Montreal Shippers Get New North-South Service From CMA CGM
Canadian shippers will gain a new north‑south maritime link as CMA CGM adds the Port of Montreal to its Homere service, scheduled to call the Cast Terminal on April 5. The 1,713‑TEU vessel joins the carrier’s Cagema rotation, linking Montreal with Caribbean hubs such as Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, as well as New York‑New Jersey and Port Saint John. The service also offers a transshipment option, enabling Canadian exporters to reach global markets without direct sailings. This expansion positions Montreal as a key gateway in the growing North‑South trade corridor.
Intermodal Rail Edges Ahead of Carloads in Flat Week
Intermodal traffic edged ahead in a flat week for U.S. railroads, with total weekly volume reaching 515,921 units, a 0.5% year‑over‑year increase. While carload freight slipped 0.8% to 233,833 units, intermodal containers and trailers rose 1.6% to 282,088. Petroleum shipments...
2026 Top Shops Deadline Extended Until April 10
CompositesWorld has extended the deadline for its 2026 Top Shops Benchmarking Survey to April 10, giving participants an extra two weeks to complete the core questionnaire by March 31. Respondents who finish the core survey receive a customized benchmarking report, earn Top...
Trucking Capacity Crunch Draws Shippers to Intermodal
Shippers are increasingly turning to intermodal transport as over‑the‑road trucking faces a capacity crunch driven by stricter federal oversight and soaring diesel prices. Uber Freight reports spot OTR rates up 25% year‑over‑year and predicts intermodal rates will rise 3‑5% by...
Russian Seaborne Diesel Exports Fall 3% Between February and March
Russia’s seaborne diesel and gasoil shipments slipped 3% in March, falling to roughly 3.06 million metric tons. The decline was driven by repeated Ukrainian drone strikes that disrupted loading at the key Baltic hub of Primorsk and the southern port of...
Amphenol RF Releases HD-EFI Bullet Tool
Amphenel RF has added a new HD‑EFI bullet tool to its line of insertion and extraction accessories. The tool is engineered for precise RF interface installations, helping engineers avoid damage while speeding up assembly. It works with both machined and...
No-Code, No Problem: Automotive Automation Is Clearing the Software Bottleneck
Automakers are adopting no‑code automation platforms that let engineers build vehicle functions through visual workflows instead of traditional code. These policies, defined in kilobytes, can be pushed instantly to single cars or millions, slashing development cycles and validation costs. The...
US Tariff Fight Shifts to Heavy Machinery Imported From Mexico
Two bipartisan U.S. senators have asked the Commerce Department to launch a Section 232 national‑security investigation into heavy‑equipment imports from Mexico, arguing that offshoring erodes American manufacturing jobs. They cite recent plant closures and layoffs at Deere, Caterpillar and CNH...
Allied Vision Launches allPIXA Pro 6000px: The High-Speed Color Linescan Camera for Zero-Defect Industrial Inspection
Allied Vision introduced the allPIXA pro 6000px, a Camera Link® color linescan camera featuring a 6000‑pixel CCD RGB sensor and a 34 kHz line rate. The device spans a 400‑nm to 1000‑nm spectral range, enabling detection of sub‑millimeter defects and invisible material variations....
Why Manufacturing Remains Indonesia’s Key Growth Driver, Accelerating Downstream...
Indonesia’s 2025‑2029 economic roadmap hinges on manufacturing, which posted a 5.3% growth rate in 2025—slightly above the nation’s 5.0% GDP expansion. The sector now accounts for 19.07% of GDP and over 80% of exports, employing more than 20 million workers. Government...
Dematic to Debut New Command Center Analytics Platform at MODEX 2026
Dematic will unveil its new Command Center analytics platform at MODEX 2026 in Atlanta, showcasing real‑time visibility and advanced warehouse insights. The vendor‑agnostic solution centralizes operational data, enabling faster, data‑driven decisions across supply‑chain networks. Alongside the platform launch, Dematic will...
NGen Announces Nearly $80 Million for Canadian Manufacturers to Adopt AI
Industry‑led non‑profit Next Generation Manufacturing Canada (NGen) announced a CAD 79 million (≈ USD 58 million) investment to support 20 AI‑driven projects across Canadian manufacturers. More than CAD 50 million (≈ USD 36 million) comes from private partners, with the remaining CAD 29 million (≈ USD 21 million) supplied by the federal Pan‑Canadian AI Strategy....
