In November, General Motors stunned the nation by announcing that it will cut 15 percent of its salaried workforce and idle assembly plants in Michigan, Ohio, Maryland and Canada.

There are many ways to mark wire and cable. One of the most popular is ink-jet marking. The technology is fast, flexible, inexpensive and easy to maintain. This article reviews the latest developments in inks and ink-jet marking equipment.

On the assembly line, every medical device is thoroughly checked for quality and functionality. Are all the parts present? Is the needle sharp? Does the device leak? Does air flow where, when and how it’s supposed to? Do triggers and control knobs function correctly? Does the touch screen work?

Merit Medical Systems Inc. is a leading manufacturer of disposable medical devices used in interventional, diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, particularly in cardiology, radiology, oncology, critical care and endoscopy.

Manufacturing had a great year in 2018, and 2019 promises to be as good. However, clouds are on the horizon.

More than 5,500 manufacturing professionals saw the latest robots, fastening tools and automation at the sixth annual ASSEMBLY Show, which was held Oct. 23-25 at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL.

The past year brought blockbuster headlines for U.S. manufacturing. Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn unveiled plans to build a $10 billion assembly plant in Wisconsin that would make liquid-crystal display panels and employ as many as 13,000 people.

Manufacturing in America is more robust than you might think. Many metro areas across the country have growing manufacturing sectors that employ workers in good jobs and enable them to save for the future.

Fastening tools are the workhorses of any assembly operation. Consider a high-volume automotive plant. If a vehicle contains 1,000 threaded fasteners and an assembly line is turning out 250,000 vehicles annually, that’s more than 250 million run-downs each year.

In June, GE Appliances, a Haier company, announced plans to invest $115 million to expand its refrigerator assembly plant in Decatur, AL. The investment will add 255 new jobs to the plant, bringing the total number of full-time employees there to nearly 1,300.