based oils, to replace petroleum-based fluids in hydraulic systems? Water hydraulics has been around for at least 20 years now, but the industry has done little to nothing to educate end users of its benefits. Where has the industry been to combat the negative press of hydraulic leakage and pneumatic lubrication? I believe there are plenty of fitting technologies available today that don’t leak, and pneumatic systems that need no lubrication.

How many manufacturers are aware that they must begin calculating, identifying and installing energy consumption and efficiency numbers into their advertising, and promotional and technical literature in order to service the European market? I’d have to say NONE! But that is the reality of the situation.

Are US fluid power manufacturers ready for this reality? I don’t think so.

Are they ready for the reality that their products must meet ROHS? Are they ready for the reality that their products must meet new ISO safety standards? Are they ready to discuss their products in terms of lifecycle costs? Probably not.

However, it is not too late to stave off being minimized or extinct. Research on new energy efficient products must be accelerated. The industry must band together to promote their value to mankind just like other industries have done in the past. Not just videos posted on YouTube or handed out at fluid power functions, but a strategic marketing communications campaign to advance the industry. And, the industry must take a more concerted effort to educate today’s students—starting in the grade schools—about the simplicity of the technology.

If they do these things, the industry will postpone the decline. If they don’t, I am sorry to say they will end up in the history books and museums alongside dinosaurs—extinct.

Watch for our next article: Don’t kill the fluid power industry just because humans misapply the technology.

© 2009, Jeff Klingberg. All rights reserved.

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