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Electric vehicle maker Rivian plans to lay off approximately 4% of its workforce, according to the Wall Street Journal. The report stated that the development would impact over 600 employees. However, the company has not provided further details.The news comes after a WSJ report in September that Rivian would cut about 1.5% of its workforce. A company spokesperson said that the previous layoffs impacted the commercial team as the automaker worked to “improve operational efficiency” for its upcoming R2 model, planned for launch in 2026.

Some marketing efforts are just simple PR stunts, while others are truly revolutionary feats of engineering. But when a gamer and a hip-hop artist take to the skies to play a video game on a giant screen suspended from a helicopter while flying in a different helicopter, why can't both be true?

Even a fairly straightforward pizza delivery still requires at least 30 minutes to bake the pie, throw it in a car and drive it to your door. But Inversion, an aerospace and defense technology company, is raising the stakes by promising to deliver cargo from space to just about anywhere on Earth within one hour.

The goal of Project Artemis has been characterized as a journey to the Moon “for scientific discovery, technology advancement, and to learn how to live and work on another world as we prepare for human missions to Mars.”

Researchers from University College London and Moorfields Eye Hospital recently announced the results of a trial for a new device that helps the blind not just see again, but read again.The Prima device is a novel wireless subretinal photovoltaic implant paired with specialized glasses that project near-infrared light to the implant, which acts like a miniature solar panel. The device is being developed by Science Corporation, which specializes in brain-computer interfaces and neural engineering. So, how does it work? 

The Austin American-Statesman reported that battery manufacturing startup Base Power moved into the newspaper's former downtown Austin building. Founded in 2023, the startup makes residential batteries and plans to use the publication's previous site temporarily.

In the heart of Chillicothe, Ohio, a 175-year-old paper mill, long considered an unofficial symbol of the community, was forced to end production in August. Once a cornerstone of the town of 22,000, demand for the specialty paper it produced steadily declined, leading to its closure. First announced in April, the shutdown affected roughly 750 employees, who were notified months in advance. As Pixelle Specialty Solutions, the plant's owner, prepared to relocate operations, workers were left facing difficult choices about their futures.

An engineering brand synonymous with bots will divest its robotics division.ABB has announced that it is selling this business to SoftBank – a Japanese financial holding company with a heavy emphasis in technology.SoftBank owns significant stakes in major companies like Nvidia and T-Mobile, and recent reports have suggested that the firm is carving out a strategic growth plan specific to AI.And that's likely where ABB comes in.

The Ford F-150 has been a top-selling pickup truck in America for many years running, but a recent disaster at the plant of one of the automaker's key suppliers speaks to the precarious nature of even the most valuable supply chains.On September 16th, a fire took place at the Oswego, New York factory of metal manufacturer Novelis – an event that reportedly leveled the plant's hot mill, which is the facility's primary aluminum sheet production area.

The maker of windows and doors says that its equipment is more than two years overdue.

The owner, identified as Li Xiaoshuang, parked his SU7 outside of a store, and what happened next was captured on a surveillance camera: while Li and another person conducted some business in the store, the blue vehicle began to drive away. Aware within moments, Li rushed outside to chase down the vehicle, which was reportedly stopped before any damage was done to people or surroundings.

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has restarted manufacturing and is working with suppliers to keep them in business as the U.K. automaker works to recover from a cyberattack that crippled production for more than a month.The company announced that its phased manufacturing restart will begin Wednesday, when a pair of plants in the West Midlands — the Electric Propulsion Manufacturing Center, where JLR builds engines, and the Battery Assembly Center — come back online.Employees will also return to work at the company's stamping operations in Castle Bromwich, Halewood and Solihull. The company is also recalling workers to its body shop and paint shop in Solihull, as well as its Logistics Operations Center, which distributes parts to global manufacturing sites.

Another day, another update on fledgling electric carmaker, Faraday Future.Recent reports point to an incident in a satellite building to the company's Los Angeles headquarters, in which a vehicle prototype allegedly caught fire.https://www.ien.com/safety/video/22951814/ev-prototype-explodes-damages-company-hq

A federal grand jury charged two Colorado companies and some of their executives with conspiring to avoid paying tariffs on forklifts imported from China into the U.S. Court documents accused the companies, Octane Forklifts, Inc. and Endless Sales, Inc., which does business as Discount Forklifts, of selling the machines to federal government agencies as “Made in America,” disguising their Chinese origin. Individuals mentioned in the indictment include current executives Brian Firkins and Jeffrey Blasdel, as well as former executive J.R. Antczak. 