March ISM Report: Manufacturing PMI Reaches Highest Level Since August 2022
The Institute for Supply Management’s March 2026 Manufacturing PMI rose to 52.7, the strongest reading since August 2022 and a modest gain over February. New orders slowed while production stayed robust, and the employment index remained in contraction territory. The...
ACMI, John Hopkins University Collaborate to Build Manufacturing Workforce in US
The American Center for Manufacturing and Innovation (ACMI) has teamed up with Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering to create safety‑focused training and career pathways in energetics and advanced manufacturing. The collaboration will initially target ACMI’s National Security Industrial...
Novo Cuts 400 Jobs in Indiana as Scholar Rock Refiles Drug Linked to the Factory
Novo Nordisk announced it will cut approximately 400 positions at its recently acquired Bloomington, Indiana manufacturing plant. The cuts follow FDA rejections of drug products from three contract companies that used the facility, citing manufacturing deficiencies. The issues stem from...
MC Tech Days: Materials and Processes for High-Rate Aerospace Manufacturing
The MC Tech Days virtual workshop on April 22 will showcase high‑rate aerospace manufacturing tools and processes, featuring sponsors Toray Group and Composites One and presenters from leading material and aerospace firms. Meanwhile, Avel Robotics of France signed a development contract...
The Dirty Secret of Powder Bed Fusion
At the AMUG conference, Stratasys and Tronix3D highlighted the massive waste problem in powder‑bed fusion, where roughly 2.5 million kg of PA12 powder is discarded each year. Stratasys introduced its SAF ReLife software and firmware upgrade that lets the H350 printer use...
Text Mining Culture Conditions and Glycosylation Relationships
Researchers at the University of Delaware and Waters have created an automated text‑mining pipeline that extracts relationships between cell‑culture conditions and protein glycosylation with 88% accuracy. The extracted data are normalized and stored in a Bioprocess Knowledge Graph, enabling a...
Arceon Materials Demonstrate Near-Zero Structural Degradation in AFRL High-Heat Torch Testing
Arceon B.V. successfully completed AFRL oxyacetylene torch testing of three Carbeon carbon ceramic composite samples, in partnership with Moog Inc. The materials endured sustained heat flux above 1200 °C in steady‑state and cyclic loading without meaningful structural degradation. Post‑test measurements showed...
Lucid Motors Recalls over 4,000 Gravity SUVs over Seat Belt Defect
Lucid Motors announced a recall of over 4,000 Gravity SUVs after discovering that second‑row seat‑belt anchors were not welded correctly. The defect stems from a seat‑belt supplier altering its manufacturing process without Lucid’s approval, prompting the automaker to revert to...
Xiaomi’s New Robot Hand Can Feel Pressure, Heat, and Even Sweat
Xiaomi unveiled an upgraded CyberOne robotic hand that features full‑palm tactile sensing, artificial sweat‑gland cooling, and a 60 % smaller form factor matching human proportions. The hand can detect pressure, temperature, and slip across an 8200 mm² surface, enabling delicate manipulation such...
India Delays Cabotage Rewind Plan Amid Carrier Pressure, Middle East Reroutings
India’s Ministry of Ports & Shipping announced a six‑month postponement of the cabotage policy that would have ended foreign‑flag vessels’ right to operate coastal shipping routes. The original rule, introduced in 2018, aimed to force domestic operators to handle intra‑country...
Prolonged Transfection Complex Stability for Reliable Large-Scale AAV Manufacturing
Gene‑therapy manufacturers face a bottleneck when adding large volumes of AAV transfection complex to bioreactors within a narrow time window. Mirus Bio’s VirusGEN Transfection Complex Stabilizer, used with TransIT‑VirusGEN reagent, cuts the required complex volume from roughly five percent to...
US Modules Opens Solar Panel Assembly Plant in East-Central Texas
US Modules has launched its first solar panel assembly line in College Station, Texas, capable of producing 400 MW of utility‑scale panels per year. Backed by Carey International Group, the 150,000‑sq‑ft facility can expand to 1.4 GW annual output, with a second...
