When you have on-the-job questions, who do you turn to? Often it’s hard to find good answers for specific questions. We certainly hope that Industrial Heating is one of your go-to resources. 

When Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” issue hit the streets in February, I decided to put together a column with several ideas about how we can make our companies better places to work. 

In our June issue, you can count on information you need to know about energy. Our first topic is the latest in battery technology. As you know, many of these advancements involve materials technology, which is also of interest to many of our readers. 

Each year, I survey the hot automotive news to inform you about what is most compelling or most oft-reported. This year, it seems to break down to fuel-related news and technology changes. The third most popular stories seem to involve metals and materials, but even they are fuel-related. 

Our March issue focuses on heat treating. For those of you trying to figure out how to estimate heat-treating costs, check out this month’s article on this topic and the companion unabridged online version. 

Our February issue focus is nonferrous, and much of our content this month deals with things nonferrous. Check out our feature articles on the following topics: improving efficiency in melting aluminum scrap, a furnace retrofit at an aluminum casting facility, aluminum brazing in vacuum furnaces and furnaces for processing ceramic capacitors.

Our focus in January is on new technology and other things you should be watching in the coming year. Let’s start off by introducing Industrial Heating’s new publisher, Darrell Dal Pozzo. The sidebar provides more information. We know that Darrell will be warmly received by our thermal-processing family.

If you have been reading Industrial Heating for a while, you know that I like to reflect a bit at year-end. Sometimes that means considering what has happened in the past year and occasionally looking ahead. We have also discussed what’s important in life – in addition to our vocation, of course.

When we think of aerospace news, our thoughts typically turn to aviation – jets that transport people. Let’s start there as we see what’s currently buzzing in the industry. 

Our monthly musings in this column often are based on what’s hot in the news over the past reporting period. For this reason, it seemed that the natural story this month would be about robots.