In the marketing world, a pair of scissors is all that's needed to cut expenses. But, in the real world of business, scissors are the last thing company executives need near them during the stressful process of deciding where to reduce costs.

Chain drives are essential to automotive manufacturing. These drives are typically used to transport automotive frames down kilometer-long production lines.

In the classic game Pin the Tail on the Donkey, players use a push pin to attach the tail to the donkey. On a metal or plastic toy donkey, however, a push pin would be unable to hold the tail in place, especially if it needs to move in some way. A better choice for this application is a solid metal dowel pin.

Today's medical devices often feature a number of complex, high-value-added parts. Device manufacturers carefully design these parts before having them molded, machined or assembled.

Diversification not only offers benefits when investing. It also provides a way for manufacturers to better serve their current customers and attract new ones.

Clichés have a place in manufacturing, so long as they truly fit the application. For example, the expression "It's not rocket science" is perfectly appropriate to describe the use of a small manual press for a punching operation in the assembly of a consumer product.

Last year's California wildfire season was a record-setting one for the state. By the end of 2020, more than 9,600 fires had burned nearly 4.4 million acres, or more than 4 percent of the state's roughly 100 million acres of land.

Some challenges that manufacturers face are simple, while others are multi-faceted. An example of the latter is continually providing customers with products that are stronger and more durable, yet lighter and smaller to minimize shipping costs.

Kaizen, or continuous improvement, is a basic tenet of lean manufacturing. It says, in effect, that less-than-optimal is never acceptable. The concept can be applied to every major assembly process, including resistance spot welding.

Medical doctors have increasingly become specialized during the last 25 years or so. But, industrial robots have been specialists by design since they began being used for manufacturing in the early 1960s.