While preparing for a recent trip to Ecuador, my wife and I spent hours practicing conversational Spanish. Once we got there, however, it became painfully clear that old dogs couldn’t learn new tricks.

On Feb. 21, West Coast port employers and their union reached a tentative five-year agreement on a new contract. The pact concludes a nine-month standoff that resulted in significant slowdowns at 29 ports from Los Angeles to Seattle.

Systems integrators wrestle with the notion of flexibility in multistation automated assembly systems.

The U.S. manufacturing workforce is among the most productive in the world. U.S. manufacturing productivity (measured as output per hour) increased 2.5 percent in 2014, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Suppliers of automatic screwdriving equipment talk about their toughest challenges and how they overcame them.

More than 20 suppliers of equipment for dispensing and curing adhesives exhibited at The ASSEMBLY Show last fall. Here is a small sample of the new technologies to be found on the show floor.

It may not be as “sexy” as a robot or a high-speed automated assembly system, but one of the most interesting new products introduced at the show last fall was actually an adhesive.

Exhibitors brought the latest technologies for plastics assembly to The ASSEMBLY Show last fall. The following are just some of the plastics assembly equipment on display at the show.

During the past month, I interviewed several engineers for an article on automatic screwdriving. Along the way, I learned a bit of wisdom that is applicable no matter what process you might want to automate.