Vertical Aerospace Launches Valo Battery Pilot Production Line, Positive Fiscal Year 2025 Financial Results
Vertical Aerospace has put into operation a 15,000‑square‑foot battery pilot production line at its Vertical Energy Centre (VEC), featuring automated aerospace‑grade manufacturing that delivered up to 1.4 MW of peak power during flight tests. The line will assemble battery packs for...
Vitrek Introduces V10X High-Voltage Safety Tester
Vitrek has launched the V10X, a high‑voltage safety tester delivering up to 30 kV AC output and 100 picoamp leakage resolution. The platform merges hipot, low‑resistance, and ground‑bond testing into one system, targeting automated production lines in sectors such as appliances, EV...
Volvo Sets July Start for Monterrey Heavy-Duty Truck Plant
Volvo Group will launch production at its new 1.7‑million‑square‑foot Monterrey heavy‑duty truck plant in July 2026, a $700 million investment aimed at expanding North American capacity. Initial volumes will be modest because U.S. and Canadian demand remains soft, but the facility...
SEC Develops Inline X-Ray Inspection Tool for HBM Production
SEC Co. has completed development of the Semi‑Scan‑SW, an automated inline X‑ray inspection system for high‑bandwidth memory (HBM) production. The tool detects internal defects as small as 3‑5 µm across HBM stacking, through‑glass‑via (TGV) and wafer‑level packaging (WLP) processes. SEC will...
BF Global Logistics Selects IFS Softeon WMS to Modernise European Warehouse Operations
BF Global Logistics has chosen IFS Softeon’s warehouse management system as its core platform for European facilities, partnering with Lanark for implementation. The advanced WMS offers integrated billing, labour management, and AI‑driven visibility, aiming to boost performance, scalability, and customer...
US Manufacturing Showing Greater Resilience
U.S. manufacturing showed unexpected strength in March as the ISM Manufacturing index rose to 52.7, the highest level since August 2022 and above consensus forecasts. Production accelerated to 55.1, buoyed by a solid backlog of new orders, while new‑order sentiment...
Guide Helps Forwarders Navigate Electronic FIATA Multimodal Bill of Lading
FIATA has issued a practical guide to help freight forwarders adopt the Electronic FIATA Multimodal Bill of Lading (eFBL), a digital counterpart to the paper bill of lading that complies with UNCTAD/ICC rules and UCP 600. The guide details onboarding steps,...
Thailand Seeks LNG Supplies From Malaysia Due to Middle East Conflict
Thailand is seeking additional LNG supplies from Malaysia to offset disruptions caused by the Middle East conflict, which currently provides about 5%‑10% of its imports. The country receives two to three LNG vessels from the region each month, and officials...
FedEx’s Next AI Leap to Feature RFID, Robotics
FedEx announced a multi‑year push to embed artificial intelligence into physical assets such as RFID sensors, robotics and automated trailer unloaders. By 2028 the carrier aims to have AI driving more than half of its core operational workflows, from first‑mile...
AchieVe Pressure Switches
AutomationDirect announced the launch of two new AchieVe mechanical pressure switches – the LPPS series and the S18‑1C model – aimed at rugged industrial applications. The LPPS line handles pressures up to 3,000 psig and delivers a 5 A SPDT relay output,...
Di-Soric Ultrasonic Sensors
AutomationDirect has added di‑soric ultrasonic proximity sensors in 8, 12, 18 and 30 mm tubular sizes plus a 12 mm rectangular model. The sensors deliver contactless distance measurement up to 6,000 mm, feature rugged nickel‑plated brass construction, IP67 protection, and IO‑Link connectivity with...
Lucid Motors Recalls over 4,000 Gravity SUVs Citing Improperly Welded Seat Belts
Lucid Motors announced a recall of more than 4,000 Gravity SUVs built before Feb. 14, 2026 due to improperly welded second‑row seat‑belt anchors. The defect was discovered during unrelated safety testing in January and could prevent the belts from restraining passengers in...
Cavotec Signs $15b Order for MoorMaster Systems in North America
Cavotec has secured a $15.11 million contract to supply its MoorMaster automated vacuum mooring systems for a specialized North American application. Deliveries are slated between October 2027 and March 2028. The MoorMaster technology promises safer, faster vessel handling while cutting emissions. This deal...
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BMW Group has deployed PTC’s Codebeamer application‑lifecycle‑management platform to replace dozens of legacy requirements tools with a single, unified data model. The move consolidates mechanical, electrical and software requirements into one system, improving traceability and digital continuity. Codebeamer now underpins...