A manufacturer of agricultural equipment is citing tariffs in its decisions about its operations in the U.S.But rather than expanding its U.S. production, it will instead shift some work overseas.

A former production operator and production technician filed a lawsuit against electric vehicle battery maker BlueOval SK, a joint venture created by Ford and Korean manufacturer SK On. The lead plaintiffs, Sean O'Brien and Randall Moore, allege that the company violated the Fair Labor Standards Act and Kentucky Wage and Hour Laws, Western Kentucky University Public Radio reported.

Sandro Dias is a 50-year-old Brazilian skateboarding legend; he's a six-time vert world champion. Well, he recently made history once again when he dropped in from the curved facade of a 22-story building in Brazil. Until now, the Centro Administrativo Fernando Ferrari (CAFF) building in Porto Alegre, standing 88.91 meters high, has been a white whale in the skateboarding community, which has dubbed the unique structure the "ultimate skate ramp." — Dias himself says he has dreamed of riding CAFF for some 13 years. 

For this episode, I welcome Marco Ristano, a 28-year-old senior industrial engineering and planning specialist at machinery manufacturer Caracol.Ristano joined Caracol after a contact in the investment sector recommended the company. After nearly four years with the company, his duties include collecting and analyzing data, interaction with a range of teams, troubleshooting analysis and digitalization and management of internal information flows.Ristano hopes to grow into a strategic role where he not only analyzes data and suggests operational improvements, but also contributes to high-level strategic decision-making. 

Last Thursday, a former employee of a multinational DVD and Blu-ray manufacturer and distributor was sentenced to 57 months in prison, nearly five years, for stealing DVDs and Blu-rays of "blockbuster movies" and selling them before their release dates. According to the Justice Department, 38-year-old Steven R. Hale of Memphis, Tennessee, worked for the DVD manufacturer. From February 2021 to March 2022, Hale stole more than 1,000 discs that were being prepped for commercial distribution in the U.S. 

Boeing Defense and the machinists union have reached a tentative deal, ending a five-week-long strike in St. Louis.An official vote on the new five-year contract is scheduled for Friday, September 12.

Neenah Foundry, a maker of manhole covers and other iron castings, announced that it plans to close its plant in Lincoln, Nebraska, by the end of the year. Nebraska Public Media reported that the company intends to reopen the closed manufacturing facility as a distribution center on January 1, 2026. Neenah Foundry notified the state labor department that 103 workers would lose their jobs as a result of the permanent shutdown and noted that the non-union facility would not offer bumping rights. It did not disclose how many people the distribution center will employ.

A fire at a Pennsylvania plant owned by hardwood lumber producer Weaber broke out on the night of September 8, reportedly requiring more than 1 million gallons of water to contain.Fox43 reported that firefighters arrived at the 84-year-old company's headquarters in Lebanon around 9:10 p.m. The station later noted that all first responders had left the scene by 8:45 a.m. the following morning, with the building still under a controlled burn.

Serta Simmons is saying goodnight to a 122,000-square-foot factory in Jamestown, New York – a move the company says will take place in the next few months and impact 84 employees.According to Furniture Today, the plant closure is the second one that's been initiated by Serta Simmons so far this year. The company announced in May that it would shutter a Moreno Valley, California plant that employed 180 workers – a site that was built during an expansion push and has only been operational since 2018.

Last Tuesday, Tyson Foods announced that Brady Stewart, group president of prepared foods, beef and pork and the company's chief supply chain officer, was leaving the food company immediately. Stewart took "certain actions" that violated the company's code of conduct, the company said in a statement, though it didn't provide further details. 

Last month, more than 3,200 union workers at three Boeing plants in the St. Louis area went on strike. The employees, who make U.S. fighter jets and advanced weapons systems, rejected a "landmark" contract. The deal reportedly gave workers a 40% bump over the next four years as well as better medical benefits, pensions, overtime and work-life balance. But the union's members rejected that proposal.Well, it's been a month, and since Boeing's best aren't willing to budge, the company is looking for a Plan B. Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the new plan includes hiring permanent replacement workers.

This week, Ontario premier Doug Ford responded angrily to reports that the spirits company would be closing the Amherstburg Crown Royal bottling plant, killing 180 jobs in the process.Ford recently declared that he had a message “to [the company's] CEO in France: You hurt my people, I'm going to hurt you” adding that Diageo leaders were “dumb as a bag of hammers.”

Jaguar Land Rover announced Tuesday that the company has been targeted by a cyberattack that has "severely disrupted" its production activities. The British carmaker, which officially rebranded as JLR about two years ago, said it "took immediate action to mitigate its impact by proactively shutting down" its systems. The company says it is trying to restart its global applications in a "controlled manner."

