How has CW changed in the last year?

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since former CW Editor-in-Chief Jeff Sloan penned his last “From the Editor” column, stepped into his new role as publisher and brand VP and handed the editorial reins over to me. Since then, this past year has flown by, and it’s been a wild ride filled with lots of travel, tons of learning and plenty of lessons that I always try to take to heart. I’m so grateful for Jeff’s ongoing mentorship and his unwavering patience as he explores new and growing responsibilities at CW’s parent company, Gardner Business Media. I’m also grateful for the support of such a great editorial team — the editors at CW, and all of those at Gardner, are the most hardworking, dedicated, creative and fastidious people that I’ve ever worked with. Every day I’m reminded of how good this crew of writing professionals is at what they do.

Despite having worked on CW for a few years and then exploring other areas of manufacturing for another few, there’s always new facets to dig into. The CW team is always looking for different angles in which to tell stories. This year, we’ve been looking a little more closely at how Gardner’s various brands intersect and look forward to even more future collaborations.

For example, this past year, CW launched a new “Fastening and Finishing” column dedicated to exploring adhesive technologies, welding, mechanical bonding and various finishing technologies used in composites manufacturing. The initial idea behind the column came from my work with our sister brand, Products Finishing (PF). From there, the column has taken on a life of its own, not only with collaborations with PF, but also with several contributed stories from companies working in this space. For instance, this month’s installment explores a new bolted fastener system for composites developed by researchers at Aalborg University in Denmark that is designed to redistribute the applied force to the adjacent material thereby improving the overall performance and reliability of the bolted joint.

We’ve also been working to increase the frequency of our CW Talks podcast and corresponding interview column with the goal of bringing you conversations with industry experts on the latest industry trends and developments. Check out this month’s offering which, in the wake of the recent collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, delves into the topic of composites use in infrastructure projects today, including solutions for bridge rehabilitation and protecting waterfront structures.

Of course, we always have a host of feature articles in each magazine. In this issue, you’ll find three “Work in Progress” articles covering how filament winding is enabling high-performance protheses, a novel injection process that uses continuous fiber to reinforce 3D printed parts and a look at a project aimed at the commercialization of recyclable thermoplastic composite hydrogen storage tanks. In addition, you’ll find a write-up of CW’s recent tour of Teijin’s Greenwood, South Carolina, carbon fiber production line, which is currently reported to be the largest capacity carbon fiber line currently in existence.

As anyone working in the composites industry knows, whenever you make changes, there will always be plenty of iteration. This month, the CW team is gathering to take a step back and analyze all of our processes, our various story formats and other content types. We’re constantly striving to streamline our production process, find efficiencies and ultimately improve the quality of the content we provide. If you have suggestions or things you’d like to see us cover, we’d love to hear from you. We hope you enjoy the issue.