AGMA’s Board of Directors adopted the new vision, "AGMA and its members drive power transmission innovation," at its recent meeting in Rochester, N.Y. The Board is also supporting four strategic objectives: Industry Voice, Emerging Technologies, Education and Global. 

Between an unhappy electorate, indecisiveness from the Federal Reserve over interest rates and anemic economic growth, automotive analysts are stretching to remain positive as uncertainty grows over whether car sales have peaked.

General Motors Co. said Wednesday that it will cut more than 2,000 factory jobs — including more than 800 in Lansing — because of slowing demand for cars, but plans to invest $900 million to prepare for new products at three plants. GM said it is eliminating the third shift at a Lansing plant that makes the Chevrolet Camaro, Cadillac ATS and Cadillac CTS. The move affects 810 hourly jobs and 29 salaried positions, effective Jan. 16.

Manufacturing continues to be one of the most important bellwethers regarding the health of the U.S. economy. The broader U.S. economy will not be able to grow robustly without a rebound in manufacturing. Faster real GDP growth is possible, but not until we get manufacturing humming along strongly once again.

Gain a better understanding of various types of gears and bearings. Learn about the limitation and capabilities of rolling element bearings and the gears that they support.  Grasp and understanding of how to properly apply the best gear-bearing combination to any gearbox from simple to complex.

A local program to help manufacturers solve business problems will get nearly $1 million. The program, called "Fastlane," will benefit from a five-year Ohio Development Services Agency award, an announcement said. Fastlane will receive $1.4 million, its office said. It also expects to receive an additional $500,000 to support new technologies and supply chains for aerospace materials and manufacturing in Ohio.

Wolf Robotics, a Lincoln Electric Company, is paving the road for advancements in Robotic Big Area Additive Manufacturing (R-BAAM). This effort will help move metal additive manufacturing out of the traditional, small-area, bed-built processes and dramatically expand build envelopes for robotically printing metal parts.

A study emanating from the UK’s prestigious Oxford University indicates that automation may actually be a very good thing, in that it will not only bring factories back home, but it will stimulate the economy, creating more jobs in the process. 

General Motors is investing $55 million in a new operation that will employ about 500 workers at a building near its Fairfax assembly plant in Kansas City, Kan. The automaker will lease and occupy the 830,000-square-foot industrial building under construction by NorthPoint Development in the Fairfax Industrial District. NorthPoint is about two-thirds of the way finished with the project.

Fergus Falls-based Otter Tail Power will more than double its wind energy generation with a new wind farm in southeastern North Dakota. Otter Tail, Minnesota's third largest investor-owned utility, this week unveiled plans for a $250 million wind farm near Merricourt, N.D., which would provide electricity for more than 65,000 homes.

AGMA is now accepting submissions for the 2017 Fall Technical Meeting. This event will be held October 22-24, 2017 in conjunction with Gear Expo 2017 in Columbus, Ohio.

Output at U.S. manufacturers rose for a second month in October, a sign the industry is gradually recovering from a prolonged period of weakness. Production at factories, which make up 75 percent of all output, climbed 0.2 percent for a second month, a Federal Reserve report showed Wednesday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey called for a 0.3 percent gain. Warmer temperatures led to a drop in utility use, resulting in little change to total industrial production, which also includes mining.

SFMade is leading an  initiative, which came together after the organization compiled a report based on research and surveys on manufacturers. The report found that together these four cities have more than 3,200 manufacturing companies that create over 108,500 jobs and account for over 20 percent of California's manufacturing sector, which is the largest in the nation. The region also contributes over $55 billion to the California economy each year.

Health and safety code compliance, inventory management, accurate forecasting, meeting delivery schedules, keeping an eye on overhead, and yes, making a profit. All of these would be just a few of the concerns of a production manager. And as if this weren’t enough, what is already a complicated job is being made even more difficult due to the uncertainty surrounding the recent Brexit vote as well as continued economic weakness in Europe as a whole.

U.S. oil companies added 19 drilling rigs this week, the biggest hike since July 2015, as shale producers cautiously redeployed cash amid OPEC’s plans to curb production and after Donald Trump’s presidential election victory.

Rhode Island is getting $6 million in federal funding to help train people to work in advanced manufacturing and defense jobs.

The state's congressional delegation and governor have announced that the governor's workforce board will receive the federal funding through the America's Promise Job Driven Grant Program to train as many as 1,000 residents during the next four years.

Realizing that women are an untapped labor pool for manufacturers, several companies are undertaking initiatives to recruit and develop the best female talent.

The California High Speed Rail Authority has reversed its plans to buy foreign parts for its trains, saying a letter to federal regulators that it was withdrawing a request for a waiver from the Buy American Act.

Two groups of scientists working at MIT and ETH Zurich have created a strange hybrid matter once thought impossible. Called supersolid, it has a crystalline structure like that in a piece of iron, but flows like a liquid at the same time.