Wire and spring makers do some quite-interesting work. Ace Wire Spring & Form Inc., for example, regularly turns thick wire into specialty hooks using a complex, multistep production process.

Diversification is just as important for company managers as it is for individual investors. Both parties know it helps ensure growth without being dragged down by any one declining market sector.

Implantable orthopedic devices and the wireless sensors that monitor them are highly specialized products that regularly come into contact with body tissues and fluids.

Many products installed in a home are taken for granted as things that should always work properly. A good example is the electrical outlet.

High-quality carbide cutting tools are essential for CNC machines such as lathes and routers. Possehl France SAS knows this quite well, and has specialized in precisely stamping metal parts used in these tools for more than 45 years.

Remote radio-control car racing has experienced tremendous growth over the past two decades. There are even national (Remotely Operated Auto Racers) and world governing bodies (International Federation of Model Auto Racing), the latter having been established in 1979.

Production-ready, 3D-printed automotive parts have been slowly entering the market the past few years. Now, they’re as important as the thousands of metal and plastic parts produced using traditional casting, injection molding, stamping and machining processes.

Developing new aircraft is always a challenge, but one that engineers at Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. (GAC) have successfully dealt with for more than 60 years. GAC produces state-of-the-art corporate jets for companies and governments all around the world, with hundreds of them currently in operation.

For any plastic-injection-molding tooling company, nothing is more important than making sure its molds allow for consistent, quick and clean demolding of just-made parts. So anything that helps the company achieve this crucial goal is worth pursuing.

In the small town of Wauwatosa, WI, sits the state-of-the-art noise, vibration and harshness laboratory operated by Briggs & Stratton. Within the lab are two anechoic chambers outfitted with sound-absorbing acoustic wedges.