AUBURN HILLS, MI—FANUC America has opened its new 650,000-square-foot West Campus facility here. The expansion increases the footprint in Michigan to more than 2 million square feet and is part of FANUC’s strategic investment plan to support and advance industrial automation in North America. The West Campus represents a $110 million investment built on 67 acres of land.
KERNERSVILLE, NC—John Deere will invest about $70 million to build a new 380,000-square-foot factory at its manufacturing campus here. The factory will assemble small, 6 to 10 metric ton excavators and is expected to add about 150 new jobs. Currently, about 600 people work at the Kernersville campus.
TOKYO—Honda Motor Co. and IBM have agreed to collaborate on research and development of next-generation computing technologies needed to overcome challenges related to processing capability, power consumption and design complexity for software-defined vehicles (SDVs).
AMHERST, MA—New research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst shows that programming robots to create their own teams and voluntarily wait for their teammates results in faster task completion, with the potential to improve manufacturing, agriculture and warehouse automation.
DEARBORN, MI—Ford Motor Co. solidified its position as the No. 1 American automaker in terms of vehicles assembled, vehicles exported from America to other countries, and hourly workers employed.
CHICAGO—In partnership with ABB, NASCAR has unveiled a battery-powered vehicle that it hopes to see competing on race tracks sometime in the near future.