We—manufacturers, government and the public—have failed dismally to capitalize on the opportunity to revamp supply chains and grow U.S. manufacturing.

Ready or not, those of us in manufacturing are (mostly) all back to work, coronavirus or not. It’s tough to make things via Zoom. While many office workers will be working from home for the foreseeable future, manufacturing personnel are back in the trenches. So, let’s talk about how to ensure that going to work doesn’t turn into a stop on the way to intensive care.

In this insightful RoboBusiness Direct presentation, FedEx’s Aaron Prather will review the continuing opportunities for robotics solutions in the logistics sector. Prather has successfully deployed robotics applications within FedEx, and he has seen other initiatives go off the rail.

Bossa Nova Robotics is one of the leaders in the retail robotics sector, providing large retailers with inventory-scanning robots that move up and down aisles, tracking inventory supply levels via computer vision and artificial intelligence.

In this RoboBusiness Direct session, you will learn about one of the biggest opportunities for providers of robotics technologies—retrofitting manually steered vehicles used in various industries to support autonomous navigation. The session will include data on shipments and revenues, as well as overviews of well-known providers of autonomous navigation systems, including Brain Corp., BlueBotics, Built Robotics and Outrider.

The impact of COVID-19 on this country didn’t need to be this bad. It shouldn’t have been this bad. But this is what happens when a country turns its back on manufacturing. America traded its independence for short-term corporate profits, and recovery is going to take much more than a few trillion dollars in federal emergency loans. A euthanized industrial base can’t magically be brought back to life.

Museum exhibits highlight some of the many products that were once made in Chicago and Milwaukee factories

To draw attention to the breadth and quality of new technologies on display at The ASSEMBLY Show, we’re holding the 2nd annual “Product of the Year” contest at the show, and you—the attendees—will be the judges. We’ve nominated 20 products in five categories that we think are particularly innovative. Among them are four fastening tools.

According to ASSEMBLY magazine’s annual Capital Equipment Spending Survey, half of all U.S. assembly plants will purchase electric or pneumatic fastening tools in 2020.