IEN Radio

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.

Hertha Metals, a clean steel production startup, says it has successfully demonstrated its single-step process for turning low-grade iron ore into molten steel or high-purity iron. The company built a pilot plant in Texas and it's been churning out one ton of steel per day for months now. Next year, the company plans to build a new facility capable of 9,000 tons per year and soon after, it anticipates scaling to 500,000 tons per year, on par with what commercial U.S. steelmaking micro mills are producing today.

According to Reuters, toy makers are looking for ways to further cut costs to cushion the blow from a 30% blanket tariff on Chinese goods, and it has translated to product and packaging redesigns.The first to go, which may rile the "back in my day" members of the crowd, are batteries.

In 2024, IBM identified the manufacturing sector as the industry most attacked by cyber criminals for the third straight year – which is why we see even the biggest brands being impacted by the work of hackers.Bleach maker Clorox is coming clean about the details surrounding a recent ransomware attack but the fingerpointing extends past the gang of perpetrators and all the way to the company's IT provider.And Clorox believes that the IT firm's faults in this situation were so egregious that it has filed a lawsuit.

Big 3 pillar Stellantis issued a rather shocking warning this week when it reported preliminary financial figures that estimate a $2.7 billion first half loss.And as the auto company gets focused on the poor financials – impacted largely by tariff costs and related production losses – it's also unveiled some strategic changes relating to R&D.Stellantis said it will suspend its   development program and - with it - will discontinue the hydrogen powered commercial vans that it had previously planned to begin making this year.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and multiple vendors announced a recall of nearly 5 million swimming pools that the agency believes are linked to nine child drownings. According to the CPSC, the 48-inch and taller above-ground pools were manufactured in China and have been sold by Bestway, Intex and Polygroup since 2002. Retail locations that sold the recalled pools include Walmart, Target, Lowe's, Home Depot and Costco, as well as online at Amazon.

In celebration of Disneyland Resort's 70th anniversary, the ‘Happiest Place on Earth' has unveiled a new attraction; “Walt Disney - A Magical Life.” Debuting at the Main Street Opera House, a cinematic presentation takes you through Walt Disney's journey, featuring a pre-show tribute video, as well as a visit to a rendition of his office.

The family of a man who died in a crash involving a Tesla Cybertruck filed a lawsuit against the automaker, alleging a defective design and other claims. The lawsuit, filed in Harris County district court in Texas, stated that in August 2024, 47-year-old Michael Sheehan's Cybertruck veered off the road, hit a culvert and caught fire, trapping Sheehan inside a blaze that allegedly reached 5,000 degrees Fahrenhei

Italian Designer Andrea Marazzi recently chopped up a 1993 Fiat Panda to create the world's narrowest EV, a historic feat that yielded a fully-drivable car that's only 50 cm (less than 20 inches) wide. Marazzi started with the chassis of an old Fiat Panda, cutting it vertically, and sandwiching the parts together to make a single seat EV from recycled components. Marazzi used his family's auto recycling business and workshop to make about 99 percent of the car from original parts. 

Reports from Forbes and Bloomberg suggest that one of Tesla's executive officers has left the company. Forbes reported Thursday morning that CEO Elon Musk fired Omead Afshar, the head of operations in Europe and North America. Bloomberg rep orted later that day that Afshar “left the company.”

Factory tours commonly come to mind for tourists looking to experience local landmarks. Boeing, Jelly Belly and Louisville Slugger all offer popular behind-the-scenes outings. But it's doubtful any of those are as popular as what Xiaomi is offering in China.The consumer electronics giant has recently broken into the automotive space. It currently offers the SU7 full-size sedan and it's working on the YU7 mid-size. It sold just 135,000 vehicles in 2024, though it expects to more than double that this year. But its factory tours have already become so popular that Xiaomi had to introduce a lottery.

Blue Diamond has announced plans to wind down operations at its plant in Sacramento, California, cutting some 600 jobs in the process. The company says it was founded in 1910 to "ensure the long-term success of small, multigenerational almond farmers and their families in California."To keep that mission on track, the company must shutter its plant in midtown Sacramento, transferring most manufacturing operations from its 53-acre-site to facilities in Turlock and Salida, California. 

The company says a former employee took proprietary recipes and other information to his new job.

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 Thomas Lesueur, a 26-year-old student pursuing a Ph.D. in microelectronics at the University of Sherbrooke in Canada, in partnership with IBM. Lesueur said he first became interested in manufacturing during a one-week internship with a company that specialized in composite materials, where his father worked as an R&D director. His education includes a bachelor's degree in physics and chemistry and a master's in nanophysics and microelectronics.His current research involves self-alignment of silicon bridges for high-performance electronics and focuses on leveraging the capillary forces of solder paste to achieve precise alignment of the bridges during the reflow process. Lesueur presented some of the work at this year's Electronic Components and Technology Conference.In this episode, Lesueur discusses:How students pursue education and employment in France versus the U.S (1:13)The best advice a manufacturing mentor can give (8:01)The work-life balance Gen Z searches for (10:06)How to find a generational middle ground regarding dependence on technology (13:31)Top ways to pique Gen Z interest (17:36)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.

GM didn't fare much better.

British rock band Coldplay plans to re-release its albums on 140-gram EcoRecords made from recycled plastic bottles and produced through injection molding technology. According to Warner Music Group, manufacturers make each EcoRecord from 100% recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a type of plastic engineered for circular reuse and used by U.S. beverage companies to make bottles. Warner Music Group expects the EcoRecord manufacturing process to cut carbon emissions by 85% compared to conventional vinyl production.

A critical safety flaw could lock you in the car.

The Oregonian reported that chipmaker Intel plans to lay off up to 20% of its factory workforce, citing an internal email the publication says was verified by four employees. According to the report, Intel informed its employees that the cuts would begin taking effect in July and would impact factories worldwide.Intel reportedly employed about 109,000 workers at the end of 2024, but it remains unclear how many work in Intel Foundry, the company's factory division. The unit's roles range from factory floor technicians to specialized researchers. Intel eliminated approximately 15,000 jobs last year through attrition, buyouts, early retirement offers and layoffs. However, according to The Oregonian, Chief Technology and Operations Officer Naga Chandrasekaran stated in the email that this round of job cuts will involve eliminating specific roles and levels, assessing skills for remaining positions and “some hard decisions around our project investments.”