PALMDALE, CA—Assemblers at Northrop Grumman Corp.’s plant here recently started to use an optical projection system to build the center fuselage of the F-35 Lighting II fighter jet. The facility was the recipient of ASSEMBLY’s 2013 Assembly Plant of the Year award.

Instructors at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ World Class Manufacturing Academy (WCMA) have one goal: get every student focused on world class manufacturing, which is Fiat’s version of Toyota’s lean manufacturing production system.

Several years before Clearpath Robotics’ founders were named to Business Insider’s “People to Watch in 2015” list, Matthew Rendall, Ryan Gariepy and Bryan Webb were University of Waterloo mechatronics engineering students.

First-time exhibitors and assembly-guidance products make the second ASSEMBLY Show worth remembering.

Visual work instructions enable operators to be more flexible.