Next on the bookshelf: Selling business units for dummies

March 30, 2006
By GREG SAITZ
STAR-LEDGER STAFF

Goodbye Adam, though we hardly knew you.

Airman D., we heard you could take a .50-caliber round without so much as a peep. And little P3, who could forget your cute but hollow and featureless polyurethane head?

Alas, just four days after becoming official owners of an entire line of crash test dummies, Honeywell sold the business yesterday for $87.3 million. The official reason cited by Dave Cote, chief executive of the Morris Township-based conglomerate, was that First Technology Safety & Analysis wasn't a good fit with the rest of Honeywell.

But perhaps he was just a bit freaked out with the idea of having a bunch of steel-ribbed, aluminum-skulled go-getters as part of his work force. Sure, they aren't so good with straight-line depreciation, but can Bob in accounting take a header through the front windshield 12 times a day?

The crew at Michigan-based FTSS includes dummies for auto and aircraft crash testing, ballistic impact testing and product testing. Honeywell is keeping other parts of the First Technology business, which it officially acquired Friday.

But it won't be the same without plucky P3.

Getting a whiff of the next generation of Diaper Genies

August 2, 2006
By GREG SAITZ
STAR-LEDGER STAFF

In order of lethality, there is the nuclear bomb, the bunker buster and the dirty diaper.

In fact, if the U.S. military really wants to take care of Osama bin Laden, it should be dropping dirty diapers into the caves of Afghanistan, not missiles.

With all its, umm, potency, the dirty baby diaper has brought countless parents to their knees. Naturally, the business world has tried to take advantage of this.

Yesterday, Playtex introduced its next generation of diaper disposal systems: the Diaper Genie II. The DG2 uses a seven-layer odor-barrier film and special clamp that the company claims will "lock odors in the pail, not in the nursery."

Say a silent prayer for the product testers who had to verify that little boast.

Unlike the original Diaper Genie, the new model does away with twisting, thus potentially eliminating the sausage-like end result so many parents have come to loathe. But in the end, there's still the small matter of ultimate disposal.

There are Superfund sites, of course. But there's also a fleet of B-52 bombers and a willingness by military commanders to start thinking outside the box.

Wave your hand for the Charmin

July 7, 2007
By GREG SAITZ
STAR-LEDGER STAFF

Germs are everywhere. They’re lurking, like presidential candidates, for a chance to glad-hand you, burrow under your skin and then take over your cerebral cortex.

Of course, if you don’t touch anything — aha! — the germs can’t get you. They’ll be mad, of course, but they’ll just as happily infest that guy who picks up pizza slices off the sidewalk.

But what about the public restroom, the Bermuda Triangle for germaphobes? Short of dressing like you’re prepped to perform a kidney transplant, there’s the hands-free option.

Touchless water faucets. Touchless paper towel dispensers. And now, the touchless toilet tissue dispenser.

A division of Kimberly-Clark said it is now selling the first such automatic system for bath tissue. Just wave your hand under the dispenser and a pre-determined length of toilet paper unfurls.

This can be both a blessing and a curse for the world’s OCDers. If it functions correctly, you’ve presumably dodged a suicide bomber in the stall.

But for manual operation, users are required to PUSH and TURN a knob. In other words, skeeve alert!