UFFC-S Long Range Plan

Approved: October  5, 2003 at the
UFFC-S AdCom meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii

1. Goal:  Maintain and promote the three technical areas of the society: Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control.

   Background: The society’s fields of interest include a number of mature but still very important technologies.  Examples include bulk and surface acoustic wave technology, physical acoustics, capacitor and piezoelectric materials, etc.  These technologies continue to grow at a moderate rate and continue to require support through technical dissemination of ideas and recruitment of new engineers and scientists into their respective areas through conferences and publications.  The society has several areas of significant potential growth of both people and technology.  These areas include medical ultrasonics and imaging, sensor and actuator devices, microsystems, and new materials for ferroelectric and piezoelectric applications. The new areas need to be recognized early and promoted in our conferences, tutorials and Transactions.  Opportunities for workshops, new conferences and publications need to be identified and promoted.  In nearly all its areas of interest, the UFFC-S has competition, from both within and outside the IEEE.

• Tactic 1: A UFFC-S Committee chaired by the President-elect shall review each of the three technical areas once every three years for all aspects of the operation and make recommendations to the AdCom and the respective Vice-President.
• Tactic 2: Leadership of the UFFC-S to focus on renewal -- of both people and technologies.  Appoint students to committees, encourage participation by members from outside the USA, and identify and adopt new technologies early.
• Tactic 3: Insure that every AdCom member contributes to UFFC-S by: 1) defining the duties of AdCom members, including the time commitment, and making sure that potential nominees for AdCom understand what is expected of an AdCom member, and 2) having the president assign to each AdCom member committee positions and tasks.
• Tactic 4: Awards Committee to develop a method for diversifying the Distinguished Lecturers with greater participation from industrial leaders and from outside the USA.
• Tactic 5: Award Committee to periodically review the criteria and selection process for the various UFFC-S awards.  For example, before the creation of the Distinguished Service Award, the Achievement Award criteria were written to include both technical achievement and distinguished service to UFFC-S.  Now that we have a Distinguished Service Award, should the criteria for the Achievement Award still include distinguished service?
• Tactic 6: Establish guidelines for standing committee and technical program committee operations, including the membership and scope (e.g., the standing committee scopes should include more than just conferences; they should include recommendations to the Nomination Committee, Awards Committee, etc.)
• Tactic 7: Continue to support local chapters and encourage the formation of new chapters where sufficient interest exists.
• Tactic 8: Continue liaisons with other established organizations having similar interests, such as the Industrial Ultrasonics Association, the Piezoelectric Devices Association, ISIF, etc., for the benefit of our members and the promotion of our technical interests. 

 

2. Goal: Enhance the Society Publications

   Background: The society currently publishes a monthly transaction, a biannual newsletter, and conference proceedings for each of its three conferences. Decrease in the time from submission to publication has been initiated and continues.  Better tracking of papers has been initiated, and education and assistance to associate editors has been provided.  Promotion of special issues in various technology areas continues and has been successful.

• Tactic 1: Reduce the average time from submission to publication to 4 months or less.
• Tactic 2: Increase number of special issues each year.
• Tactic 3: Start using multimedia in publications.
• Tactic 4:  Develop better ways to capture all of UFFC in the Transactions.

 

3. Goal: Promote Society Membership
• Tactic 1: Enhance membership drives at all sponsored or cosponsored conferences.  Have an IEEE exhibit booth at all UFFC conferences.
• Tactic 2: Greater promotion of free society membership signup at all UFFC sponsored conferences.
• Tactic 3: Enhance membership Outreach Program at cosponsored conferences outside North America by having a UFFC representative present at these conferences.
• Tactic 4: President’s Student Reception at all conferences. 
• Tactic 5: Student paper competitions at conferences.
• Tactic 6: Increase student membership by incentives and promotion at the universities.
• Tactic 7: Determine the best ways to promote UFFC membership.
• Tactic 8: Encourage senior member applications and fellow nominations.
• Tactic 9: Encourage members to use IEEE e-mail aliases, and the IEEE membership grades on business cards and in signature blocks (e.g., F-IEEE, SM-IEEE, M-IEEE, or, "Fellow, IEEE," etc.)
• Tactic 10: Improve membership retention by making personal contact with members who fail to renew.

 

4. Goal: Promote Volunteer Service
• Tactic 1: Recruit student members at conferences and through publication.
• Tactic 2: Recruit new society contributors, at all levels, into society service.
• Tactic 3: Recruit greater participation of Region 8, 9, 10 members.
• Tactic 4: Bring "new blood" into society leadership positions.  Enforce term limits.  Establish balance between "new blood" and maintaining the "corporate memory" and outstanding expertise of senior volunteers.

 

5. Goal: Conference Initiatives
• Tactic 1:  Maintain, and improve coordination among, the current three principal conferences.  Explore establishing technical committees that span areas of common interest among the three conferences, e.g., piezoelectric/acoustic materials, SAW and other acoustic devices, and sensors.
• Tactic 2: Current president to appoint a past president to act as the VP, Conferences - to insure that best practices are used throughout UFFC conferences, find exhibitors common to U-F-FC, make sure that there is a properly staffed and supplied IEEE exhibit booth at all three UFFC conferences, be a source of info about IEEE policies and procedures, review hotel agreements, etc.
• Tactic 3: Promote workshops and special sessions in new technology areas
• Tactic 4: Continue to hold conferences in Regions 8,9,10
• Tactic 5: Strengthen and diversify conference Technical Program Committees.  Have "corresponding members" from regions 8-10 to increase participation by members outside the USA.
• Tactic 6: Explore web conferencing (or teleconferencing) instead of in-person TPC meetings.
• Tactic 7: Promote workshops and special sessions on emerging technologies.
• Tactic 8: Periodically consider changing ISAF from a biannual to an annual Symposium.
• Tactic 9: Increase/continue cooperation among ISAF and ISIF, FCS and EFTF, FCS and PTTI...
• Tactic 10: Build up the exhibits at our conferences. 

 

6. Goal: Increase Availability and Decrease Development Time of Standards
• Tactic 1: Publish drafts in newsletter, transactions and/or WEB in a timely manner, as appropriate.
• Tactic 2: Decrease time in development and publication through drafts
• Tactic 3: Coordinate with other international standards organizations to reduce duplication and enhance standards.

 

7. Goal:  Improve UFFC-S Publicity and Marketing activities.
• Tactic 1: Establish and continually build e-mailing lists: for the whole UFFC-S, and for each of the three areas -- to be used for conference announcements, transactions special issues, and similar activities.  Use Manuscript Central, IEEE Xplore, conference attendance lists, etc.
• Tactic 2: Have an IEEE exhibit booth at all UFFC conferences.

 

8. Goal: Improve the Financial Health of the UFFC-S
• Tactic 1: Know the costs of what we do and factor the costs into the prices of UFFC-S products and services.  If a product or service is to be subsidized, disclose the amount of the subsidy to AdCom.
• Tactic 2: Require that the cost impact of every motion presented at AdCom meetings be included in the motion.
• Tactic 3: Build up the exhibits at our conferences
• Tactic 4:  Rebuild and maintain UFFC-S reserves at 70% of the annual UFFC-S expense budget
• Tactic 5: Assemble and update on a continuous basis e-mailing lists for U, F, and FC.  Eliminate printing and mailing costs associated with conferences by using e-mail and the website.

 

9. Goal:  Implement this long range plan
• Tactic: AdCom to establish milestones, and assign responsibilities for implementing the goals and tactics of this plan.