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 The plan is to move into factory fastening by combining Makita’s battery and motor technologies with Panasonic's fastening and IoT tech. Power tool maker Makita announced Tuesday that it plans to acquire the power tool business of fellow Japanese manufacturer Panasonic. Panasonic created a new division, known as Electric Works Company, to house its power tool business prior to the sale. Unde...

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 Adam Zaouague, a 21-year-old automation and data specialist for Reata Engineering & Machine Works, an industrial machinery manufacturer for vario...

Ferraris go pretty fast. It’s crucial that drivers be able to see out the windows when they’re doing 200 MPH. But that’s just not the case with a recent batch of luxury sports cars the Italian automaker built for the U.S. So, they’re being recalled. The company sent out an alert for 80 12Cilindri models, which retail for around $500,000, because the windows are too tinted. Earlier this month, Ferr...

General Motors Flint Assembly plant has been operating for 80 years, and it's the automaker’s longest operating site in North America. And while it’s pushed a vast quantity of vehicles off its lines in that time, you might not believe just how big that number is: GM announced this month that Flint has just produced its 16 millionth vehicle. This milestone achievement took the form of a Lakesh...

Harley-Davidson notified an undisclosed number of workers that it would reduce its global workforce, Wisconsin Public Radio reported . A company spokesperson confirmed the layoffs but did not specify the number of impacted workers or where they work.  WPR cited the sub-district director of the United Steelworkers District 7, who stated that none of the union’s 500-plus members at Harley-Davidson f...

Sofidel is one of the largest manufacturers of paper products in the world, but it’s primarily known in Europe, specifically in Italy, where the company is based. However, the toilet tissue and paper towel producer is making major moves in the U.S., where market leaders like Kimberly-Clark, Procter & Gamble, and Georgia-Pacific dominate. Last October, Sofidel announced plans for a major U.S. e...

It’s a fresh example of the potential dystopian future of work. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a factory in South Carolina has deployed a new humanoid robot to its assembly line. The bot, called Digit, is operating in a stamping press area at a Schaeffler auto parts plant, repetitively moving baskets of parts to a conveyor line. And while this type of robotics is a bit emerging in manuf...

Jeff Bezos is looking to raise $100 billion dollars for a new fund. According to the Wall Street Journal, the idea is to buy manufacturing companies and use AI to ramp automation.  Described as a "manufacturing transformation vehicle," Bezos, who has a net worth of approximately $250 billion as of late last year, is reportedly reaching out to major financial players in the Middle East an...

Helium is a critical element for chipmaking, medical diagnostics, quantum computing and cryogenics. It could also kickstart fusion energy, which has the potential to deliver reliable, carbon-free power to hundreds of millions of people. However, it’s fairly scarce on Earth, where much of it comes from the decay of nuclear materials. Adding to the limited supply chain is potential disruptions due t...

Hyundai has issued a stop-sale of certain 2026 Palisade SUV models in the U.S. and Canada due to an issue with the second and third-row power seats. The automaker is halting sales of the vehicles while it works on a recall after a young child died in an incident involving a Palisade. Hyundai said that it “does not yet have the full details and the incident is still under investigation” but that it...

Ferrari is on the eve of introducing its first electric vehicle to the market, but not everything about it is new. Ferrari recently announced the name of its upcoming EV – the Luce. But there’s just one problem: the Luce is a name that’s already been used by another automaker, Mazda, who marketed its own Luce for decades. According to Carscoops , the original Luce was Mazda’s flagship sedan betwee...

Honda has decided to cancel the development and market launch of three electric vehicle models that had been planned for production in North America. Honda 0 SUV, Honda 0 Saloon, and Acura RSX were all scheduled to enter production at the automaker’s EV hub in Ohio . The vehicles first rolled out as concept prototypes at CES 2025, where Honda touted them as “ near-production designs .” But now, th...

