Your Key to NPE.

* If you are one of the 80,000-plus people planning to attend NPE 2000 in Chicago this month, you will see first-hand many of the most exciting new products available to plastics processors anywhere in the world. This show is seriously overstuffed with news in every category-hardware, software, materials, and additives. More than that, you will get an early look at several emerging trends for the years ahead: electric servo drives replacing hydraulics and pneumatics, micro-sized molding, e-commerce as a way of life, and access to CAD, CAE, and CIM functions on the web.

Not everybody can get to the show, of course. But if you are one of those who has to stay behind to mind the shop, you won't lose out, thanks to the herculean efforts of our editors to sort and analyze and digest the contents of 2000 exhibits into a manageable summary of what's important and newsworthy.

Our show coverage has six parts: One of them is right in your hands- starting on p. 25 are nine feature articles that extract the essential news in specific types of processing equipment. It's the sequel to our three feature reports in May on show news in materials and additives. Last month you got your first look at our NPE 2000 Show Guide supplement, which condenses all the exhibits and categorizes them by process or product type so you can view the show at a glance. Our post-show wrap-up of additional news will start next month, but the majority will appear in August. Meanwhile, every day of show week, June 19-23, our editors will deliver fresh news on the "Today's News" pages of our website, www.plasticstechnology.com.

MATT NAITOVE, EDITOR