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Editor Emeritus Andersen Ashburn, one of AMEMCAN MACHINIST'S most influential and respected editors, died on December 20, 2003, of complications following surgery for an injury. A resident of Tarrytown, N.Y., Ashburn was 84.
In a 45-year association with AMERICAN MACHINIST - half of them as editor-in-chief Ashburn garnered a number of prestigious awards while traveling the globe in search of manufacturing innovation. During his tenure with the magazine, he reported from five different continents, providing information that awakened U.S. factory managers and engineers to the emerging global nature of manufacturing. For example, in 1961, he reported on Volkswagen's automated production in Germany. The following year, he described Honda's motorcycle plant in Japan, where there was almost no work-in-progress inventory. And in a landmark report in 1977, he was the first editor outside Japan to describe Toyota's manufacturing system - a just-in-time approach to production that is now widely adopted around the world.
Ashburn was also active in industry, serving at various times as chairman of the Society of Automotive Engineers and chairman...