This continues our series of commentaries outlining our 2012 Predictions for Global Supply Chains. These predictions are provided in the spirit of advising supply chain organizations in setting management agenda for the year ahead, and in helping our readers and clients to prepare their supply chain management teams in establishing programs, initiatives and educational agendas for the New Year.

Readers can review the full listing of 2012 predictions at the following link.

In this Part Two posting, we explore our first two predictions for 2012.

Prediction One: A continued spillover of high uncertainty of events related to the global economy will make business growth highly challenged, and thus provide another challenging year in global supply chain management.

As we noted in our 2011 Predictions scorecard, 2011 moved from a manufacturing resurgence to a period of high uncertainty. Both the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) now point to a period of high uncertainty in 2012.  The IMF’s World Economic Outlook stated in September that: “The global economy is in a dangerous new phase.  Global activity has weakened and become more uneven, confidence has fallen sharply recently, and downside risks are growing.” In preparation for the November G-20 Summit meeting held in Cannes, both organizations noted that the world economy has elevated risks of falling back into recession without bold actions on the part of governments.

The IMF points to considerable uncertainty about how fiscal sustainability will be achieved in the U.S., Japan, and some Eurozone economies.  The agency further points to the need for consistent, coherent, and co-operative approach to crisis resolution in regard to the ongoing Eurozone fiscal crisis. While growth in the Asian region has propelled the global recovery thus far, strains in the Eurozone crisis could have a negative impact on Asian growth. Signs of a slowing in previous growth cycles in the emerging markets are already showing.  China, Brazil, and India are collectively slowing according to Q3 GDP numbers.

The OECD projects GDP growth will remain weak in the advanced G-20 economies over the next two years and the growth pace of major emerging markets is expected to be lower. The OECD points to a marked slowdown with patches of mild negative growth for the Eurozone and a gloomier outlook if EU leaders fail to restore market confidence or if financial contagion spreads to other advanced countries such as the U.S…  The gloom scenario suggests a financial deterioration of the magnitude experienced in 2008-09, which could lead to a drop in GDP levels of the major OECD economies of up to 5 percent by the first half of 2013. Unemployment is expected to remain high in many advanced countries.

These grim projections do not include any effects of further economic shocks that may come as a result of added natural disasters or political, social or unplanned events. Politicians and economists are very careful in avoiding the “R” word until it is obvious.  While we profess not to be trained economists, it feels like the global economy is at risk of slipping back into recession during 2012, and the question remains as to how severe. Many advanced countries remain reluctant to propose or sustain economic stimulus measures such as investments in transportation, new growth opportunities like alternative energy, or supply chain related infrastructure.

For these reasons, global supply chains in 2012 will be highly challenged to help in sustaining any top-line growth, while cost reduction pressures will unfortunately increase.  Uncertainty has already begun among industry supply chains as reflected in lower order volumes and cautious prospective. The challenge will be in where to cut costs, since previous cost cutting has taken on the most obvious areas, and now rather difficult decisions lie ahead. Similar to what occurred during the 2008-09 Wall Street financial crisis, emphasis will likely be placed on increased customer service and the retention of key customers.  Inventory investment will also be challenging, particularly in Europe where access to affordable credit may become problematic.

While many manufacturers have relied on emerging markets as the growth engine, that could change in 2012 as these economies will continue to adjust to the effects of rising prices, high inflation and the uncertainty of global export markets.  Protection of domestic producers may well increase in order to sustain any internal employment and economic growth. U.S. manufacturers could fare better than European producers if contagion does not spread.

Prediction Two: Commodity and component price increase levels experienced in 2011, with some exceptions, will moderate in 2012, but procurement teams need to maintain a keen eye on pricing, supplier health and performance, and supply network agility.

In the first-half of 2011, industry supply chains struggled with rather high levels of inbound material price increases that significantly impacted gross margins and profitability.  Many companies had to pass along these increased costs in higher prices to customers and consumers in the range of 5 to 10 percent. Transportation costs remained high in spite of some moderation in the cost of energy during the middle to late part of the year.

