HOUSTON—USON has signed a joint-venture agreement with Innovative Products and Equipment. The new company will offer automated leak testing systems.

PAYSON, UT—Liberty Safe, a manufacturer of gun storage safes, completed testing of a new $10 million fully computerized assembly line here. The line will double the company’s output to more than 700 safes a day.

LEWIS CENTER, OH—Systems integrator Xigent Automation Systems Inc. has acquired a larger facility here to meet growing demand for automated assembly systems.

TRUMBULL, CT—Tool changers can increase the flexibility of robotic workcells.

TOKYO—Canon Inc. is moving toward fully automating assembly of digital camera in an effort to cut costs. The move toward machine-only production could be completed as soon as 2015.

SCHAUMBURG, IL—To facilitate maintenance and repairs, automation engineers are increasingly taking a modular approach to system design and standardizing on configurable components, whenever possible.

ANN ARBOR, MI—North American robotics companies enjoyed one of the industry’s strongest opening quarters ever, according to new statistics released from Robotic Industries Association. Sales are up 30 percent compared with 2011.

Pneumatic grippers or mechatronic grippers? That is the question.

DAYTON, OH—Systems integrator Assembly & Test Worldwide is planning to hire 120 new workers during the next three years, doubling its workforce.

CAMBRIDGE, MA—In a perfectly capitalist system, increased profit produced by automation flows to the owners of the business, not the workers, argues one analyst.