If the United States is to remain a world leader in innovation, we must expand the federal R&D tax credit to encourage more research and development. In March, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation to do just that.

The biggest untapped source of savings on the assembly comes from redesigning the product to eliminate value-added time.

Robots and high-tech fastening tools boost productivity and ensure safety at Paccar's new engine assembly plant in Columbus, MS.

Last fall, the Senate failed to pass a that would have ended tax breaks for U.S. companies that move jobs and manufacturing plants overseas. Now, our legislators have a chance to redeem themselves.

Recently, a well-known European hybrid car manufacturer asked Satrotec AG to produce a high-voltage wiring system inside an encapsulated electronic enclosure. The automaker specified 180 milliliters of proportioned and mixed polyurethane encapsulant be automatically and accurately dispensed into the electronic enclosure.

Recently, Alfmeier Präzision AG sought a way to improve the performance of lumbar-support devices they supply for seats in luxury cars. The problem involved the devices’ subsystem, which was damaging adjacent seat foam and failing prematurely.

Cummins Inc. faced a challenge when developing its off-highway Tier 3 QSX engine a few years ago. The manufacturer had to find a way to keep the engine’s exhaust manifold joints secure enough to withstand severe vibration, joint fatigue and temperature extremes present in industrial field use.

When Prüfrex received a major new contract to produce small engine ignition control systems for forestry and garden machines, the company decided to replace its existing semiautomated production line with a faster, more powerful alternative.

Watch case component connections are machined at Titan Industries' manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu. Until recently, the components were loaded manually into machines. However, manual loading significantly limited production speed, so Titan automated the process with a robot.

Batteries take up valuable space, add weight and provide limited robustness. In the future, many manufacturers will replace batteries with energy harvesting technology-a cost-effective process of converting freely available energy into electricity.