Moving into 2012, all indications point to continued moderation of inbound price hikes, especially if economic output activity begins to falter.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture has forecasted food inflation levels to moderate in the range of 2.5 to 3.5 percent in 2012 over the 3.5 to 4.5 rate increases experienced in 2011.  Similarly, metals prices are expected to moderate or decline, especially if world economic output takes a dramatic negative turn in 2012. The October 2011 Manufacturing ISM Report on Business reported the ISM Prices Index as 15 percentage points lower than September, with areas such as plastics, primary metals, electrical equipment, chemicals, papers, among others, all indicating lower prices.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts global crude oil consumption to grow from 88.2 million barrels per day in 2011 to 89.6 million bbl. /day in 2012. According to the EIA, China and other emerging economies will account for all projected 2012 consumption growth. Consumption in member OECD countries is projected to be relatively flat in 2012. OPEC crude oil production is expected to remain flat in 2012, with U.S. retail gasoline and diesel prices also expected to remain flat or slightly decline in 2012. As in the past, a large caveat is associated with these forecasts, namely that political unrest across the Middle East, terrorist incidents, or other shocks impacting supply do not occur during the year.  It will be interesting to observe how a moderation in energy prices will impact current transportation carrier surcharges and rate increases during 2012.

Our caveat in price increases applies to specific industries that will be influenced by the after-effects of the monsoon floods that impacted Thailand, specifically hard disk drives and other precision electronics. Current indications are that supply and capacity shortages may extend further into 2012.  Any other occurrence of a major supply disruption in 2012 should also be monitored. The U.S. west coast is long overdue for a major earthquake event, and further major seismic shocks surrounding Asia’s Fire Ring are always a concern.

Beyond price issues, procurement teams will need to once again keep a keen eye on supplier health and performance, especially if the Eurozone financial crisis spills over to other economies.  Overall, supply chains remain rather fragile with all of the shocks that occurred in 2011.  The need for agility in supply contracts is very important.  Rather than pressuring suppliers for added price reductions, it will be more important to maintain a reliable network of supply flexibility.

This concludes Part Two of our Supply Chain Matters 2012 Predictions.  In Part Three, we will explore our prediction that 2012 will bring a complete re-visit to supply chain outsourcing strategies, namely because of the new impact of supply risk and business continuity insurance coverage.

In the meantime, readers are encouraged to share observations and added predictions from your industry and functional lenses.

Bob Ferrari

© 2011 The Ferrari Consulting and Research Group LLC and the Supply Chain Matters, All rights reserved.

There is yet another milestone event regarding ongoing supply chain impacts concerning the alternative energy industry.

Readers may recall our recent Supply Chain Matters commentary regarding consolidations occurring in solar panel manufacturing.  Intense competition, overcapacity and certain economic advantages have caused China based producers to continue to benefit from global consolidation and more compelling economics that favor supply chain capabilities within China. We previously noted the events leading up to the bankruptcy of Evergreen Solar, and since that commentary, we can now add the bankruptcy intent of Fremont California based Solyndra, at the cost of 1100 jobs. Each of these companies cited their inability to compete with Chinese producers in an environment of global overcapacity and eroding market prices.

Evidence of similar trends, albeit early stage, are now starting to occur in battery production but with a different twist.  Xconomy reported this week that Boston Power, a developer of advanced lithium-ion battery technology announced a new round of strategic funding.

The company announced that it raised an additional $125 million of funding, but with a new twist to its business model.  That revision caused the company’s existing CEO, CFO and vice president of marketing to resign at the time of the announcement. Beijing based GSR Ventures is leading the current round of funding, and the deal is reported to include other funding from the Chinese government.

The company’s new strategic plan calls for a product direction weighted toward the powering of electric vehicles while production operations and most of product marketing are to be shifted to China, where Boston Power is currently building a new factory.  However, Xconomy reports that research and development, product design and sales will initially remain in the U.S. while hundreds of jobs will be added in China. Boston Power’s original founder and now international chairmen, Christina Lampe-Onnerud will also remain in the U.S. while GSR managing partner Sonny Wu will now chair the company’s board of directors. One of Boston Power’s current strategic customers is Hewlett Packard which utilizes its battery technology in its portable electronics.

In essence, this is an example of a westernized  venture capitalist model with a China thrust.  With R&D and design resources remaining in the U.S. while high volume production and global distribution sourced within China, the Boston Power has the opportunity to leverage lower labor costs, lots of governmental incentives and U.S. developed product technology.

