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Sony earlier this month announced plans to end physical game disc production for all new games released on PlayStation consoles beginning January 2028. The consumer electronics giant has already started the transition. According to an ORF Salzburg report spotted by The Verge , Sony’s disc plant outside of Salzburg, Austria currently makes 600,000 discs every day. But that figure will soon drop sig...

The former chief human resources officer of pharmaceutical manufacturer Nephron filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging it wrongfully terminated her after she raised concerns about illegal conduct.  According to court documents, Nola Grant began working for South Carolina-based Nephron in October 2022. During her employment, she allegedly discovered that the company experienced a loss of fen...

EV maker Lucid, for the second time this year, announced a round of job cuts aimed at advancing its “path toward profitability and positive cash flow generation.” The company said it will reduce its current U.S. workforce by approximately 18 percent, including full-time employees, contractors and hourly production workers in manufacturing. Part of the plan includes eliminating the second shift of...

Ford Motor filed a major lawsuit last week alleging rampant lawsuit abuse and fraud from Quill & Arrow, a law firm that files thousands of Lemon Law cases every year against Ford and other automakers.  The lawsuit accuses Quill & Arrow of "fabricated attorney billing records, unauthorized practice of law, and deliberate obstruction of Ford’s ability to fulfill its warranty obligations...

Blue Origin, the commercial space exploration company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is expanding and possibly moving into the “balloon” factory formerly owned by now-defunct space tourism company Space Perspective. According to Florida Today , Blue Origin is in negotiations with the current owners of Space Perspective to acquire a 700-foot-long facility located at Space Coast Regional Airpor...

Last year, Ford recalled a record-breaking 12.9 million vehicles over 153 separate campaigns – an embarrassing fail the automaker is looking to remedy. And like most businesses, it's leaning on cutting edge technology to make improvements. In a recent interview with Road & Track , Ford’s leadership revealed a new strategy they say is already enhancing the quality of its engines. And it’s...

JBS USA plans to close two facilities in Pennsylvania and Tennessee and a portion of another Tennessee site in a move expected to eliminate more than 2,000 jobs.  According to a WARN Notice , the company will lay off 1,485 workers at its beef production facility near Philadelphia. ABC 24 Memphis reported that the closure of the value-added Empire Packing site in Tennessee will affect 208 jobs. Add...

Welcome to another episode of Gen Z in Manufacturing , a podcast that asks young people about their journeys in manufacturing, how they intend to influence the industry and what they are looking for from an employer. For this episode, I welcome Jerry Klein, a 27-year-old technical support specialist for Artec 3D, a supplier of handheld and portable 3D scanners for multiple industries, including ma...

On Wednesday, some 1,000 union workers who were on strike at GM supplier Dauch Corporation, formerly American Axle, in Three Rivers, Michigan, reached a tentative deal with the company. The new contract will secure the workers' topline demand of $30 per hour by 2030, a more than 36% increase to the top wage rate over the next four years.  Members of the UAW Local 2093 walked out on strike at...

The robotaxi company Waymo has announced new capabilities that provide benefits completely distinct from its primary business model. Waymo says that the large, heavy, power-intensive batteries that power its fleet will no longer go to a recycling center at the end of their lives. Instead, they have a new use: supporting the power grid. Through a new partnership with B2U Storage Solutions, Waymo’s...

In AI oops, Dodge briefly sells T-shirts featuring what appears to be a Toyota Tacoma. For all the things AI does well, it’s also known to have its limitations. These limitations were recently on full display when Dodge RAM enthusiasts discovered what might be considered an odd handful of items on the brand’s online merchandise store. Among the tumblers, coolers, hats and backpacks featuring the R...

An unlicensed potato chip factory in Australia has been fined after authorities were tipped off by the facility’s grand opening event. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation , Western Australia “Spud King” Tony Galati created the house brand chips Spuddies so he could sell them at his Spudshed stores. He established a facility to manufacture the potato chips and acquired all the nece...

A Washington state manufacturer of tooling and parts for advanced industries plans to establish its third production facility in Montana — and create about 2,000 jobs. Janicki announced Tuesday that it selected Great Falls, Montana, for the $800 million project, which would complement the company’s existing production facilities in Northwest Washington and suburban Salt Lake City. The privately-ow...

