GREENWOOD, MS—Milwaukee Tool will lease a building adjacent to its existing assembly plant here to expand its manufacturing operations. The project represents an investment of $16.8 million and creation of 126 jobs.
FAIRFIELD, CT—Henry Ford was fond of saying that “nothing was particularly hard if you divided it into small jobs.” He followed his own advice, built the world’s first large-scale assembly lines that cranked out millions of Model Ts every year, and left his competitors in the dust. GE engineers are now taking Ford’s advice to the extreme and breaking down the factory into even smaller pieces: bits and bytes.
LOUISVILLE, KY—A huge fire engulfed a warehouse Friday at General Electric’s Appliance Park here. The cause of the fire, which burned for more than a day, is still being determined, but it occurred as storms and lightning hit the area.
ANN ARBOR, MI—Battery start-up Sakti3 has lured a $15-million investment from vacuum cleaner manufacturer Dyson, which is hunting for technology to improve the battery performance of cordless vacuums and other devices.
OAK RIDGE, TN—The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Whirlpool Corporation are collaborating to design a refrigerator that could cut energy use by up to 40 percent compared with current models.
Welded plastic cylinders are the lifeblood of British manufacturers Harvey Softeners Ltd. and Wavin Ltd. Harvey produces pressure tanks for its water softeners, while Wavin makes plastic tubes that connect to below-ground drainage systems.