Replication is the best form of flattery.  However, this development is yet another warning sign for existing North America and Europe based producers who continue to compete with Chinese producers for market share and long-term supply contracts. All of this is important since many auto industry observers, including ourselves, anticipate a glut of excess electric battery production capacity over the next 3-4 years.  Such situations always tend to favor the lowest cost, most efficient supplier with the strongest OEM supplier ties.

Once again, as U.S. and European politicians make hay of out-of-control spending without the context of a strategic economic growth plan, China continues to show signs of building out the high volume production and distribution expertise to sustain a long-term presence in important strategic growth markets.  We now must add a venture-capitalist model that favors China’s strategic interests.

Bob Ferrari

I had the opportunity this past week to catch-up with Gopi Krishnan, Practice Lead, Supply Chain Management at Infosys Technologies.  Gopi is a periodic contributor of guest postings on this blog, and I always look forward to speaking and exchanging insights regarding global supply chain related process and technology developments with him.

The IBM Pulse 2011 conference kicks off today in Las Vegas, and Infosys is one of the designated Gold sponsors.  The Infosys exhibition booth will be # G305. (Disclosure: Infosys is one of other featured sponsors to this blog) .

Gopi will be delivering a talk addressing smarter asset management and was gracious enough to speak with Supply Chain Matters on interesting and important topics related to today’s asset management and supply chain needs.

Question: I noticed that your presentation involves smarter asset management in the energy and utilities industry.  The abstract indicates that traditional asset management is reaching end-of-life, and that the new focus is on interoperability and compliance.  Could you elaborate on what is meant by true enterprise capabilities in EAM?

Gopi noted that technology needs for enterprise asset management (EAM) are changing, and firms need to consider what are the true “enterprise capabilities” needs in asset management.  Today, many asset-intensive firms have profiled asset management technology either as:

• Single best-of-breed application;
• Core ERP module or application;
• Another best-of-breed application at division or business unit level;
• Custom built application.

An important consideration is that many of the older existing implementations are not enterprise capable and provide little standardization in accommodating and integrating enterprise-wide information needs. They may be locally installed with little ability to provide a global or corporate-wide view of assets, or asset-related process needs. This leads to challenges in the ability to assess asset up-time on a global basis.  Gopi observed that while many firms term their EAM implementations as global, by and large, it turns out to be local in capability. While companies note that they currently have 80-85% overall asset utilization today, it may not be enough to satisfy needs to be industry competitive.

A further aspect is that current asset management users primarily utilize work management functions, but today’s EAM applications enable integration to procurement and inventory management needs as well. An enterprise class EAM application allows firms to assess and manage efficiencies along with centralized procurement and inventory management practices.

Question: Could you briefly describe the Infosys SCM consulting resource capabilities specifically focused on EAM?

Gopi noted that Infosys entered the asset management area back in 2001, primarily in a project based focus, as opposed to a practice capability. The project involved a European based telecom provider. It wasn’t until 2005, after a number of significant projects, that Infosys began to evolve a practice capability. When MRO was taken over by IBM in 2006, the relationship with and capabilities involving IBM technology expanded.

In Gopi’s travels, many clients and prospects ask him why is asset management included under the SCM practice umbrella? His answer is that similar to a standard ERP application deployed in an asset-intensive company, if you were to theoretically add functions of financial and human resources management to today’s asset management technology such as IBM’s Maximo, you would have capabilities to manage many supply-chain and operational wide needs for asset, procurement and inventory management. There are aspects for mobility needs, safety stocks and other operational management process needs as well.  He indicated that Infosys supply chain consultants similarly have experience in SCM applications such as Sterling Commerce and JDA Software, which although different, are just as applicable to a successful Maximo implementation. Today, the practice has many business, functional and technical consultants working on upgrades, migrations or full deployments.

Gopi also believes that EAM applications are the most complex to master.  He explains that there are two consulting competencies to consider. The vertical industry uniqueness in business process enablement needs are very strong across different vertical industries. How EAM is deployed in asset intensive manufacturing is very different than utilities or retail based industry.  The processes are different, the asset types are similarly different with different requirements for supporting business process requirements such as mobility.  Secondly, the consultant needs to have depth in the three facets of EAM:

• Core MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul), as it applies to capital asset management.
• Facilities management which could include aspects of HVAC, mechanical, carpentry and electrical characteristics. A lot of banks and insurance companies utilize these characteristics.
• IT services management.  The reason IBM placed Maximo under the Tivoli management umbrella was the ability to provide for the effective management of all kinds of assets, including IT.  That differentiates Maximo from other applications that may only excel in one of the above areas. The IBM approach is to view any asset as an asset is an asset, and users should be able to remotely manage and account for that asset.

