A metal plating company relies upon independent drivers to transport its finished goods to customers.

  We have not changed our outlook—the economy should avoid slipping into a broad-based recession for most, if not all, of 2008.

 Future robot systems cannot be a mere extrapolation of today’s technology, but should generate whole new application arenas.

 Radio frequency identification (RFID)-based asset tracking in a manufacturing setting may encompass automated tracking of fixed or capital assets, engineered assets such as process instrumentation, information technology (IT) assets or reusable containers.

  The industrial automation environment holds the potential for installation of wireless products throughout a factory or plant to yield vast arrays of information that can improve operations and profitability. Already widely deployed in commercial and business applications, industrial wireless adoption has been stalled, purportedly because process control users are slow to change and are paranoid about security. The real reasons for slow introduction are a combination of old-paradigm thinking, compounded by paralysis analysis through standards committees.

 This issue kicks off our second year of publishing Automation World. The first issue went into the mail in June 2003. That was preceded by four months of planning, arguing, cajoling, traveling and writing.