John Deere announced its acquisition of autonomous orchard sprayer GUSS Automation. Founded in 2018 and standing for Global Unmanned Spray System, GUSS expects its machines to act as a solution to the agricultural labor shortage. 

According to a search warrant, the employee works at the company's new $30 million corporate office it announced in May 2021. The worker allegedly created and deleted some 115 orders from March 2024 to March 2025. Of those orders, 109 shipments, valued at $1,086,263.85, were delivered.The employee may have flown under the radar for a year, but then he got greedy and sent about 9,000 pounds of tools to his nearby apartment. 

Although FedEx confirmed the layoffs are not related to the company's ‘Network 2.0' plan for streamlining its package network, this is the company's second layoff this year. The state's labor department filed notice that 217 employees were previously laid off in Middle Tennessee in March.

Welcome to another episode of Gen Z in Manufacturing, a podcast that asks young people about their journeys in manufacturing, how they intend to influence the industry and what they are looking for from an employer.For this episode, I welcome Hannah Dannecker, a 26-year-old managing partner at Better Together Group, a collection of companies that focus on supplying support and tools to staffing companies. Additionally, Dannecker serves as a board member for the Women's Trucking Federation of Canada.In this episode, Dannecker discusses:A fact about Gen Z that always surprises older generations (1:07)How to gain young workers' trust (5:18)Helping Gen Z get over imposter syndrome (9:12)The ideal age to begin engaging young talent (15:26)Please make sure to like and share this episode. To view previous episodes, visit manufacturing.net. If you are a member of Gen Z and would like to discuss your experience in the manufacturing industry, please contact Nolan Beilstein at nolan@ien.com.

AirBorn, a designer and manufacturer of interconnect solutions for industrial, defense, aerospace and medical applications, announced plans to close its facility in Taunton, Massachusetts. The company filed its WARN report on August 20, which stated that the closure would affect 86 workers beginning at the end of 2025 and continuing through 2026.

Wistron's project is part of a $500 billion AI manufacturing effort by Nvidia.

This morning, Toto USA opened a $224 million manufacturing facility in Morrow, Georgia, reshoring production of high-end, one-piece toilets from the Toto Group's plants in Asia. Toto USA is the Japanese manufacturer's Americas division based in Morrow, Georgia.The company, one of the largest plumbing manufacturers in the world that does more than $5.34 billion in annual sales, says it made the move to increase U.S. luxury one-piece toilet production capacity by 150% to meet rising demand.

Bioengineers at Harvard have created a soft, wearable robot that looks more like a smart jacket, designed to help stroke patients and individuals with neurodegenerative diseases, such as ALS, regain a bit of normalcy.The team has been working on the technology for years, and the most recent version deploys sensors, balloons, machine learning and a physics-based model to learn each patient's unique movements to help them accomplish daily activities, such as eating, drinking or grooming. The device provides personalized movement assistance—right now, just for the upper body. 

The future of warfare is autonomous. To compete with China, particularly in the Taiwan Straight, the U.S. Department of Defense has been ramping up development of autonomous boats, but, according to an exclusive Reuters report, things could be better. The U.S. Navy recently conducted a test of autonomous drone boats off the California coast—it was meant to promote the Pentagon's prowess.  During the test, one of the vessels stalled. As the team worked to fix a software bug, another vessel T-boned the stalled vehicle. Reuters actually managed to get their hands on footage of the accident. 

On Friday, GM unveiled a pair of futuristic Corvette concepts, the CX and the CX.R Vision Gran Turismo, and they have a canopy that opens like a fighter jet. 

A nearly century-old golf course in western Michigan could be turned into an industrial, commercial and residential complex under a proposal from its potential new owner.Residents living near Riverside Golf Club & Banquet Center in Battle Creek were invited to an informational meeting Wednesday about the project, WWMT-TV reports. Interstate Capital Investments, which has a tentative agreement in place to buy the course after some two years on the market, would dedicate about half of the property for industrial space, with the other half split between residential areas and commercial and office space.

T1 Energy and Corning today announced a new partnership to boost the U.S. solar supply chain. T1 will source hyper-pure polysilicon and solar wafers made by Corning at its plant in Michigan. Starting later next year, Corning wafers will be delivered to T1's G2_Austin solar cell facility, which is currently under development. The cells will then be used to make solar modules at T1's operational G1_Dallas site.T1's G2_Austin 5 GW Solar Cell Facility is an $850 million project. According to the company, the project is enabled by the Trump Administration's tariffs and other policies that support American manufacturing. The facility is expected to begin producing cells by the end of 2026 and create up to 1,800 full-time jobs.