The buyer centers for each of these three facets are also different notes Gopi, and the consultant needs to be able to understand and translate buyer needs across all of these facets.

This concludes part one of our interview commentary.  In our part two posting, we will share thoughts from Gopi on the changing perspectives of supply chain and IT executives regarding current supply chain technology initiatives, so stay tuned.

In the mean time, please feel free to share in the Comments section, what you feel are your organization’s more difficult challenges related to smarter asset management.

Bob Ferrari

Full Disclosure: Infosys Technologies is one of other paid sponsors of the Supply Chain Matters blog.

The following commentary can also be viewed and commented upon on the Supply Chain Expert Community web site.

In March of 2010, Supply Chain Matters provided commentary on how the aftereffects of major economic downturns can often lead to new and different business models.  We specifically cited an evolving trend for disintermediation and structural change within certain industry supply chains, motivated by certain business performance needs.  The ongoing developments currently occurring in the beverages industry provide learning for certain other industries.

Within the beverages industry, the separate acquisition announcements by both Coca Cola and PepsiCo for buyout of each of their major North American distribution groups made significant news for that industry.  Both previously held major equity interests in their named franchise bottling groups, but major shifts in consumer buying preferences toward flavored waters, juices and other drinks caused both industry giants to embark on a strategy of acquiring the assets of major bottlers.  PepsiCo was first by acquiring both Pepsi Bottling Group Inc. and PepsiAmericas Inc. for $7.8 billion. Coca Cola followed later with its acquisition of the North American operations of Coca Cola Enterprises for $15 billion.  Both companies at the time indicated the need for more flexibility in production, distribution and new product innovation cycles.

In our prior commentary we speculated that both companies were about to gain a new appreciation for geographical supply chain operational flexibility, inventory management and smarter asset management.  We also wanted to keep an eye toward the evolution of both efforts, since there are often mixed results to major M&A efforts.  Both companies have now posted fourth quarter and 2010 earnings and the first signposts are emerging.

Coca Cola’s fourth quarter earnings soared, and the Wall Street Journal report attributed some of the results to the acquisition of North America bottling operations.  Sales volumes in North America rose 3%, excluding the impact of acquisitions, and unit shipment volumes are increasing. Quarterly profit nearly quadrupled and total worldwide revenues were up 40 percent. Current opinion in the Wall Street analyst community is that growth has come at market share expense of competitors.  Coca Cola was not immune to higher inbound commodity costs and anticipates overall costs to be up $400 million in 2011. More importantly, increases in juice, aluminum, plastic and energy will be more impactful since Coke now controls major portions of bottling and distribution, and the company has already embarked on incremental price increases among products, which may extend through the remainder of 2011.

PepsiCo reported fourth quarter revenues up 37 percent but earnings came in at 10 percent. Full year earnings increased 34 percent, with profits up a mere 6 percent. North America operations grew operating profit by 8 percent, the strongest growth in the decade.  However, volume levels were relatively flat.  Total inventories were also up 28 percent from a year ago. The company indicated in its earnings briefing that synergies from its previous acquisitions are exceeding original estimates.  Hmm…

PepsiCo further indicated that commodity costs could increase to as much as $1.6 billion, considerably more than was reported by Coke.  We should however point out that PepsiCo has a more diverse snacks and food portfolio, including its Frito Lay division, which increases its exposure to increased commodity costs.  Some on Wall Street are skeptical on Pepsi’s outlook, expressing concern on the bottling acquisition as well as investments in a major Russian distributor and other emerging markets were Coke is stronger.

Wall Street may be on the right track in terms of its observations, and I’m sure that our community readers will have more pointed observations as to these initial signposts on efforts to own more of the bottling and distribution value-chain.  From this author’s perspective, the initial evidence points to how more efficient inventory, operational and commodity management can impact the overall success of these initiatives, as well as the bottom line. In the end, supply and value-chain capabilities always matter.