U.S. Army Shifts Quad Cities Plant Operations to Global Military Products
The U.S. Army awarded Global Military Products a four‑year contract to operate and expand the Quad Cities Cartridge Case Facility in Rock Island, Illinois. Under the deal, the contractor will continue producing brass and steel cartridge cases while adding a...
Agile Robots Closes Acquisition of Thyssenkrupp Automation Engineering
Agile Robots completed the acquisition of thyssenkrupp Automation Engineering’s assets, rebranding the unit as Krause Automation. The deal gives the Munich‑based AI‑robotics firm a strong presence in Europe and North America and adds over 75 years of engineering heritage. By...
EnerVenue Closes US$300 Million Series B for 30,000-Cycle Nickel-Hydrogen Battery Manufacturing
EnerVenue closed a $300 million Series B extension led by Full Vision Capital, adding a new investor to the round. The funding will finance rapid expansion of its high‑volume nickel‑hydrogen battery plant in Changzhou, China, and accelerate supply‑chain development. The company also...
India’s Oil Refiners Are Feeling the Squeeze From the Gulf War
India’s major oil refiners, long buoyed by cheap Russian crude, are now grappling with tighter supply and falling margins as the Gulf war disrupts the Strait of Hormuz. The closure of this key shipping lane has choked the flow of...
A Trio of Firms Want to Clean up Steelmaking
A trio of companies are tackling steel’s carbon footprint by replacing traditional coke‑based reduction with electricity‑driven or greener chemical processes. Two firms have built pilot‑scale electro‑reduction plants that melt iron ore directly using renewable power, while a third adapts conventional...
China's Cosmx Ties up with Munoth Industries in JV to Source Lithium-Ion Cells in India
China's Cosmx, the world’s second‑largest smartphone battery‑pack supplier, has formed a joint venture with Chennai‑based Munoth Industries to source lithium‑ion cells in India. Cosmx will acquire a 26% stake in Munoth’s newly approved cell‑manufacturing facility and begin sourcing cells for...
Ryder, International Launch Autonomous LT Near Laredo
Ryder System and International Motors have launched a joint autonomous trucking pilot on a 600‑mile daily route between Laredo and Temple, Texas. The pilot uses a factory‑integrated International LT equipped with PlusAI’s SuperDrive Level 4 software, with a safety driver on...
Top 50 Trucking Companies: Strategy Separates the Leaders
Logistics Management’s 2025 Top 50 trucking list highlights carriers that combine long‑term strategy, strong culture, and disciplined execution to thrive in a $1 trillion U.S. freight network. The report separates the 25 largest truckload firms from the 25 leading less‑than‑truckload (LTL) operators,...
Insight Works Enhances Warehouse Efficiency with Warehouse Insight Amid Latest Dynamics 365 Business Central Updates
Insight Works announced that its Warehouse Insight app now leverages Microsoft’s 2026 Wave 1 Dynamics 365 Business Central updates to streamline inbound warehouse operations. The solution adds real‑time barcode scanning, license‑plate creation and on‑the‑spot quality inspections via mobile devices, cutting receiving cycle...
Filling a Gap in Materials Mechanics: Nanoindentation at High Constant Strain Rates up to 105 S−1
Researchers have unveiled a piezoelectric‑based nanoindentation platform that maintains constant indentation strain rates from 10¹ to 10⁵ s⁻¹, a five‑order‑of‑magnitude range previously inaccessible at the micro‑scale. The system captures precise load‑displacement data within ~150 µs, enabling accurate hardness extraction for single‑crystalline molybdenum,...
DHL Update on Cargo Flows as Pressure Builds in the Strait
DHL’s Middle East logistics team warned that the conflict around the Strait of Hormuz is deepening supply‑chain strain, with air carriers operating at 20‑60% of pre‑crisis capacity and jet‑fuel shortages limiting charter flights. The company is launching a thrice‑weekly B747F...
Notes From the Field: Building a Smarter Ocean Transportation Strategy
Companies importing to the U.S. often treat ocean freight as a simple spot‑market expense, missing opportunities for cost control and service improvement. A structured ocean transportation strategy begins with accurate TEU volume forecasts, enabling volume‑based rate negotiations and balanced use...