TOULOUSE, France—Airbus has invented a nondestructive, ultrasonic tool for inspecting the composite airframe of the A350 XWB jetliner.

HIGH POINT, NC—New factory orders for furniture rose 2 percent in January compared with the same month last year.

SPRING HILL, TN—To support expansion of its assembly plant here, General Motors has begun accepting applications to populate its temporary hiring pool for future employment.

PALM BAY, FL—Oakridge Global Energy Solutions Inc., a supplier of lithium-ion batteries for military, civilian and medical applications, has opened a $40 million, 70,000-square-foot assembly plant here.

GREENVILLE, OH—After two years in product development, Whirlpool and KitchenAid finally began producing the new KitchenAid Pro Line Blender on March 28. The new product joins a host of other appliances assembled in Greenville, such as the KitchenAid Stand Mixer and hand mixer.

MIAMI—Hitachi Ltd. has opened an assembly plant here—its first in the United States—to build commuter rail cars for the area.

DETROIT—The automotive industry will account for half of the 31,000 industrial robots expected to be sold worldwide in 2018, according to the International Federation of Robotics.

SALT LAKE CITY—Medical device manufacturer Amedica Corp. has become the first company to make complex silicon nitride structures using a 3D printing process called robotic deposition, or robocasting.

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a decision March 23 that Tyson pork processing workers must be paid for the time they spend putting on their protective material and cleaning their equipment.

FORT VALLEY, GA—Blue Bird Corp. is adding a second shift for the spring and summer at its school bus assembly plant here, generating 200 new jobs.