Just after the first APICS Board of Directors' meeting of the year, I returned to my office to confront three heavily infected e-mail attachments. Of course, my virus scanner was acting up and, since I was in a rush, I just crossed my fingers, opened them up, and proceeded to infect every Microsoft Word document on my laptop. Needless to say, we did not reach cruising altitude quickly on that morning. More on this later. . .

Then I finished updating a presentation just in time to jet off to a meeting with Denny Larsen, CPIM, and the folks in Region 5. I've been with APICS for more than five years and, believe it or not, this was my very first region meeting, so I didn't know quite what to expect. I am happy to report that the meeting was very productive and fun and it gave me a real appreciation of what the chapter officers face and do out there for the APICS staff. More to the point, the feedback I got there will help improve APICS' services, including the Web site and list server. Thanks again, guys!

Speaking of services, a new search engine specializing in engineering technology, manufacturing, design, IE CAD/CAM, expert systems and robotics is now available. I have not had an opportunity to review it myself, but the service is hosted by The Edinborough University and several APICS members have given it good reports. You can find this service at http://www.eevl.ac.uk/ — just click on Recent Advances in Manufacturing.

So how does this tie in with my previous train (or jet) of thought?

Well, sometime around the middle of January, someone from the CIM in Higher Education Alliance sent an e-mail message about this service to Henry W. Kraebber, P.E., CPIM. Mr. Kraebber was kind enough to copy me. As a result, had you been a member of any one of our SIG discussion lists online, you would have learned about this on January 22 instead of when, or if, you read this column. Other people reported back on their findings as they reviewed the site. This is typical of the kind of activity you will find on a good list — it's fresh, fast, useful and most of it will only be available online. A sample of topics discussed in January includes:

• TOC in the apparel industry
  
  
• Start now; start later?
  
  
• Fwd: Free Six Sigma Software
  
  
• Looking for a consultancy firm on technology transfer
  
  
• Policy re: on-call compensation
  
  
• Critical chain in a job shop
  
  
• Cycle count vs. physical inventory questions
  
  
• How would you manage this?
  
  
• Multiple bottlenecks - medicine
  
  
• Lot traceability system for repetitive manufacturing
  
  
• Kanban and MRP II
  
  
• More on balanced lines
  
  
• Establishing effective performance
  
  
• Activity-based management?

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