BusinessManufacturing

Forward-looking measures are pointing to a global slowdown, driven mainly by trade uncertainty. If businesses and consumers pull back, a downturn could be in the cards.

From managing partnerships, to collecting data for process improvement, traceability technologies bring manufacturers upstream and downstream benefits.

The Pentagon has shared little of substance about a program to develop a new interceptor to stay ahead of a rapidly evolving rogue-state missile threat. Here's what it's likely to involve, based on conversations with half a dozen people who are conversant with the objectives.

The deal is likely to take effect in January.

What’s happening is that we, as a global society, lack data literacy and it’s enabling companies to manipulate the world in invisible, but powerful ways. It’s time for this to change. This note is a call for an audit of Silicon Valley and everything being hidden within the blackbox.

A new CEO takes charge at a venture-backed San Francisco factory that makes electronics for NASA and Lockheed Martin.

Put simply, the negativity on the stock may be overdone​.

Hundreds of companies have set targets to reduce deforestation by 2020. Here's what we know so far.

It’s been said many times that only 30% of transformations are successful in achieving their objectives and sustaining impact. Why do so many transformations fail? How can we make them successful? And what can make the changes stick?

Workers are eager to get back to the assembly line after two missed paychecks.

Mara Phones, a subsidiary company of the Mara Group owned by businessman Ashish J. Thakkar, has built a high tech smartphone manufacturing facility in Kigali’s Special Economic Zone, Rwanda.

Today’s supply chains are complex global networks that face a growing host of risks, including natural disasters, labor unrest, transportation delays, political uncertainty and cyberattacks.

After abandoning its initial goals with China, U.S. officials hope for a modest deal to limit the economic damage caused by Trump’s tariffs.

Hydrogen is a key emerging decarbonization technology, and could become a $130 billion U.S. industry while cutting emissions by 2050.

The United Auto Workers strike at General Motors plants is now three weeks old, and workers are being offered food and deals.

What makes a CEO outrageous? When he or she has the courage, conviction and candor to change a company’s culture.

"I think we're in for a decade of transformation ahead."

The spotlight is on Enrique Lores, HP’s incoming CEO, as the printer giant announced a restructuring plan that would include up to 9,000 job cuts.

Even as manufacturing stumbles on trade tensions, addressing the skills gap could boost employment and competitiveness.

The accelerating decline is worrisome, and a lot of people are blaming them on the impacts of tariffs and the trade war with China. But these factors and others are driving an increasingly negative sentiment among business leaders who make future investment decisions.

This week’s tariff announcement involving Airbus subsidies is not part of some Trump administration strategy to unravel the global trading regime. Here's what's behind the dispute and what the EU could do to avoid the tariffs.

In a striking break from past practice, the Trump administration is poised to impose tariffs in a way that is legitimate under global trade rules, in the case of subsidies for Airbus. But doing so is likely to harm not only Trump's cause in his trade disputes with the EU, but also with China.

Although the U.S. manufacturing industry might be experiencing a downturn other economic indicators are strong and a deep recession is not likely.

Textiles has been a tough business in the U.S. for a long time. Nobody knows that better than the Zaslow family. So their newest project, a D2C line of organic cotton bedding called American Blossom Linens, is something to keep a close eye on.

Have we somehow managed to put the kibosh on U. S. trade growth, after a pretty strong showing since the dawn of the “modern era” of globalization, marked by fall of the Berlin Wall and Deng’s opening of China in the late 1980s?

The soaring prices of palladium, the preferred metal in the exhaust systems of hybrid electric vehicles, is good news for one of Russia’s biggest mining companies, Norilsk Nickel.

Can machines be creative? Can they make humans more creative? Art meets AI at the Festival of the Impossible.

As the People’s Republic of China (PRC) celebrates its 70th anniversary, manufacturing data shows that factories in the world’s second largest economy improved marginally in September, despite the impact of the ongoing U.S.-China trade war.

Other listees include Wan Long, whose WH Group acquired Smithfield Foods in the U.S for $4.7 billion in 2013. and is one of the world’s largest meat processors

Technology is available to automate the collection, connection and analysis of data from legacy equipment, including PLCs and sensors and process monitoring, production and business planning systems.

Escalating tariffs are taking a toll.

There are over a thousand exoskeleton units currently in use at job sites around the world, and their number is expected to increase. As exo technology enters the workplace it is inevitably encountering insurance companies and organizations that are responsible for workers' compensation.

If every state had a governor like Gavin Newsom, the bioeconomy would be booming not just in California but everywhere. Here’s why.

Large, exciting new models like the just certified Cessna Longitude and Bombardier's Global 5500 and 6500 historically have delivered big boosts to business jet sales. Now they represent a classic example of running just to stay in place in an industry that may be skating toward consolidation.

