ZWICKAU, Germany—Volkswagen’s state-of-the-art factory here is a showcase for electric car production.

WARREN, MI — The Paslin Company plans to invest $45 million to expand its operations here to supply assembly line robotic systems for electric-vehicle maker Rivian.

APEX, NC—ATI Industrial Automation will host an Automation Expo May 9 at its recently expanded and renovated headquarters here.

The North American robotics, machine vision and motion control market continues to set new records. According to the Association for Advancing Automation (A3), the industry achieved several milestones in 2017.

Multistation automated assembly systems are a wonder to behold. A well-designed system can mass-produce hundreds of assemblies per minute with minimal human intervention.

A good partnership between customers and suppliers leads to optimal solutions and long-term prosperity all around.

HUBER HEIGHTS, OH—Systems integrator Process Equipment Co. has gone from a building with a partially collapsed roof to a new facility that’s a “paradise of precision.” Now the company is looking to hire.

PALO ALTO, CA—Robots will play an increasing role in electronics assembly in the coming years, says Douglas Alexander of Component Engineering Consultants.

Automation is wonderfully economical—except when it’s not. Time and again, I’ve seen smart engineers make dumb automation decisions, some of them ruinous.