"Racing Toward the Future" is the theme of the Technology & Maintenance Council's 2002 Annual Meeting and Transportation Equipment Exhibition, to be held March 5-8 at the Greater Ft. Lauderdale/Broward County Convention Center, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

The meeting will feature a full complement of information technology technical sessions, Study Group and Task Force meetings for the first time since the Council added an IT dimension last year. The IT aspect was scheduled to be added at TMC’s fall meeting recently, but was postponed because the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks kept many IT members from attending.
Technical sessions will discuss IT outsourcing and the future of application service providers, and the securing of corporate IT infrastructures. Technical presentations by IT Study Groups will include: XML and its application to trucking; data-capture technologies in supply chain management; workflow for business process improvement; and new trailer tracking interface standards.
The technical session, "Racing Toward October: Ready to Start Your Engines?" will take a close look at new EPA-mandated standards in engine technology that take effect in October 2002. Ten additional Study Group technical sessions will cover a spectrum of fleet maintenance issues, including new oils for new engine specifications; how changing economic conditions are changing vehicle maintenance strategies, revolutionary forces driving vehicle electronics, new basics of cam-brake maintenance; and vehicle durability and modular truck design.
An added dimension to TMC's Transportation Equipment Exhibition offers attendees the chance to experience eight hands-on technical demonstrations in the exhibit hall during show hours on Thursday, the final day of the exhibition. The 2002 exhibition will include more than 150,000 square feet of transportation equipment and information technology products, and is expected to draw more than 3,000 attendees.
For more information, call TMC at 703-838-1763.