Survey says!

I gotta admit that when Mike Brezonick first proposed the State Of The Industry Survey that appears elsewhere in this issue, I was a little skeptical. It struck me as the sort of a touchy feely, USA Today-type article.

Wrong. Again.

I didn't give the industry enough credit. First, the response was overwhelming; about triple what we guesstimated. Secondly, the depth of the thinking, and the obvious passion behind many of the answers made it fun to read the raw data.

Everyone will likely take something different out this Inaugural (there is no such thing as First Annual) State Of The Industry Survey. The thing that the Survey really drives home is how pervasive emissions is in everyone's thinking right now

Emissions is obviously on engine users' minds. Certainly it has been 24/7/365 for engine manufacturers for nearly a decade.

But it is after the engine where it gets interesting. Welcome engine systems.

For the first time, the engine and everything it touches, has to be in synch. The more in synch it is, the better the truck, backhoe, boat, gen-set or mower operates, and the more efficiently it operates, the better the emissions picture.

That means engine-driveline systems. That means transmission, hydraulic, axle and other such suppliers gotta be in tune on emissions. It truly is everywhere.

The remaining debate is how far down the food chain does all this emissions stuff have to be driven. Almost all agree that end users haven't been given enough information. Why? Part of this, as the survey says, is that some users don't really care. "How much more is it gonna cost? Do I have to use different fuel? Can I get parts?"

Other users are up to their eyebrows in all things emissions and want to know everything as soon as possible.

And there's the rub. With Tier 3, and likely again with Tier 4, engine manufacturers are working past the 11th hour to find the proverbial "technology path" that works for them. And, it's not only a technology issue. Now the equation is technology+price+applicability. And if you're selling engines in multimarkets add in +market flexibility.

As a result, as prototype engines are going into machines, the equipment builders figure out how to make it work, and then the engine guys come back and say, "well that's not exactly what we're going into production with. We're gonna move the turbo, the filter is going to move to ..."

So it's no wonder end users aren't getting the last word, because their equipment suppliers and the engine manufacturers are still tweaking to the last possible minute.