HUNTSVILLE, AL—Construction on Polaris Industries’s new ATV assembly plant here is progressing quickly. The $48 million 775,000-square-foot facility is on track for a spring 2016 startup.

CAMBRIDGE, MA—Engineers at MIT have found a way to give robots more dexterity by using the environment as a helping hand. The researchers developed a model that predicts the force with which a robotic gripper needs to push against various fixtures in the environment in order to adjust its grasp on an object.

DETROIT—Ford engineers have morphed into exterminators—and for good reason. A common form of spider, it turns out, likes to nest under the hood in vehicles. That sounds harmless enough, but it can cause big problems, including possible fuel tank cracks that can ignite vehicle fires.

SPARTANBURG, SC—BMW is constructing a 527,000-square-foot body shop at its assembly plant here. The facility will include more than 650 robots.

TOLEDO, OH—Johnson Controls is expanding the production of absorbent glass mat batteries for automotive applications. Since 2012, the automotive supplier has devoted $130 million to manufacturing this battery technology.

PARIS—Airbus has developed “connected glasses” for technicians to wear on the A330 final assembly line. The glasses enable precise positioning—down to the millimeter—during the cabin installation marking process, when operators designate the exact location where seats and cabin furnishings should be affixed inside the aircraft.

TOKYO—Engineers at Toyota’s Lexus division have unveiled a Hoverboard, a wheel-free skateboard that operates based on magnetic levitation.

FLINT, MI—GM will invest $877 million to set up a new body shop at its assembly plant here, its oldest North American factory.

VICTORIA, TX—Caterpillar will move its vocational truck manufacturing operation from Mexico to its assembly plant here. The move will bring 200 new jobs to the facility.

WASHINGTON—A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. Congress is proposing legislation that would designate 25 manufacturing universities across the country and provide each with $20 million over four years. The designated universities would be expected to invest the funds in creating advanced manufacturing engineering programs, strengthening partnerships with manufacturers, and enabling more manufacturing entrepreneurship.