Keynote speaker Mark Scharenbroich has straightforward advice for growing a business: Make a true connection with employees and customers and positive results will follow. Scharenbroich shared his humor and motivational wisdom with a packed room at ATA’s 2018 Expo annual meeting October 16. Rain, wind and cold outside the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in [...]

ATA’s Pre-Expo Conference Oct. 15 in Dallas offered a range of presentations—many of them focused on topics of particular interest in the advanced textiles area. Textile testing is one topic that will be addressed in more than one session. At the beginning of his talk yesterday on testing and evaluating fabrics’ human comfort, performance and [...]

Connie Huffa, president of Fabdesigns Inc., doesn’t see the 4.0 Industrial Revolution as a factor that hurts jobs. Rather, she explains, “Jobs are changing but not being eliminated.” Huffa, a textile engineer, discussed the how the textile industry, like other manufacturing businesses, is experiencing the fourth Industrial Revolution. Her presentation was part of the ATA’s [...]

Frank Henderson, CEO of Henderson Sewing Machine Co. Inc., has some blunt advice: Automation is the future. Henderson addressed a group October 16 at the 2018 Expo Pre-Conference with an enthusiastic message of how the textile industry can move forward. “We live in a culture of consumption. The future belongs to those who are creative [...]

The Fabricated Geomembrane (FGI) is releasing the presentations from the Aug. 3 “Geosynthetics in Civil Engineering Applications” short course as a six-part webinar series. Three webinars have been released, and three more will be released in the next few weeks. The webinars and release dates are: “Service Life of Geomembranes” by R. Kerry Rowe (9/11/18) “Testing [...]

Should you bother with social media? Most definitely yes, says Luke Gusman, marketing manager for Sta-Lok Inc., a longtime manufacturer of marine and architectural rigging hardware. Gusman says that no matter how large or small your company, there are five social media platforms that can increase engagement with your product or service and raise your [...]

The journey to LEAN manufacturing started back in 2005 for Ehmke Manufacturing Co. Inc., and Ehmke CEO Bob Rosania says it transformed the company more significantly than he ever imagined. LEAN is a systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste through continuous improvements in systems and processes. The LEAN model started in Japan with Toyota [...]

Randy Westlund, founder and CEO of Awning Tracker, presented a session on productivity for small businesses on October 15 at the Expo 2018 Pre-Conference in Dallas, Texas. According to Westlund, if productivity is not managed closely, small businesses can lose money. Three key areas that Westlund discussed during the session included communication, workflow and teamwork. [...]

This is the first time in history that five distinct generations are working in a single workplace, says J. Karl Sherrill Jr., a certified risk manager with Marsh & McLennan Agency LLC, in his 2018 Expo session “Leading Successful Teams in a Multigenerational Workplace.” “It’s a trend affecting every business,” says Sherrill. “You have people [...]

One of the trickiest things facing the sewing industry is finding qualified workers. Many new employees may be unfamiliar with the basics of sewing machine operation, says Faith Roberts, owner of Banner Canvas in Ham Lake, Minn. In her IFAI Expo session “Sewing Tips and Tricks,” Roberts points out that many young people didn’t grow [...]