Various predictive and preventive maintenance methods for industrial machinery have been around for a long while now. The newest technology revolves around continuous diagnostics and didn’t get its start on the manufacturing floor. It came instead out of the medical devices world.

The Ukraine, the country at the center of the Democrats' efforts to investigate and possibly impeach President Trump, resembles a typical developing world trade partner.

Gogoro is competing with fellow Taiwanese motorcycle maker Kymco to sell electric scooters, a sign that more consumers are giving the newer vehicles a chance.

This year, for the first time in at least 15 years and perhaps ever, the percentage of exports bound for China is near parity, at 52.92% by ocean and the remainder by air.

Most cannabis is grown in greenhouses under grow-lights or outdoors in fields. The well-know compounds CBD and THC are extracted from plants. But now the greenhouses, and the plant itself, are no longer needed. Companies are using synthetic biology to “brew”cannabis, just like breweries brew beer.

Long-simmering breakdowns in trust between floor employees and company leadership can lead to disaster. It's best to identify them early and often, and resolve them quickly.

The SEC said Herbalife made false statements about its China operation.

U.S. auto sales confront threats in Q4 and in 2020 including shaky consumer confidence and potential new tariffs, according to Cox Automotive.

The success of these companies can be largely attributed to decisions made early in their growth in three key areas: facing down scale-up challenges, finding the true competitive advantage, and making strategic partnerships to maximize the value of their products.

The Euro zone economy has been spluttering during September following a sharp decline in global trade and the threat of a “no-deal” Brexit still looms large.

The Enterprise Wearable Technology Summit, which wrapped last week in Dallas, showed enterprise XR is reaching an inflection point.

B2B marketers are noticing an alarming trend of false positives on their lead generation campaigns. Are they just poor-quality leads? Unfortunately, the reality isn’t so simple.

In 2020, Iowa has an opportunity to send a strong defense leader to Congress. With defense entrepreneurs looking for states with a small defense sector and strong defense representation in Congress, Iowa could be on the verge of a defense industry renaissance.

Imagine waking up every morning in a house that is just as alive as you are. With synthetic biology, your future home could be a living, breathing marvel of nature and biotechnology. It’s a bold ambition, but this could be the key to achieving sustainability for modern cities.

A modest fall in global production of copper ought to be matched by a rising price but that’s not the case as a metal widely seen as a bellwether for the broader economy.

95 percent of Americans say sustainability is a good goal but many are finding it difficult to put into practice. Convenience, lack of awareness and availability are top obstacles to sustainability according to nearly half of consumers. There is a need for better product transparency

Will this custom 3-D printer and the fake steaks it's designed to produce be a breakthrough market-maker for meat substitutes?

Imagine that your car runs on carbon emissions — consuming rather than creating one of the main drivers of climate change. Here are five companies that are changing the automotive industry through synthetic biology and the engineering of biological organisms.

In what would be the first structural changes at Boeing since two deadly crashes that have thrown the company into crisis, the board has drawn up a blueprint to bolster the independence of its engineers and safety certification representatives from commercial pressures.

Japan is asking for a reasonable concession, but Trump may say no.

A breakthrough nanotechnology promises to revolutionise the speed, cost and sustainability of extracting the lithium. This could lead to a major cost reduction in the lithium-ion batteries widely used in electric cars, consumer electronics and utility-scale energy storage.

The Air Force isn’t a hedge fund. Nor is it a science fair. A bold proposal to produce small batches of innovative combat aircraft in as little as five years has some major flaws.

Techniplas Prime offers automotive manufacturing customers end-to-end supply chain solutions, from product development through parts delivery, by making use of the idle 3-D printing capacity other producers have to offer.

The US military isn’t developing bioweapons, and nor does it want to. But the military must anticipate how to respond to other actors with mal intent to use this technology. And Dr. Alexander Titus sees many useful applications of synthetic biology.

Well, we’ve been left with an overabundance of CO2 and, rather than panicking about it, the synthetic biology industry is bottling it up and leading us into a carbon neutral, sustainable future.

India moved a tad closer to becoming an alternative to China.

Despite the impact from tariffs, the economy looks to be holding steady.

Electric vehicles have become one of California's largest exports, and will hit $3.4 billion in total value in 2019, according to new analysis.

Synthetic biology startups dig for gold. Twist Bioscience is selling them millions of tiny shovels. Twist went public on October 30, 2019, at $14 a share. Since then, it has doubled to $28 dollars a share. Why has its stock doubled?

India, one of the United States' fastest-growing trade partners over the last two decades, has a complicated relationship with the U.S.

Innovation goes hand-in-hand with collaboration, between teams, between organizations and even between sectors. For manufacturers, learning from and building on the successes and setbacks of others — both within their own company and outside it — is a great way to supercharge any innovation program.

