Manufacturing News and Headlines
Manufacturing News and Headlines
Baxter International announced it is cutting roughly 90 positions at its Marion, North Carolina IV solutions plant, representing about 3% of the site’s workforce. The facility, which supplies roughly 60% of U.S. IV fluids, recovered from Hurricane Helene damage but still faces demand that is 10‑15% below pre‑storm levels. CFO Joel Grade said fluid‑conservation practices are expected to persist through 2026. Despite the cuts, Baxter affirmed its commitment to the Marion site and its employees.
Oracle announced new capabilities in its Fusion Cloud SCM suite tailored for process manufacturers. The updates introduce AI‑assisted recipe synchronization, dynamic batch sizing, and granular yield modeling to handle blending, mixing, and batch‑based production. Enhanced traceability features include lot‑specific unit‑of‑measure...
Successful backhaul programs capture freight on a truck’s return leg, turning empty miles into revenue. By leveraging real‑time data, optimization algorithms and cross‑company collaboration, carriers can cut costs, reduce risk and lower carbon emissions. Penske Logistics outlines seven essential elements—network...
University of Texas at Arlington engineers unveiled the Pneumatically Actuated Soft Elbow Exoskeleton (PASE), a lightweight silicone‑based wearable that cuts elbow muscle activity by 22% during typical industrial tasks. Tests with 19 participants showed an 8‑10 point reduction in perceived...
Day one of the ARC Forum highlighted that assisted supply chain operations, while delivering improved visibility and faster alerts, are hitting practical limits. Decision support tools generate actionable insights, yet translating them into coordinated actions remains slow due to functional...
Plant Engineering released its January/February 2026 issue, spotlighting a range of industrial topics from lighting selection and LED safety benefits to AI‑driven automation platforms. The issue also tackles workforce salary challenges, electrical trends, OSHA/NFPA 70E alignment, harmonic mitigation for VFDs,...
Operational technology (OT) cyberattacks have so far been limited by attackers' lack of deep process knowledge, but experts warn that a shift toward "living‑off‑the‑plant" techniques could enable more damaging exploits. Recent ransomware spillovers into OT and incidents like the Norway...
Even minor incidents can trigger a rock‑in‑a‑pond effect that reverberates through global supply chains, as illustrated by the 2021 Ever Given blockage that stalled $9.6 billion of goods daily. A recent study shows 52 % of companies lose more than a month...
Nvidia unveiled DreamDojo, a robot world model trained on a 44,000‑hour human egocentric video dataset, enabling robots to acquire physical intuition by observation before hardware‑specific fine‑tuning. The DreamDojo‑HV dataset is 15× longer, contains 96× more skills and spans 2,000× more...
Narvar’s February 2026 report shows holiday return volume surged 11% year‑over‑year, nearly double the 6% rise in purchase orders. The spike coincides with a 12‑year low in consumer confidence, prompting shoppers to treat returns as a final budget filter. Retailers...
In his second term, President Donald Trump pushed average U.S. import tariffs to about 18%, the highest level since the Great Depression. The higher duties widened the trade deficit and contributed to persistent inflation, prompting the Federal Reserve to cut...
Fujifilm Biotechnologies, a subsidiary of the historic photo‑film maker, opened a 150‑acre, commercial‑scale biopharma manufacturing campus in Holly Springs, North Carolina, investing over $3.2 billion. The first phase features eight 20,000‑liter mammalian cell‑culture bioreactors, with a second phase slated to double...