Students and practitioners of supply chain management should continue keep a keen eye on the beverages industry because what is unfolding is yet another case study on how supply chain transformation, change management and process capabilities do matter for companies and industries. We previously commented on the notion of an integrative improvement framework where operational improvement efforts scale with the clock speed of business.  The beverages industry continues to undergo a living test of these concepts.

Bob Ferrari

The following commentary can also be viewed and commented on the Supply Chain Expert Community web site.

Last week, Supply Chain Matters commented on what is turning out to be one of the most troublesome supply chain challenges in 2011, namely the challenge of exploding inbound material costs. This challenge often points to the need for companies to either raise product prices, which could jeopardize momentum of product demand, or undertake further cost reductions to offset material costs increases.  Recent polls of supply chain professionals indicate that volatility of demand and rapidly changing business demand patterns are also a dominant challenge.  If reports of Q4 earnings are an indicator, both challenges are occurring simultaneously in multiple industry sectors, and the proper balancing of both will be the differentiator for those companies that succeed in this ‘new normal’ of business in 2011.

The challenge of rising input costs was specifically noted in both B2C and B2B industry sectors.  Procter and Gamble indicated that higher inbound costs will lower its annual earnings by about $1 billion, noting that commodity prices were 20 percent higher than a year ago.  As a result, P&G initiated a new round of internal cost cutting including the elimination of some manufacturing lines, and has not ruled out selective price increases for certain products.  Kimberly Clark, under pressure in rising commodity costs and also competition from private brands,  plans to sell, close or streamline six manufacturing facilities. Yet, the company admitted it may have cut production too deeply in Q4, giving up an estimated $20 million in profits. Industrials maker 3M is actually building inventories in expectation of continued booming export demand and a robust Q1.

The CFO of Ford Motor Company noted that the company expected to see additional pressure on commodity costs in 2011.  Ford reported that its average profit margin on each of its cars and trucks produced in North America was $1730, while profit margin per vehicle in Asia was a mere $97 on roughly 40% of North America’s output volume.  The implication is that while Asia demand is booming, in a market of high price sensitivity, the challenge to increase margins in the midst of such challenges will be a prime concern.  Meanwhile Volkswagen warned that a shortage of certain electronic components within its engines will force the company to halt production at two German factories this week.  German automakers have experienced extraordinary order rates primarily driven by demand in emerging markets.  The CEO of Daimler noted that suppliers are under quite a strain to keep up with demand, and everyone is struggling.  In December, the Vice President of Procurement for BMW North America noted that some of BMW’s suppliers cut too deeply during the recession, and now cannot keep pace with current demand.  Corning who had slashed inventories during the recession, struggled in 2010 to keep-up with auto maker demands for emission control filters, having to ship parts by air to China factories.

Caterpillar experienced a blowout Q4 due in part to the fact that exploding commodity costs have fueled mining companies to invest in additional equipment, while the increased boom in building and construction in emerging markets fuels the need for additional equipment.  While acknowledging that higher prices for metals and other materials were evident, the company did not see them as a significant challenge in 2011, primarily because of the increased efficiency of its internal manufacturing plants and external suppliers.  Last year, Caterpillar’s internal plants boosted shipments at the fastest rate in more than three decades. However the company has been shifting the sourcing of complex parts away from more costly regions, such as Japan, into China.

While Apple has done an extraordinary job in being able to respond to and sustain explosive shipping volumes for iPhones and iPads, other consumer electronics providers continue to struggle with the combined challenges of select component shortages brought about by explosive demand, and now, the threat of increased material and component costs impacting margins.

These combined challenges have not gone unnoticed, and the financial media and Wall Street have taken notice to both challenges, but in our view, haven’t connected the dots as yet.  Rising raw material and component costs prompt fears for maintaining rather healthy margins and healthy balance sheets.  Wall Street enjoys the benefits of exploding productivity as companies continue to get more done with less.  On the other hand, the visibility to the constraints of today’s extraordinarily lean supply chains continued to be noted. Unplanned or exception events, can cause either a lost opportunity on securing new business, or pay a penalty in increased costs to satisfy demands.