A manufacturing defect may be to blame for an issue potentially impacting some 88,000 Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Reports suggest that removing the dipsticks to check the motorcycles’ oil has been linked to a nasty surprise – spraying oil. According to the NHTSA, the issue stems from a design problem where bikes equipped with an airbox baseplate have a breather port that may be blocked.  This all...

A new lawsuit accused Sherwin-Williams of releasing “unreasonable noxious odors” from its coatings manufacturing facility in Rochester, Pennsylvania. The complaint alleges damages that exceed $5 million and demands a trial by jury. Court documents stated the facility makes coatings for packaging materials that it delivers to customers, distributors and blending sites. According to the EPA , coatin...

When a custom rubber stamp manufacturer last week made a plea for people to take his factory’s scraps, the responses started bouncing in. Nic Magnuson, who runs Magnuson Custom Stamps and helps lead operations at Unity Stamp Company in New London, Minnesota, said his companies throw out more than 200 pounds of clean natural rubber scraps each week. He reached out to mulch recyclers, playground sur...

After a Tesla Cybertruck recall earlier this month warned of wheels potentially falling off vehicles, the latest recall to hit the electric vehicle maker is fairly inconsequential by comparison. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently released a recall notice potentially impacting 14,575 Tesla Model Y vehicles that might be missing a sticker. Some of those vehicles, mod...

Welcome to another episode of Gen Z in Manufacturing , a podcast where I talk to young people about their journeys in manufacturing, how they intend to influence the industry and what they are looking for from an employer. For this episode, I welcome Cooper Maddas, a 26-year-old laser operator at Manufacturing Corporation of America’s MetalPeak facility, which offers broad-spectrum cutting of vari...

Last Thursday, North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson said, "VinFast agreed to build a factory and create jobs for North Carolinians — it didn't do either." The statement accompanied a lawsuit against the EV maker for promises made, but not kept. Jackson filed the lawsuit against VinFast on behalf of the North Carolina Department of Commerce, alleging that the company breached...

And the owner wants you to “steal” his template.  This week, rapid custom manufacturer SendCutSend reached a valuation of $1.01 billion after a $110 million investment from Sequoia, Paradigm, and Patrick and John Collison—the guys who co-founded Stripe. The Reno, Nevada-based company is using the funds to launch a five-year plan to strengthen its American industrial base, which includes a $1 billi...

Ohio-based Toledo Mold & Die – a manufacturer of automotive trim and other plastic parts – has become unavoidably ensnared in the unraveling of parent company First Brands. And while it may look like one small component of a big conglomerate, for Ford and Stellantis, it’s a lifeline. When massive auto industry supplier First Brands filed for bankruptcy, the ensuing fallout created gaps in the...

A processing facility has reached a nearly $1 million settlement with neighbors who filed a class-action lawsuit to formally complain about the smells and noises coming from the factory. Prestige Feed Products, which opened in Mount Prospect, Illinois in 2019, uses a process that involves dehydrating raw cheese and soy to make ingredients for animal feed, according to the Daily Herald . One of the...

Two leading manufacturers of bearings plan to merge next year in a deal that would create a new top company in that segment. Japanese companies NSK and NTN said this week that they would be combined under a joint holding company next fall — effectively linking the world’s no. 3 and 4 bearing makers and, according to a report from Nikkei , taking their overall market share past the current top bear...

According to the Fayetteville-Cumberland Economic Development Corporation, the plant employed more than 2,100 workers as of February of last year, making it the fifth largest employer in the county. Unfortunately these workers may be coming to the end of the line at Goodyear, as the company revealed that is looking to wind down the facility. According to the Fayetteville Observer , Goodyear is in...

Farmers in Central California have grown peaches for Del Monte for generations. But the nearly 140-year-old company recently initiated bankruptcy proceedings and closed two of its processing plants in the state, leaving cultivators with a whole lot of fruit they can’t sell. According to the Independent , the cannery closures in Modesto and Hughson caused hundreds of farm workers to lose work and g...