The giant container ships that have come to all but define globalization can be as long as three-and-a-half soccer fields (and roughly that long in terms of football pitches if you’re reading this outside the United States).

The latest and greatest of them come with all sorts of new technology for navigation, managing their load and cutting down on fuel costs.

That got us thinking at this year’s Reuters Manufacturing Summit: what kind of technology are shipping companies putting in to repel pirates, who in some widely publicized cases have taken over ships in the seas off Somalia or in the Straits of Malacca, near Indonesia and Malaysia.

We posed the piracy question to Seaspan CEO Gerry Wang. The bottom line: if you’re Captain Hook or Jack Sparrow, don’t try to steal one of these babies.

You’ll be sorry.

Wang was one of the featured speakers at the annual Reuters Manufacturing Summit, which runs through Thursday in our Chicago offices.

The credit crunch that’s curtailing access to funding for many companies may lead to consolidation among companies that own and operate shipping lines.

Container ships are not cheap, and they take years to build, so investors who order one have to do so well ahead of time. Some have overextended themselves, and may now be ripe takeover candidates.

Seaspan, a company that owns and leases container ships, sees many opportunities for acquisitions in coming months, as smaller operators run into financial problems, its Chief Executive Gerry Wang told the Reuters Manufacturing Summit in Chicago.

(With apologies to Mick, Keith and the boys)

The Rolling Stones were desperately looking for someone to come to their emotional rescue when they released their album of the same name in 1980.

But Manitowoc Chief Executive Glen Tellock was feeling very unemotional on Wednesday when speaking to the Reuters Manufacturing Summit about one of the company’s three businesses.

Maintowoc is comprised of three segments — cranes, foodservice equipment and marine. But on Wednesday, Tellock didn’t sound like his marine business was a sure bet to remain a part of the company for the long haul.

While Tellock said it was a business he “liked”, he said he was not very ”emotionally” tied to it or its long-term prospects.

Tellock was one of the featured guests at this year’s summit, which continues through Thursday in our offices in Chicago.

Want to get a clear sense of where the U.S. and world economies are headed?

A good place to start may be by asking the CEO of the world’s biggest trucking company, since truckers act as a leading indicator of economic activity.

Things aren’t looking so good right now, YRC Worldwide’s Chief Executive Bill Zollars told the Reuters Manufacturing Summit. YRC, with 900,000 customers worldwide, 66,000 employees in 80 countries, ships just about anything that will fit on a truck, and has been struggling for the last six months, Zollars told the Summit.

Housing and autos are not the only areas of weakness. Conditions are not deteriorating further, but they are “comprehensive,” he said … and they may be spreading to other parts of the world.

Zollars was one of the featured speakers at ths year’s summit, held in Reuters Chicago offices. The next Reuters summit will be the Mining and Steel Summit, held in New York, London and Sydney, Australia.

Caterpillar’s Chief Executive Jim Owens was in a lot better mood than many of his colleagues have been this week.

While most of the guests at this year’s Reuters Manufacturing Summit have been a little down in the mouth about the state of the U.S. economy, Owens was in pretty good spirits when he spoke at the summit on Tuesday.

Much of Caterpillar’s business growth is now happening overseas, as demand for the big machinery it makes has skyrocketed. Owens discussed not just the usual suspects for international growth — India and China — but also said some of the emerging markets CAT sells into are also going great guns.

Owens was one of the featured guests at this year’s summit, which continues through Thursday in Chicago. The next summit comesduring the week of March 10 and is the Reuters Mining and Steel Summit, held in New York, London and Sydney, Australia.

A power outage that affected millions of electricity customers in Florida on Tuesday may be a sign of things to come.

U.S. utilities have underinvested in capacity in recent years, and densely populated areas where demand is high may be facing more future blackouts as a result — that’s according to the North American CEO of Swiss/Swedish engineering group ABB.

Enrique Santacana told the Reuters Manufacturing Summit the U.S. needs “tens of billions” of dollars in investment in new sources of energy, more efficient power networks and conservation — all of which play to ABB’s strength as a global provider of energy infrastructure.

Reuters asked Santacana what the U.S. energy industry — and its regulators — have learned from the power blackout that hit the Northeast and Midwest of the United States and parts of Canada on August 14, 2003, and whether a repeat of that event was likely.

FPL Group Inc, the main electricity provider in South Florida, is an ABB customer.

Caterpillar Chief Executive Jim Owens spoke about the possible spread of the recent housing crisis and other economic worries at the annual Reuters Manufacturing Summit.

While there is always the chance that the housing and residential construction crisis could extend beyond those businesses directly touched by it, he did not see it as a major concern just yet. 

However, Owens, now in his fifth year as the head of Caterpillar, warned that he did not expect that the housing industry to hit its trough until after 2008.

While the majority of Owens’ businesses within CAT have been doing just fine, thank you, there are a number of peripherary sectors that he listed as worth watching.

Owens was one of the featured speakers at this year’s summit, held in our Chicago headquarters. Executives from companies from Honeywell Inc to General Electric Co to Illinois Tool Works participated in this year’s conference.

The next Reuters Summit comes during the week of March 10, when the Global Mining and Steel Summit is held in New York, London and Sydney, Australia. 

High commodities’ costs have been much on the minds of almost all of the executives at this year’s Reuters Manufacturing Summit.

For Timken Co Chief Executive Jim Griffith, the question is one the diversified company is addressing on a real-time basis and one it has gained some pricing power with its customers.

Griffith, speaking at the second day of the summit, said that while higher commodities costs help one side of their business, they can also be a detriment to the other side — and that’s where they need to raise some prices.

Timken, a maker of bearings and specialty steel that still gets a large portion of its revenues from the automobile industry, said it was looking for some low double-digit price hikes from certain customers to offset rising costs that they face.

Griffith was one of the featured speakers at this year’s summit, held in our Chicago offices. The summit continues through Thursday and is followed in two weeks with the Reuters Global Mining and Steel Summit held in New York, London and Sydney, Australia.

(With apologies to Rocky Balboa)

The global aerospace industry has been one of the real success stories of the past five years and, according to Honeywell Chief Executive Dave Cote, there’s more growth to come.

Despite concerns about the overall economy, Cote said at the Reuters Manufacturing Summit on Tuesday that the sector looks poised to continue to fly high.

Cote was one of the featured guests at this year’s summit, which continues through Thursday in our Chicago offices.

Turns out, they can! 

Global industrial companies have talked for years about the soaring demand in China for energy, infrastructure, machinery, know-how — you name it. But who knew car crashes could be good for business?

Well, according to Ingersoll-Rand CEO Herb Henkel, Chinese drivers’ poor safety record helps illustrate how China’s economy is becoming more consumer driven.

Chinese consumers are buying millions of new cars each year, and not all of those buyers are experienced drivers. In fact, 40 percent of all cars were involved in car accidents last year, Henkel told the Reuters Manufacturing Summit on Monday.

Body shops to fix all those smashed cars are springing up all over.

“You can imagine the opportunity that presents for air tools,” Henkel told the Summit. “For us, the activity level continues to be very robust (in China), focusing now on the consumer-driven in-country opportunities, rather than a lot of manufacturing being done for export. I think that’s the next stage they’ve gotten themselves to.”