Purchasing - September 2, 1999
Features
Alternative and specialty chemicals keep growing
Technological changes are impacting papermaking in some fairly substantial ways.
- AUTOMOTIVE/OEM
- BUYING ENERGY
- BUYLINES
- BENCHMARKING
- Is benchmarking a worthwhile pursuit?
- BUYING STRATEGY
- Falling costs give buyers negotiating leverage
- COST MEASUREMENT
- Tracking total cost of ownership proves elusive
- GRASSROOTS BUSINESS SURVEY
- Price tags rise in some segments, fall in others
- JIT II PROGRAMS
- The New Age supplier
- NEGOTIATION PERSPECTIVE
- Dirty tricks persist despite era of win-win relationships
- WASHINGTON PERSPECTIVE
- Politicized domain-name war threatens e-commerce growth
- CAREER DEVELOPMENT
- CROSS-FUNCTIONAL TEAMS--PART V
- What it takes to make a team
- CPI EDITION
- BUYER'S NEWS
- Chemicals on the Internet
- Biggest buying problems:
- PE price hikes will boost plastic drum tags
- Prices stable through year-end, then softening
- MTBE phaseout will spur ethanol demand
- CAPACITY CHANGES
- CORPORATE CHANGES
- Overcapacity will erode prices in 2000
- PET producers hike prices with summer demand
- Items in short supply
- Supplier quality levels hit a high point
- Phillips plant explosion under investigation
- PRICE INCREASES
- CHEMICAL TRANSACTION PRICES
- Index jumps up, but buyers say it won't stay
- Plastic resin prices
- Purchasing transaction price survey results
- Chemforecast
- Diverse markets provide moderate growth
- PHARMACEUTICALS
- Speed, competition drive outsourcing at Searle
- CPI Edition
- PHARMACEUTICAL INTERMEDIATES
- Genzyme remakes purchasing to maximize supply value
- INSIDE PURCHASING
- METALS
- NEWS
- Nucor ranks No. 1 with customers
- Availability tightens, some prices head up
- Steel mills see better orders
- U.S. probes beam imports
- Aluminum firms forecast higher demand growth
- Pechiney buys aluminum units from Century
- Tin touted as lead replacement in machining steel
- Tubacex
- Kang Won Industrial
- Australia to begin magnesium production
- Sheet, plate subsidy, dumping cases advance
- Nabors Capital
- Copper scandal just won't go away
- NKK
- Associated Manganese Mines
- Metal centers get MRO supply deals from Defense
- Union to appeal NAFTA setback
- Stainless recovery grinds into gear
- LTV, Bethlehem form JV steel-processing firms
- Steel firms agree on five-year labor pacts
- NORTH AMERICAN STEEL
- NAFTA steel colossus still napping
- STEEL TRADE
- Buyers, mills don't see eye to eye on 'crisis'
- MRO BUYING REPORT
- PRODUCT UPDATE
- PROFESSIONAL PROFILE
- PURCHASING HOTLINE
- Consider asking ocean carriers to waive liability limits
- Don't miss the 1999 Purchasing Conference
- Plan on paying higher prices for plastics
- Count on big jump in less-than-truckload (LTL) rates
- Plan on economic growth of 3.3% for next year
- Keep an eye on status of anti-trust immunity for ocean carriers
- Expect to pay more for stainless steel in coming months
- Expect ethanol prices to rise with recent government report
- Here's outlook for fuel prices
- Keep an eye on new process to produce ethylene
- Count on pay raises to average about 4%
- Need timely commodity pricing data?
- Want to be up-to-date on the latest in non-traditional purchasing? Get Purchasing's new book
- Look for more suppliers to consider merging to beat new accounting rules
- TRANSACTION PRICES
- Look for osha to regulate exposure to metalworking fluids
- Keep an eye on efforts by National Industrial Transportation (NIT) League to change Jones Act
- Discount any talk of global warming treaty being submitted to Congress
- Forget about legislation passing this year that would increase maximum truck weights
- Expect airfares to begin to decline by end of third quarter
- Plan on suppliers and customers building up inventories late this year
- Need guidance in benchmarking practices?
- Plan on hotel rates rising about 4% on average next year
- Expect consolidation of oil refineries to continue
- Be prepared for tighter supplies and upward price pressure for most petrochemicals
- If you want to know what to expect in purchasing over the next decade
- ECONOMY
- In the past four months, Purchasing's diffusion index tracking supplier on-time delivery performance has dipped below the neutral 50% threshold
- Financial markets recoiled in horror when the BLS reported a 1.1% second-quarter gain in its closely watched Employment Cost Index (ECI)
- Real GDP advanced at an annual rate of 2.3% in second quarter 1999
- U.S. Import Price Index fell 0.2% in June
- Consumer confidence fell in July for the first time this year
- Business sector productivity growth slowed substantially in second quarter
- MARKETS
- Creation of the world's largest publicly traded copper company, Asarco Cyprus, opens a fresh chapter in the restructuring of the world copper industry
- The Coast Guard is working to keep U.S. ports open on January 1
- Eastman Chemical Co. is regrouping its businesses into two units
- Archer Daniels Midland and High Plains, along with their corn-grower allies, will lobby Congress to endorse ethanol as the alternative oxygenated additive in gasoline
- Jim Walters, president of Hydro Aluminum Louisville
- Dow Chemical has agreed to buy rival Union Carbide for $8.89 billion
- Partners in the Airbus Industrie consortium are talking about turning the European aircraft manufacturer into a single corporate entity
- The federal government will proceed with a pair of complaints seeking blockage of low-priced steel shipments
- Never has the auto industry enjoyed such a lengthy cycle of healthy U.S. sales
- Midyear outlook from the equipment Manufacturers Institute sees a 1999 sales decline
- Louisiana-Pacific has increased to $507 million its offer to buy Canadian forestry company Le Groupe Forex
- PRICES
- A Nucor flat-rolled steel plant is pursuing a $10/ton price hike at present
- Buyers remain skeptical that Special Metals and Haynes International can implement their announced 5% boost in nickel alloy flat-rolled price tags
- Rock-Tenn adding $50/ton to its prices for recycled paperboard products (coated and uncoated)
- Hot-dip galvanized sheet steel prices show no signs of rising
- Steel processors and service centers appear to have accepted a $25/ton August price hike
- World pulp prices are expected to increase this autumn
- Mills are making upward price moves on flat-bar steel products
- CIBC World Markets has raised its 1999 palladium price outlook by 9% to $346/oz
- Precision Specialty Metals has implemented a 7% price hike on stainless steel and nickel-alloy strip products
- Major polystyrene (PS) producers, led by Fina Oil & Chemical, have announced 2ยข/lb price increases
- Prices for uncoated offset free sheet and commodity cut-size sheet papers are set to rise for a second time
- Newsprint execs say a planned October price hike will stick
- Weakened demand and oversupply have pushed down high-volume tool steel prices
- Gold is hovering near a 20-year low of $250/troy ounce
- Micron Tech sees an imminent uptick in memory chip prices
- RECYCLING RESOURCES
- STRATEGIES
- INDIRECT SOURCING
- Taking control of 'indirect' corporate spending
- JUST-IN-TIME
- What's it going to take to make it
- SUPPLY INSIGHTS
- LEADTIMES
- BUYING PLANS/PRICE EXPECTATIONS
- FORECASTS
- Employment cost index up
- Was wage gain a fluke?
- Factory jobs grow at last
- STRATEGIC COST INSIGHTS
- Plywood prices, margins up
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