When this magazine started, the word 'automation' was still relatively fresh. Del Harder had used it internally at Ford for several years before John Diebold's 1953 book Automation introduced the word to the public at large and connected automation to information technology as well as to manufacturing technology.

In 1986, the practice of manufacturing in the U.S. had not been called into question. We still thought of ourselves as king of the hill, although with a wary eye on the Japanese. Magazines devoted to iron, steel, and machining were being replaced by books dealing with the impact on manufacturing of the computer and digital information. Managing Automation was one of the leaders in describing this change, and has remained a leader through the years.

When MA started, there was no talk of outsourcing and almost no mention of logistics or the supply chain. ERP, SOA, demand management, PLM, and China's impact were not even on the horizon.

There was much talk of CIM, MRP II, robots, CAD/CAM, programmable controllers, numerical control, inventory control, and capacity planning. There was a great preoccupation with removing the "smokestacks," or closed shops, in design, engineering, manufacturing, and other areas of the enterprise. There were more and more hard and soft tools to make these isolated functions into an integrated whole.

Multinational companies existed, but globalism was not on everyone's mind. The Cold War still cast a long shadow. Detroit remained the automotive world center, but the city's deteriorating condition presaged change.

The U.S. had a strong machine tool industry and an aggressive robotics industry. Warehousing was big, as were automated storage/retrieval systems. Quality control was all the rage, and JIT was a watch word even for those who did not understand it. (Some things never change.) MRP II was widely adopted but broadly misused or hardly used at all. Japan was making intelligent moves in the automotive and electronics sectors by way of W. Edwards Deming, total quality control, and the Toyota Manufacturing System. Its threat to U.S. manufacturing was growing, but it was nearly invisible to those for whom it should have been a paramount concern.

MAP/TOP was hyped and Ethernet was just emerging. Personal computers were slowly coming onto the factory floor. ASK Computer was the 900-pound gorilla. HP was very active in manufacturing. Westinghouse and Cincinnati Milacron were serious players. SAP was not on the radar screen, and Rockwell Automation was good old Allen-Bradley.

Were we naïve? I don't think so, but we were blind to certain realities that were beyond our mental set and our perceptual resolution. There were two major misconceptions at the time. One was that the hoopla surrounding industrial robots was a sign that automated manufacturing was about to take off in the U.S. This misunderstanding centered on the simplistic notion that the mere presence of automation would deliver an advantage. The other misconception was that software like MRP II would guarantee successful manufacturing. MRP II grew up to become ERP, and left us with a reminder that success isn't found in a box.

The world moves on, and we either move with it or we perish.