Yamaha Motor's U.S. subsidiary plans to relocate its headquarters from Southern California to suburban Atlanta.  The maker of motorcycles, robotics and marine and power products said late last month that the move will begin at the end of this year and be completed by the end of 2028. Yamaha Motor U.S. intends to sell all fixed assets owned by the company in Cypress, California, including land...

A group of wholesale steel distributors will pay more than $3.3 million to settle allegations that they made false statements in order to secure federal loans during the COVID-19 pandemic. The seven corporations in question, each part of Georgia-based steel company Allied Crawford, are incorporated across seven separate states, including Virginia, where federal prosecutors investigated the matter....

Last week, Taiwanese auto supplier Minth announced plans to invest some $430 million to breathe new life into a century-old steel mill site in Alabama. The Minth Group is a massive company with nearly 28,000 global employees spanning 78 plants, making trim and structural automotive parts. The company says it is the largest supplier of battery enclosures and body structure components in the world,...

A leading global food manufacturer has reportedly overhauled its employee bonus program as part of a broader effort to revamp its corporate culture. Under the new structure at Nestlé, people familiar with the move recently told Bloomberg , workers deemed “exemplary” could get bonuses of up to 150% of company targets, while those at the other end of the spectrum, or “unsatisfactory,” would get a ma...

Swiss agricultural manufacturer Syngenta announced it will end global production of paraquat, an herbicide used to control weeds in farming operations, by the end of June. The company plans to phase out production at its facility in Huddersfield, UK, its only manufacturing site for the ingredient.  Syngenta cited significant competition from global producers, which put pressure on the company’s co...

Stanley Black & Decker plans to close its last manufacturing facility in New Britain, Connecticut, the city home to the company’s headquarters. Connecticut Public Radio reported that the action will impact nearly 300 workers at the factory, which primarily makes single-sided tape measures. Company spokesperson Debora Raymond told CPR that the facility’s products “are becoming obsolete” as more...

Officers from a UK medicine regulator raided two sites in February during an ongoing investigation into a criminal network that manufactures and distributes unlicensed weight-loss medicines, also known as “skinny jabs.” The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) stated that the operation, which targeted farm and residential properties in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, result...

Big 3 auto workers tend to rely on annual profit-sharing checks as a part of the compensation plans negotiated through the United Autoworkers Union. This year, Ford employees are taking home just shy of $7,000. GM’s union workers were just awarded $10,500. So how does Stellantis - the other piece of this Detroit auto trifecta – stack up when it comes to these bonus payouts? They’re not even on the...

Mexico’s largest cement producer — and one of the leading building materials manufacturers globally — hopes that a newly announced acquisition will bolster its position in the U.S. construction market. Cemex said Thursday that it reached an agreement to buy Omega Products International, a top provider of stucco in the western U.S. Omega, based in Southern California, operates four production facil...

Eight months after PepsiCo relegated a longtime Frito-Lay plant in Southern California to a distribution hub, the food and beverage giant is now reportedly closing the campus entirely — and laying off hundreds of workers. Frito-Lay halted snacks production at the Rancho Cucamonga plant last summer — one of several closures across the country as PepsiCo dealt with sluggish demand and rising costs —...

On October 10, 2024, at around 4:23 p.m., some 27,000 pounds of toxic hydrogen sulfide gas were released during a maintenance activity at the PEMEX Deer Park Refinery in Deer Park, Texas. The refinery makes more than a quarter of a million barrels per day of motor fuels, like gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, that are exported to the U.S., Mexico, and Latin America. The toxic release fatally injured...

U.S. consumers looking for the least expensive new vehicle option are facing both bad and good news. The bad news is that the U.S. market no longer has a new vehicle with an average MSRP below $20,000. According to Kelley Blue Book , the all-but-gone Mitsubishi Mirage was the last hope.  The good news is that the new cheapest car, the Nissan Versa, carries a fairly reasonable MSRP of $22,315. But...

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 Colton Harnar, a 29-year-old CNC programmer for SendCutSend , an on-demand, custom sheet metal and CNC machining manufacturing company.  Harnar has b...