Content Comfort

First, we want to pass along our congratulations to contributing editor Cliff Williams, our maintenance management columnist and the creator of the World Class Maintenance series (see page 30).

Williams was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award in Plant Engineering & Maintenance by Federated Press at its fifth annual 21st Century Maintenance Organization Conference, held in Toronto in the fall.

The award recognizes significant contributions to the field of maintenance. Williams, a maintenance manager at a Coca-Cola facility in Toronto, has been contributing his popular column to Machinery & Equipment MRO since February 2004.

We also want to mention the great feedback that readers give us for our other columnists, including Peter Phillips (CMMS Solutions), Simon Fridlyand (Safety File) and Richard G. Ensman (Supervisory Suggestions). Our latest readership survey shows them to be among our most popular writers.

Technical articles appearing in each issue by contributing editor Lloyd (Tex) Leugner are also very high on our readers’ radar. Leugner is an expert in many subjects, and writes in a clear, easy-to-comprehend manner that satisfies maintenance newcomers and grizzled old-timers alike.

Also at the top of our readership survey are the case histories in each issue by senior contributing editor Carroll McCormick. He’s a Gold Award winner for the Best Industrial/Manufacturing Article in the 2006 Kenneth R. Wilson Awards.

The year 2006 also saw us receive our first Apex Award of Excellence. It was the first time we had entered the international Annual Awards for Publication Excellence Competition, so we were very pleased to be honoured in the Magapapers (large-format magazines) and Newspapers category.

Of course, publishing isn’t all about awards, it’s about serving you with relevant, practical information you can use in your daily work. That’s what we strive for in every issue.

To see how we are doing on that front, we commissioned an Ad Gage readership study from independent research firm Mendon Associates. The study’s aim was to measure readers’ awareness of articles and advertising. We use such information to establish your preferences for particular editorial items and to guide our future content. The Ad Gage study also gives advertisers insight into the effectiveness of their advertising.

Here are just a few highlights from the study, which was conducted on our June 2006 issue. The average time spent reading each issue is more than 48 minutes, and there are an average of 3.8 readers per copy.

Most subscribers (87%) read all issues regularly, more than three-quarters referred an article to someone else, while over 89% took some kind of action as a result of reading an advertisement.

In the year ahead, we’ll use information from the survey to help us deliver content that you’re looking for. Our goal is to ensure Machinery & Equipment MRO is your must-read publication every time it arrives.