Meet E.M. Sleuth, ostensible author of a column on Enterprise Metrology appearing regularly in TOOLING PRODUCTION Magazine. Enterprise Metrology is a discipline that involves using open software and an integrated dimensional information database to enhance productivity throughout a manufacturing operation.

The Sleuth Column is Sponsored by Wilcox Associates a software firm specializing in products that help manufacturers realize the promise of this discipline. If you are like Wilcox Associates and sell a range products or services that meet important and here-to-fore unanswered needs-- you might want to contribute a regular column to advance the concept.

It's not an everyday thing, but sometimes companies with unique expertise get invited to write regularly-appearing columns in important trade publications. Wilcox Associates is a case in point.

Based on JCA's and our client's excellent relationship with TOOLING & PRODUCTION magazine, we were invited to develop a concept for column that would be fun, educational and non-commercial in nature. In other words, it had to read like unbiased editorial as opposed to an advertisement for the clients products.


Before the publication made a final commitment we submitted 6 ideas for columns that we could write immediately. This demonstrated that the concept for our Enterprise Metrology Sleuth detective columns was sustainable. Once the publication said go, we contracted the services of a talented Illustrator, Rob Fabiano, who brought exceptional visual appeal to the 5 columns which appeared in 2005.

Multiple Appearances. The columns not only appeared in the print edition of the publication, which has a circulation of 70 thousand, but also on its web site. The first to column to appear in 2005 was "Kneecaps Lost In Space". The final column of the year, in response to a contest-winning reader who suggested the topic, was "A Case Of Inflexible Gaging."

While the columns made no attempt to sell products, you can bet that readers know exactly who to call for advanced metrology software.