Austin Weber

FRANKFURT, Germany—Human-sized machines equipped with two arms and two legs are slowly making their way into factories.

PLANO, TX—Toyota Motor Corp. is expanding an on-site childcare program at its U.S. factories.

CAMBRIDGE, MA—Philips plans to invest more than $150 million in U.S. manufacturing facilities.

LOUISVILLE—Ford Motor Co. plans to build a midsized electric pick-up truck at its assembly plant here using a new production system.

Bonding enables mixed-material joining of battery packs, body panels and other components.

STEYR, Austria—BMW has ramped up electric traction motor production at its power train assembly plant here.

DEARBORN, MI—Ford Motor Co. plans to announce big news about its EV strategy on August 11.

BREMEN, Germany—Engineers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials have developed a process for optimizing battery management systems in electric vehicles.

Advances in human-machine collaboration enable manufacturers to address skilled labor shortages.

NEW YORK—According to a recent study by Deloitte, smart factories have enabled manufacturers to achieve a 20 percent increase in employee productivity.