Cost pressures, increasing performance requirements, material availability and skilled workforce shortages are driving the need for a range of new joining technologies. EWI is continuously developing new capabilities to meet the ever-changing challenges of industry.

As North America’s leading materials joining research center, EWI's investment in new capabilities is guided by the evolving needs of our customers. And while we employ a number of tools to assess current and future needs, one recent exercise in information gathering enabled us to match nine distinct welding and materials joining needs with the technologies under development at EWI that meet those needs. To develop this perspective we undertook a series of facilitated discussions with EWI’s Industrial Advisory Board, a select group of representatives from a diverse range of industry sectors. We asked them to contribute answers to two critical questions that were designed to gage both long- and short-term needs. These questions were: “What will be the most important challenges in materials joining and allied technologies worldwide by the year 2016?” and “What advancements in joining and allied technologies will have the greatest impact on business in the next 3-5 years?”

A total of 138 responses were collected and ranked, and results were augmented with a series of follow-up surveys to obtain broader industry input. From these inputs we identified nine areas of focus for EWI. Developing and extending our capabilities in these areas of focus will enable us to serve you better. I invite you to read the "Assessing Technology Needs" article by Chris Conrardy, EWI’s Vice President of Technology and Innovation, on our approach to assessing industry needs and the areas of focus that we identified. I invite you to contact me to further discuss any of the noted areas of technology.