The Trump Administration's moving-target import tariffs have had significant impacts on the U.S. supply chain and manufacturing industry. While the full impact is still unfolding, it's beginning to look like the trade deal tactics could do the unthinkable: raise the price of AriZona Iced Tea.AriZona Iced Tea has been a shining beacon in the cooler sections of gas stations and grocery stores across the country for decades. Since 1997, the company has sold its tallboys for 99 cents, a price point that's so set it's actually printed right on the can. But according to the New York Times, the iconic cost could be in jeopardy.

A “massive and unpredictable” swarm of jellyfish has caused one of the largest nuclear power plants in France to completely shut down.According to the Guardian, the jellyfish swam into water intake systems at the Gravelines facility in Northern France. The resulting clog in the filters caused four of the plant's six pumping stations to cease operation. The other two were already shut down for maintenance, leaving the systems needed to cool the reactors completely offline.

Last August, Sana Biotechnology opened a new 80,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in an old AT&T call center in Bothell, Washington. The Seattle-based startup, which manufactures engineered cells used as medicines for cancer, diabetes, and autoimmune disease patients, had been working on the project for more than a year. The facility was expected to create hundreds of new jobs and bring manufacturing in-house.

Tesla's Cybertruck has sparked some interesting debates around aesthetics and utility versus novelty, but the U.S. military just wants a few of them to blow up.The Air Force Test Center submitted a procurement request for 33 towable target vehicles to be used as targets for live missile fire testing. The request mostly focuses on sedans of various colors, trucks, SUVs and “Bongos,” which appears to be the term they used for a Japanese Kei truck.But the list mentions the Cybertruck specifically, noting that the vehicle could appeal to enemies since they don't seem to take the same amount of damage expected upon major impact.

The NHL's newest team announced a lawsuit against a bag manufacturer over a trademark dispute. The controversy involves the Utah Mammoth hockey team and a hockey equipment bag maker named Mammoth Hockey, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Cosmic Building, a construction technology company, uses AI-driven end-to-end software to run mobile robotic microfactories. At the heart of its newest microfactory in Pacific Palisades are ABB's IRB 6710 robots and RobotStudio digital twin software. Both of which are integrated into Cosmic's Workstation Cell and AI-driven Building Information Model (BIM). #ai   #california  #wildfire  #losangeles  #robot #fire

When it comes to global logistics, it seems no news is good news. If a transoceanic journey of goods goes without a hitch, you never hear about it.But when things go wrong, they can go very wrong – and we've seen that play out in several dramatic fires in the past few years that have resulted in high profile tales of doomed cargo ships.Most recently, an incident involving the cargo carrier Morning Midas led to millions in losses after a fire broke out and the ship sank off the coast of Alaska with more than 3,000 vehicles on board. At issue was concern over the electric and hybrid electric vehicles, and suggestions that the fire broke out on the deck with the EVs.

Tesla's brand loyalty has suffered some notable setbacks.According to an exclusive Reutersreport, Tesla did more repeat business with U.S. autobuyers than any other major car brand. But then, CEO Elon Musk backed Donald Trump's reelection efforts and customer loyalty suffered as a result.S&P Global Mobility reports that Tesla customer loyalty reached an all-time high in June 2024, when 73% of households that already owned a Tesla and were in the market for a new car purchased another Tesla.

The Oregon plant dates back more than 70 years.

In January of 2022, Intel unveiled plans to invest $28 billion in building two new chip factories in Licking County, Ohio, to boost production of its advanced semiconductors to serve both Intel projects and other end customers.A lot has happened since – and for Intel, the past few years have brought sluggish sales, layoffs, and a new CEO.With that, the last several updates on Intel's Ohio project have pretty much centered on the same theme – delays.

About a week ago, a team of engineers and fishing enthusiasts debuted a new product on Kickstarter with modest expectations. It's understandable; a little more than 40% of projects launched on the crowdfunding platform reach their funding goals, and about 15% fail to raise a single dollar. 

For this episode, I welcome Maggie Blaney, a 26-year-old solutions engineer at Epicor.Blaney grew up watching How It's Made and always felt drawn to manufacturing. Despite that early interest, she pursued a communications degree in college and joined Epicor after an alum recommended the company.Blaney began her career with Epicor as a business development representative. After 10 months, she transitioned to an associate solutions engineer role and now works as a solutions engineer, where she walks the shop floor and speaks with prospective clients who are exploring new software solutions.