Like many machine builders, Fori Automation Inc. faces the daily challenge of building automation equipment that is competitively priced and meets its global customers' varied design requirements.
FORT WAYNE, IN—GM will spend $1.2 billion to revamp its pickup truck assembly plant here. Plans call for improving the paint shop, expanding the body shop, and upgrading the assembly area.
MUNICH, Germany—Deep in the mechanized heart of BMW's assembly plant here is a tiny but significant symbol of Australian ingenuity. Amid the 1,200 robots and other automated machinery is a buffing machine dusting car shells with emu feathers.
CAMBRIDGE, ON—Just two months ago, efforts by the Canadian union Unifor to organize two Toyota Motor Corp. plants in Ontario had all but ground to a halt. But an April announcement that Toyota will move production of the Corolla from its 27-year-old plant here to a new factory to be built in Mexico ignited fears of job cuts. Now, the Unifor campaign is springing back to life.
DETROIT—Automotive suppliers that have quality relationships with OEMs are more willing to give price concessions, share technology and offer support beyond what contracts stipulate, according to a new report on automaker-supplier relations.
CHICAGO—Twenty-nine more female employees have joined a class action lawsuit that all alleges sexual harassment and discrimination at two Ford Motor Co. factories here. The lawsuit now includes Ford’s stamping plant as well as its assembly plant.
GOODWOOD, UK—If you’ve ever seen a Rolls-Royce with a painted pinstripe down the side—that long, thin dead-straight line that goes from the just behind the headlights to just before the taillights— you’re seeing the artwork of Mark Court. That’s his job and his alone—and he does it by hand.
RSS
