A Midyear Update

So many good things are happening this year to help us adapt to the major organizational and strategic changes that we set in place in 2005. I would like to use this opportunity to share my excitement about these good things.

Terry Shoup

Among our success stories this year, the Design Engineering and Bioengineering divisions collaborated to launch the new Journal of Medical Devices. The first issue went out ahead of schedule last November. Congratulations to all those who have enabled this progress to happen!

ASME continues its involvement in micro- and nanotechnology systems, co-sponsoring a conference and exhibit this past January in China, in partnership with the Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society. This is exciting, cutting-edge technology and the conference took place in an area of the world that is experiencing amazing technological growth. Congratulations to all those who have contributed to our early successes in this important new area.

Approved last November, ASME recently opened its Asia-Pacific LLC in China, to help us be more effective with our presence in that region of the world, particularly in Codes and Standards, conformity assessment, continuing education, and other programs. We hope to have more to report on this important development in the coming year.

Currently underway are several studies on improving communications, re-energizing our community and technical unit structures, and furthering our future outlook through environmental scanning. The resulting recommendations, mostly due this spring, will testify to the great cooperation between volunteers and staff in keeping us moving forward, consistent with our vision and mission, along the strategic objectives we have established.

The ASME Financial Accounting and Information Reporting (FAIR) Task Force completed its assignment this February, and their recommendations are incorporated in our FY08 budget process. The recommendations of this task force will help us implement a full-cost accounting system, providing us with true expense data and helping us make better leadership decisions. The task force has done an outstanding job, and I can highlight a few points here:

First, something we have known for a long time: We need to recover many of the overhead expenses that ASME incurs. This requires a good deal of understanding and agreement among ASME units, about the true cost of operating ASME. Historical allocations for general and administrative expenses, for example, had previously never been allocated to units. The task force recommended that, before passing along these allocations to already subsidized programs and activities, they should be reviewed annually for reasonable benchmarks and consistent approaches.

Second, after extensive review of its revenues and expenses, the Services Sector should continue its goal of generating net revenue above expenses for most activities, particularly in the areas of publishing, conference management, and marketing and sales.

The task force recommended that some portion of member dues should support our magazine, Mechanical Engineering, as the flagship publication of ASME. The task force also recommended that all remaining member dues go to the general fund as has been done in the past.

The FAIR task force also suggested that, where appropriate, ASME consider a royalty arrangement to provide incentives for the creation of additional intellectual resources. This arrangement could encourage innovation and could help us instill and maintain an entrepreneurial spirit.

The Board of Governors and the Committee on Finance and Investment will continue to monitor the use of existing custodial funds. Identifying best practices in the use of these funds is an important discussion at all levels of leadership in the Society.

As ASME's financial reporting improves, we have seen improvements in our budgeting process. ASME continues its positive financial performance, having a good year reported at the end of June 2006 and a midyear projection of a positive year at the end of June 2007. Our membership size, which has been level for many years, is now seeing modest increases in students, in young engineers (ages 35 and under), and in non-U.S. members. New revenue growth is also increasing outside North America. This growth results from our intentional areas of improvement targeted by our Balanced Scorecard objectives.

The need for ASME to be innovative and entrepreneurial extends to all of our Society's units. We are using ASME's positive growth and performance to provide expanded support for ASME's many unit-planned events and activities, whether they are section meetings, student forums, division conferences, or some other venue. Many of our ASME units are having great success. We are expanding support for sharing these successes with other units. ASME will be budgeting and implementing additional support for sections, student sections, and technical units in the coming year. We are clearly focused on added support for ASME's Knowledge and Community (K&C) Sector.

Our successes are visible in many areas. Through our VOLT Academy and our Leadership Training Conference, ASME is exploring and sharing ways to support our volunteer leaders in their many roles throughout our Society. Through our use of the Balanced Scorecard, we are now doing a better job of aligning all of our activities with our mission and strategic priorities. Through our environmental scanning process, we are now able to anticipate future challenges better than ever before. Through our Strategic Priorities Grant Program, we are able to encourage and fund innovation and creative progress. Through our Innovative Technologies Institute, ASME is able to be more responsive to the changing needs of society and the world. Through our new organizational structure, ASME is now able to be more agile and more creative in an operating environment that presents rapid changes in technology and new possibilities for collaboration.

The truth is, the future of ASME looks very bright for the days ahead. Our successes are a result of the vision, dedication, hard work, and cooperation of both volunteers and staff. Important work remains to be done. The days ahead will hold interesting challenges and exciting opportunities for our profession. Together we can continue this progress on behalf of a world that really needs what engineers have to offer.

— Terry Shoup
ASME President 2006–2007

back to columns