Food security is one of the biggest challenges we’re facing as we move further into this century. Synthetic biology offers ways to help produce and supply enough safe and nutritious food sustainably for the estimated 9 billion people that will inhabit the planet by 2050.

Rising insulin prices have become a dangerous norm for diabetics. With the help of synthetic biology, the insulin crisis could become a lesson from the past — a demonstration of how cutting-edge science and equitable healthcare access can work in tandem to build a better tomorrow.

That’s right, the United States has trade surpluses with more countries than those with which it has trade deficits.

The International Construction and Utility Equipment Exposition is charged up and powered on for October in Louisville.

A new report by MIT’s Task Force on the Work of the Future shows that technologies evolve within social and economic contexts, and we have great influenc e over whether they replace workers or augment their skills.

Zak Pashak of Detroit Bikes decided to make his mark on urban transport by manufacturing bicycles right in the Motor City.

Frances Arnold and her success in engineering biology to create better enzymes for everything from sustainable biofuels to better ways of making drugs earned her the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018. Is this the first Nobel Prize in synthetic biology?

The current contract talks are trying to claw back what was given up in the 2009 bankruptcy negotiations.

The automation industry is more than capable of defending against proposals such as the so-called robot tax and brings solid economic data to the debate; but how to convince Los Angeles dockworkers?

"Drink like there’s tomorrow" is the company slogan of ZBiotics, the synthetic biology company selling a probiotic supplement that prevents hangovers. Their probiotic drink is the first genetically engineered probiotic to break down a toxic byproduct of alcohol called acetaldehyde - and it works.

How could one of the world’s largest makers of petrochemicals – an aspect of the business so prominent that, until last week, it was in its name (Mexichem) – contribute to positive global change?

The longer it goes on, the more ripple effect the General Motors strike has on parts suppliers that make components for GM’s now-shuttered plants.

Synthetic biology company Ginkgo Bioworks tops $4 billion valuation with investment from fund giant T. Rowe Price. That's a big win for the company's five founders, whose stakes are now worth an estimated $250 million each.

Through biological engineering, Ginkgo Bioworks design custom organisms to create new products with the potential to transform industries. Today the company announced the Series E financing round totaling $290 million, bringing the total funding of the company to $719 million

Artificial intelligence is infiltrating every industry and changing the world. Here are the 50 most promising artificial intelligence companies.

The cabinet will have to reauthorize the ban when it reconvenes in November.

In addition to earning billions from apps, California will soon be making trillions from living medicines, biomolecules, and microbes. Other states can cash in on this boom, too.

"You have to be strong in any environment."

As multinational companies move supply chains out of China and into Vietnam, the Western and Chinese corporate governance models are on a collision course. Vietnam's participation in new free-trade agreements will make this an important battleground for standards and values.

Plans to develop a world-class potash fertilizer mine in the north of Britain have suffered a setback

Cnoc founder Gilad Nachmani, with a successful outdoors water carrier already on the market, decided to do something about the flimsy and unrepairable trekking poles he'd been buying (and breaking!): make them himself.

The vaping giant’s Asia expansion faces obstacles in China.

Buzzwords are rampant in manufacturing. Here's a definitive definition and actionable, bite-sized steps to achieving smart manufacturing according to leaders.

Terry Gou, billionaire founder of Foxconn Technology, says he won’t run for the presidency of Taiwan after all.

Early this year, 85-year-old Bonipak Produce unleashed an orange, 8,000-pound autonomous robot upon its California vegetable fields. It was one of the first farms to begin using the machinery to take over their farm's weeding responsibilities.

Officials still searching for the product or chemical behind the outbreak.

Second to the oil industry, the fashion industry is the world’s largest polluter. As a result, consumers are in growing numbers asking for sustainable fashion items, putting pressure on the fashion industry and textile manufacturers. Synthetic biology has the answer.

Simbe Robotics' AI and robot solutions can help unlock close to a trillion dollars of value by boosting efficiency in retail and supply chains.

Daquri quietly slipped under the waves it helped to create, as XR shows continued vitality.

AI is changing the field of synthetic biology and how we engineer biology. It’s helping engineers design new ways to design genetic circuits — and it could leave a remarkable impact on the future of humanity

U.S. trade and immigration policies have helped Canadian farmers export to China and Canadian universities attract more foreign students.

Are you slurping through a paper straw, searching for the next green product that will save the planet? Sorry to let you down: it’s policy — not individual action — that has the power to help us through the other side while also stimulating the bioeconomy.

A centralized power source can create issues if it unexpectedly goes offline. When a glitch led the Montclair State University’s microgrid to believe that an outage had occurred, it kicked in and isolated the University from the main grid and seamlessly powered the entire campus for nine hours.

Some products containing ranitidine, such as Zantac, may have a contaminant that could cause cancer at higher levels.