Pumps & Systems, January 2008
Critical Issues
The first critical issue facing the industry is a shortage of people. To combat this challenge, we continue to recruit talent wherever we can find it, and we have embarked on a mission to bring new people into the industry and train them.
The continued deterioration of the U.S. currency is also a problem. We cannot do much about it, except to continue to grow our business globally to offset the fluctuations and exposure to any single market.
Finally, there is a lack of innovation in the vibration analysis and predictive maintenance marketplace, where things have become "stale" in the last few years. This issue is under our direct control, and we have been investing heavily in R&D over the last 24-36 months to forge ahead into new products and frontiers and to release innovations that will shake up the industry.
Current Trends
Vibration analysis tools are less expensive, less intimidating, more intuitive without compromise, and easier to cost-justify than ever before. We have long believed that a comprehensive vibration diagnostic program does not have to be daunting, expensive and difficult to learn, and one does not need to be on the Fortune 1000 list to afford the benefits of reliability.
We are going to continue to drive out costs, lower prices and develop innovative solutions that lead to the overall growth of the industry and adoption of these beneficial technologies by more and more companies.
Additional Insights
We have invested 29.7 percent of our gross sales into R&D over the past 24 months. We have launched a completely new product platform, which has been the most successful new product introduction in our history. This validation of our efforts has caused us to continue development on additional new products and technologies, and we are planning no less than 5 new product introductions in the first part of 2008.
We are looking to shake things up a bit and we view this as investment in not only our own future, but also in the future of reliability and our current customers. The better the tools we can provide, the more productive they can be, and our goal is to become a sought-after partner for manufacturing and reliability. We can only do that by continuing to be revolutionary through innovation.