DULLES, VA—Airbus and Northrop Grumman Corp are partnering to develop next-generation composite manufacturing technology. The three-year Wing of Tomorrow program will explore complex composite wing stiffener forming automation and out-of-autoclave material systems.
ZUFFENHAUSEN, Germany—Engineers at Porsche are setting up a new type of assembly line at its factory here to build a new type of sports car. The all-electric Taycan will be assembled in a “factory within a factory” as part of the Porsche Production 4.0 initiative.
MOLINE, IL—Aspiring engineer Sabrina Starkweather, 16, got a closer, and virtual, look at what it takes to enter the manufacturing industry Wednesday afternoon.
TIGERTOWN, TX—With new enforcement priorities under the Trump administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are taking aim at employers that knowingly hire unauthorized immigrants. The most recent — and largest — bust happened at a trailer manufacturing plant here.
WAYNE, MI—A secret meeting in 2015 between Ford Motor Co. and the UAW led to job security and a sigh of relief among factory workers three years later as they begin manufacturing the Ranger midsize pickup truck at Ford’s Michigan Assembly Plant here.
Although robots have successfully tackled a variety of manufacturing tasks, many assembly applications still suffer from complex, time-consuming programming.
The World Economic Forum recently named the best factories in the world. Five facilities are in Europe and three are in China. Only one is in the United States, UPS Fast Radius in Chicago.