Automotive Assembly

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Manufacturing engineers have two options for obtaining an automated assembly system. They can get each component—an automatic screwdriver, a rotary indexing dial, a gripper—from individual suppliers and integrate the parts themselves. Or, they can ask one supplier to deliver a turnkey machine.

Recent headlines have provided stark reminders that cheap manufactured goods from overseas often come at the expense of human lives.

LAFAYETTE, IN—Nearly half of all Subarus sold globally are driven in the United States, and almost all of those will be assembled in Indiana.

CHATTANOOGA, TN—Barely more than two years after it opened, the Volkswagen assembly plant here has produced its 250,000th Passat sedan.

DEARBORN, MI—Ford will increase the production at its North American facilities by 200,000 units per year, which adds to an earlier capacity rise by 400,000 units in 2012.

WINDSOR, ON—The Canadian Auto Workers union and Flex-N-Gate have agreed to a three-year contract for workers at the Tier 1 supplier’s assembly plant here. Flex-N-Gate makes frame rails for Chrysler vehicles.

OAK RIDGE, TN—Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are studying ways to reuse electric vehicle batteries after they are spent.

U.S. manufacturers are betting big on advanced batteries for electric vehicles. Will their investments pay off? Share your thoughts!

LANSING, MI—GM plans to spend $44.5 million to open a new logistics center at its Lansing Grand River assembly plant, creating 200 jobs.

SAN ANTONIO—The Southwest Research Institute has launched its third cooperative research program aimed at developing a high-efficiency gasoline engine for the light-duty automotive and medium-duty engine markets. This four-year effort will expand on earlier efforts to improve gasoline engine technology for future emissions and fuel economy requirements.