The real victims in 2011 may well be smaller suppliers who are caught in the vise of larger customers demanding additional cost and productivity concessions, or increased agility to respond to exploding growth opportunities in the emerging markets.  These same suppliers are squeezed by challenges to access additional capital financing and to invest in the business process and advanced technology tools that can provide broader supply chain visibility and responsiveness.

The two significant supply chain management challenges in 2011 of offsetting exploding material costs, while insuring the ability to be agile and responsive to more explosive demand coming from certain geographic regions, will no doubt cause some firms additional setbacks.  Cutting more costs internally while demanding a more agile and faster responding supply chain are mutually exclusive and conflicting goals.  This does not bode well for either North American based supply chains or smaller suppliers caught in the current squeeze.

Tough decisions are in store for the remainder of 2011.  Organizations that most need to invest in value-chain agility and responsiveness may find themselves prohibited from doing so by cost pressures.  The need for closer communication and coordinated strategy among procurement and broader supply chain management teams will be a fundamental challenge in 2011.

How is your organization addressing these two challenges?

Bob Ferrari

© Copyright 2011 The Ferrari Consulting and Research Group LLC

I recently had the opportunity to catch-up with a former AMR Research colleague, Roddy Martin.  Roddy is well known in supply chain circles and needs no introduction as an extraordinary thought leader. He recently joined consulting firm Competitive Capabilities International (CCI) as their senior vice president of global supply chain consulting.

CCI is a global operations and manufacturing management consultancy with a 20-year reputation of collaborating with companies to help them become and remain world class. The firm features a stellar group of clients and caters primarily to process manufacturing based firms, many of which are noted global brands.

I always look forward to conversing with Roddy about the challenges and developments related to supply chain transformation, and our conversation was, as always, invigorating.

CCI provides a continuous improvement framework which is termed TRACC, which is not software, but rather a well defined framework of codified best practices addressing the various stages of maturity of a firm’s overall supply chain and manufacturing capabilities.  What I like about the TRACC methodology is that it recognizes that sustainable transformation requires engagement at multiple areas of change, and each stage of maturity is evaluated in the context of management operating practices, enabling systems, and process based tools. The framework is also complementary to the Supply Chain Operations Framework (SCOR) methodology. The TRACC methodology was designed to help firms self-manage their own supply chain transformation utilizing a well defined framework of evaluation, management themes and maturity benchmarks.

Beyond any singular transformation methodology, Roddy and I discussed the challenges that many firms have in building and sustaining the supply chain capabilities required in this new post-recessionary era of different norms of business variability, velocity and rates of change. Too often, supply chain teams have tended to be driven by project-based vs. broader process based initiatives for change.  Roddy and I discussed several examples.  For instance, many companies embraced individual project-based lean or continuous improvement initiatives, perhaps without an overall context of an end goal for cross-functional and cross-business supply chain capability needs.   Similarly, the past severe economic recession drove many organizational teams to be driven solely by supply chain cost saving objectives, sometimes at the expense of overall needs for enhanced agility, consistency in quality, or overcoming the increased complexity involved with supporting global based supply fulfillment needs.  In our overall Supply Chain Matters Predictions for 2011, we noted that these singular cost-reduction initiatives may have taken a heavy toll, one that is manifesting itself in increased incidents of quality process breakdowns and increased supply chain disruption. While the past severe recession had various economic and cost control impacts for business, it should not have served as the singular goal in supply chain process and transformational activities.

Beyond individual initiatives lies the umbrella need for an Integrative Improvement Framework that addresses the end-to-end, extended supply chain, involving internal and external based teams.   This is not software, or another management buzz term, but rather a comprehensive framework addressing the maturity of various process capabilities throughout the supply chain. The reality is that many firms need to once and for all move beyond the functional silos of individual project or functional driven goal performance, toward a more comprehensive framework of joint and complimentary competencies.  The keys to an Integrative Improvement Framework are:

• Top level leadership and commitment to organizational and process change management needs.
• Engagement and participation of all levels of supply chain, both internal and external.
• The notion that this is a journey, with multiple stages of maturity involved in the overall journey.

Supply Chain Matters will provide more ongoing commentary regarding this key topic in the weeks ahead, so stay tuned.  In the meantime, you are welcomed to share your own observations or experiences regarding this need for a broader Integrative Improvement Framework approach to supply chain transformation. Please utilize the Comments section blow this posting.

Bob Ferrari