ORLANDO, FL—Small manufacturing companies here are growing with the improving economy. Since the Great Recession, Orlando has jumped past Miami to second place after Tampa-St. Petersburg among Florida’s metro areas for factory employment.

FOREST CITY, NC—Team Air Inc., a manufacturer of commercial and  industrial HVAC equipment, is investing $4.2 million to build a new assembly plant here. The facility is expected to employ 70.

TROY, AL—Lockheed Martin has broken ground for expansion of its cruise missile assembly plant here.

BARRINGTON, NJ—Optical components supplier Edmund Optics is now accepting applications for its annual Educational Award. The company will supply optical components, worth $500 to $10,000, to 45 colleges and universities for research projects in optics and machine vision.

SALAMANCA, Mexico—Mazda Motor Corp. has opened a $770 million assembly plant here, its first wholly owned plant in North America.

HANOVER, PA—Schindler Elevator Corp.’s newly opened assembly plant here has earned LEED Gold certification for energy and environmental design from the U.S. Green Buildings Council.

MANATEE, FL—Air Products has dedicated a new assembly plant here to make heat exchangers for liquefied natural gas. The facility employs more than 50 people.

CELAYA, Mexico—Honda has opened an $800 million assembly plant here— its seventh North American factory. The plant will eventually make 200,000 cars a year and employ 3,200 workers.

ANN ARBOR, MI—Consulting firm Humantech is seeking participants for its fifth benchmarking study on current and effective methods for managing ergonomics in the workplace.

FARMINGTON HILLS, MI—Ace Controls Inc., a manufacturer of industrial shock absorbers, has developed a free smartphone app, the Vibrochecker, that measures machinery vibration, performs FFT analysis, and helps engineers choose vibration isolation components.