Before the availability of electric lights, early automobiles were equipped with gas lamps for headlights and oil lamps for taillights. Electric lights did not become commonplace until the 1920s.

One of the top transmission assembly plants in the world is Ford Motor Co.'s Van Dyke facility in Sterling Heights, MI. It's part of a network of Ford factories that mass-produce axles, engines and other power train components used in the company's cars and trucks.

The first thing a visitor notices on arriving at the headquarters of Genesis Automation in St. Charles, IL, is the company's business hours. Rather than 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., there's this: "However long it takes."

With nearly a century of experience manufacturing trucks, it's no surprise that Kenworth is one of PACCAR's most successful arms. Kenworth, along with fellow PACCAR brand Peterbilt, achieved a record 30.7 percent of retail market share for Class 8 trucks in the U.S. and Canada in 2017, up from 28.5 percent in 2016.

Collaborative robots are an important element of Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing initiatives. Many engineers are intrigued by these next-generation machines that can control force and work safely next to people on assembly lines without traditional safety guarding.

More than 46,000 manufacturing engineers and managers from 47 countries attended Automatica 2018, which took place June 19-22 at the New Munich Trade Fair Centre in Germany.

Trucks moved roughly 71 percent of the nation's freight by weight in 2016, according to the American Trucking Association. That's 10.55 billion tons of freight or $738.9 billion in gross freight revenue. To move all that stuff around, some 34 million trucks logged more than 450 billion miles.

MCPc is an information technology and logistics services company that helps businesses select, deploy, manage and recycle computers and other electronic devices.

Aerospace manufacturing continues to soar. For example, through March 31, Boeing's commercial aircraft division had a backlog of 5,835 orders, while rival Airbus had a backlog of 7,189 jets.

Error proofing, quality control and flexibility are essential on today's assembly lines. As a result, manufacturers are increasingly investing in DC electric fastening tools. These tools allow engineers to adjust tool speed to match various applications and control more aspects of the fastening process, including key parameters such as torque and angle.