"The Music Man” takes place in a Midwestern hamlet called River City. The town that it’s based on is Mason City, IA, and the river that flows through it is the Winnebago. If you follow that river a few miles west, you’ll end up in Forest City, which is home to another American classic: Winnebago motor homes.

A love for farming and serving farmers are what drove husband and wife Loren and Jean Van Wyk to found LDJ Manu-facturing in Pella, IA, in 1995.

Although a global leader in mechanical and plant engineering, Dürr AG isn’t one to rest on its laurels. So in 2010 it acquired two adhesive technology companies (Rickert and Kleinmichel) to increase Dürr’s expertise in automotive body-in-white gluing technology.

DEARBORN, MI—Roofs made of carbon fiber. Plastic windshields. Bumpers fashioned out of aluminum foam.What sounds like a science experiment could be your next car. While hybrids and electrics may grab the headlines, the real frontier in fuel economy is the switch to lighter materials.

In the world of assembly, ABB is known primarily for its leading-edge industrial robots. But, there’s much more to this multinational corporation, which operates 300 manufacturing plants in 100 countries, has nearly 150,000 employees, and reported global revenue of $42 billion in 2013.

Many experts tout fuel cells as one of the cleanest forms of green energy, because the devices reduce CO2 emissions and provide greater energy efficiency than combustion engines.

From brake shoes to smart phones, acrylic adhesive tapes are finding use in a growing number of applications.

These days, manufacturers of all stripes are taking a closer at their energy consumption as a potential source of cost savings—even manufacturers of the largest, most expensive products in the world.

YOKOHAMA, Japan—Ninety-six percent of the production process at Toyota’s Motomachi assembly plant is completed by robots. The plant employs 760 robots and produces one vehicle every 135 seconds.

These tips can help you avoid problems with ultrasonic welding.