Manufacturing Day fell on Oct. 2 this year. Manufacturers opened their doors and showed the public what modern manufacturing looks like, and, hopefully, built some interest in manufacturing careers.

Adding a control element to any system may seem like an easy path, even a necessary one. Redundancy reassures the stakeholders and the auditors, and it might become a sales pitch for the customers.

Most shops accept a gauge the same way. They run a gauge repeatability and reproducibility (gauge R&R) study with 10 parts, three appraisers, and three trials. Get a %GRR under 30. File the report and move on.

It’s one of the most dangerous sentences you can hear on a factory floor: “The drawing is updated, and we’re good to go.”

It sounds like the finish line. We fixed it! Nothing else to do here.

Highly reflective metallic surfaces are among the most challenging inspection targets in machine vision.

Manufacturing in the U.S.

At first glance, the next version of RC14001, the management standard for the chemical industry, looks like a simplification. In practice, it gives organizations more flexibility but also more responsibility.

They may seem simple, but standard operating procedures (SOPs) are surprisingly tricky. On the surface, they describe how a specific process is carried out at your organization. Pretty straightforward, right?

For decades, reverse engineering was a tool reserved for large manufacturers.

Extreme heat, drought, wildfires, floods, record-low rivers, and rising energy demand have defined much of the summer of 2026. But for businesses, the important story isn’t simply that weather records are being broken.