JOLIET, IL—Union workers have rejected Caterpillar Inc.’s latest contract offer and walked off the job at the tractor manufacturer’s assembly plant here.
BENTON HARBOR, MI—Whirlpool is set to officially open its new office campus here. The $70 million project is a part of a larger plan to consolidate 15 facilities into three centralized office campuses.
DETROIT—Chrysler’s U.S. sales rose 20 percent in April as the company continued its comeback from financial disaster. The automaker enjoyed its best April in four years and the 25th-straight month of year-over-year sales gains.
NEWARK, DE—Bloom Energy has begun overhauling the old Chrysler assembly plant here. When finished, the new facility will mass-produce fuel cells and employ some 1,500.
DEARBORN, MI—Ford says it won’t be affected by a looming shortage of a resin that can carry fuel and other liquids. It has worked with suppliers to develop alternative materials.
MAGDEBURG, Germany—Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation IFF have come up with an automated visual inspection system that is reliable and economic even for one-off production runs.
CHICAGO—Seventy-two percent of small and midsized manufacturers expect their revenues to increase this year. In addition, 56 percent plan to add employees, and 41 percent plan to increase capital expenditures from 2011 levels, according to a new survey from Prime Advantage.
CAMBRIDGE, MA—Researchers at MIT have developed a robot that can mimic silk worms and spiders and weave a cocoon-like structure with a little programming help from humans.