Purchasing - September 1, 1998
Features
Sequent pairs with carriers, suppliers to serve clients
When it comes to the open client-server computer systems that run the world's businesses, time is truly of the essence.
- AUTOMOTIVE/OEM
- NEWS
- GM settles strike but gains little
- News
- GM gets catalytic converter concern
- Daimler-Benz revs up partnerships with automakers
- Ford sends sedans south of the border
- VW gets Rolls' plants, BMW nabs name
- TRW's restructuring will help centralize buys
- Lear to set up shop in Portugal
- Continental buys brake unit from ITT
- Johns Manville buys Manson
- Borg-Warner bows out of rod business
- Delphi buys other half of catalyst JV
- GM to create independent Delphi
- BUYING ENERGY
- BUYLINES
- Imports hurt aluminum tags
- WHO'S NEWS
- WHO'S NEWS
- WHO'S NEWS
- ECONOMISTS' POLL
- Boom or gloom? Economists take sides
- MARKET PULSE
- U.S. commodities demand crashes during summer
- SUPPLY STRATEGY
- U.S. Air Force jumps intosmall supplier development
- CPI EDITION
- Leadtimes
- BUYER'S NEWS
- Biggest buying problems:
- CHEMFORECAST
- Slowing demand depresses prices
- Chemical Transaction Prices
- Polymer Resins
- PHARMACEUTICAL INTERMEDIATES
- WANTED: Suppliers that add value
- PHARMACEUTICALS
- New roles for purchasing
- Transaction Chemical Prices
- Index will move up by year-end
- CPI Edition
- CORPORATE CHANGES
- CORPORATE CHANGES
- CORPORATE CHANGES
- CORPORATE CHANGES
- CORPORATE CHANGES
- CORPORATE CHANGES
- CORPORATE CHANGES
- CORPORATE CHANGES
- CORPORATE CHANGES
- CORPORATE CHANGES
- BENZENE
- Tags rise slowly
- Buyer's News
- CAPACITY CHANGES
- CAPACITY CHANGES
- CAPACITY CHANGES
- CAPACITY CHANGES
- CAPACITY CHANGES
- PRICE CHANGES
- CAPACITY CHANGES
- Items in short supply:
- CAPACITY CHANGES
- CAPACITY CHANGES
- INDUSTRIAL GASES
- Surcharges end assummer heat wanes
- SURFACTANTS
- Suppliers increase specialized offerings
- TITANIUM DIOXIDE
- Prices won't fall far
- HOTLINE
- TRANSACTION PRICES
- Count on paying higher ocean shipping costs for goods moving from the U.S. to Latin America
- Expect further slippage in nickel prices
- Plan on more problems with rail freight this fall in Southwestern, Western, and Midwestern states
- Chances of hiking prime rate went from slim to none
- Understanding data and the sophisticated methods used to produce business forecasts will be vital to your career in supply management
- Plan on paying 3%-5% more in postal rates on Jan. 10
- Count on seeing new pollution curbs on cars and light trucks from EPA
- The Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) in London says benchmark Brent crude oil will average
- Look for coated free-sheet paper prices to head even lower
- Watch for more steel industry mergers in North America and Europe
- Note: Small Business Administration has new program aimed at lining up money for small businesses
- Get ready for more hikes by trans-Pacific carriers next year
- Expect tinplate demand slippage to get even worse in the second half of the year
- Visit Purchasing's Web site at www.purchasing.com
- Where's the best place to work?
- If you're a purchasing pro in the chemical process industries (CPI), don't miss our latest book
- Look for tighter rules next year from Congress on bribing overseas parties for business purposes
- Expect the next paper price battle to be fought over high-bright uncoated groundwood specialties
- Expect depressed Asian markets to keep serious downward pressure on commodity chemical prices
- Economy
- Bad news on productivity in quarter two
- Growth in the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (Real GDP) slowed dramatically in second-quarter 1998
- A Purchasing poll of economists finds widely diverging views on the outlook for the next twelve months
- Uncle's Employment Cost Index (ECI), shows total compensation rising 3.5% between June 1997 and June 1998
- Markets
- Nissan Motor, Japan's struggling No. 2 automaker, will stop producing 200SX subcompact coupes at its Smyrna, Tenn., plant
- The nation's sixth-largest chemical distributor Holland Chemical International
- Bell Atlantic and GTE plan a merger that would create the nation's second-largest telephone company
- Aluminum beverage-can shipments rose 2% through first-half 1998 to 52.03 billion units
- North American and European steel production is expected to decline next year
- Data-switching gear maker Ascend Communications of Alameda, Calif.
- Americans bought 9,742,098 vehicles through July 1998, a 2.2% gain over year-ago
- Alcoa, the world's largest aluminum producer, has completed its $3.8 billion acquisition of Alumax
- Merchant industrial gas capacity is growing
- In the largest industrial combination ever, British Petroleum of London and Amoco of Chicago will merge
- Georgia-Pacific is closing the Southern hardwood market pulp portions
- Projections for airline passenger traffic growth
- The "new" Hercules in Wilmington, Del., will be a specialty chemicals giant
- Prices
- Natural gas prices closed July at a 16-month low
- Softening demand has led to price discounting for solid bleached sulfate grades of paperboard
- Zinc prices remain low despite strong demand in North America and Europe
- Atwell lowers nonferrous forecasts
- Producers are postponing an announced $40/ton price increase for standard 30-lb newsprint
- Spot ferrochrome prices should stumble
- Market prices for stainless steel pipe and tube products have fallen 5%
- Copper and zinc prices will be weak through next year
- Spot-market tags for polyvinyl chloride will remain weak through 1999
- Secondary aluminum market insiders suggest it will be some time before prices for die-casting alloys recover
- Prices for coiled steel plate have gone from smooth-sailing at high levels to a tempest of discounts
- Midwest spot pricing for 2x4-inch lumber continues to crack
- Bulk shipping rates will remain relatively low through 2002
- INSIDE PURCHASING
- METALS
- INTERNATIONAL STEEL REPORT
- Excess supply keeps steel prices low
- NEWS
- World steelmakers suspend expansions
- News
- Global steel pour nudges upward
- Excess supply tarnishes copper pricing
- Asarco boosts copper production
- CHIPS
- CHIPS
- CHIPS
- CHIPS
- Korean steel output to fall
- CHIPS
- Half of Thai steel operations are shut
- CHIPS
- Steel Outlook '99 is slated for October 29
- Coiled plate pricing drops
- CHIPS
- Special Metals buys Inco Alloys
- CHIPS
- PRODUCT UPDATE
- LUBRICANTS & CUTTING FLUIDS
- Prices to remain stable through year-end
- PROFESSIONAL PROFILE
- RECYCLING RESOURCES
- STRATEGIES
- MATERIALS MANAGEMENT
- JIT moves UP the supply chain
- SUPPLIERS
- Welcome booklet contest
- The BESTwelcome bookletsof 1998
- SUPPLY INSIGHTS
- BUYING PLANS/PRICE EXPECTATIONS
- Noncurrent-carrying wiring devices (SIC 3644)
- FORECASTS
- ...consumers take no notice...
- STRATEGIC COST INSIGHTS
- Time to seek wiring concessions
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