Industry Week Plenty of challenges remain on the road to mixing humans and robots on the factory floor. How can you clear some of those hurdles? Robot installations are estimated to increase an average of 12 percent per year from 2015 to 2017. Human-machine collaboration will open up new applications and attract new customers.

October 21, 2015 | 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. The demands of low-cost, mass-produced gearing has fueled the advancement of net shape gears using plastic and powder metal materials. This course provides information on how to approach the design of net shaped gears for low-cost volume production.

Manufacturing.net Boeing already has the Dreamliner. Now it also has the Starliner. The aerospace giant announced the name of its future space fleet Friday. More than 200 people, including Florida Gov. Rick Scott, NASA and Boeing officials, and a bevy of former astronauts, gathered at NASA's Kennedy Space Center to celebrate the grand opening of Boeing's commercial crew and cargo processing facility.

Industry Week Alcoa, a lightweight metals leader, will focus on additive manufacturing – how to improve it and how to move it forward – at its new $60 million center outside Pittsburgh.

Manufacturing Business Technology The Netherlands' 1.2 million daily rail passengers will soon commute entirely via wind power. An agreement signed by rail companies and utilities mandates that wind power generate half of the energy needed to run the country's electric railways beginning this year. By 2018, that threshold will gradually climb to 100 percent.

MIT Technology Review Toyota is investing $50 million with Stanford and MIT for autonomous-vehicle research that it says will focus on things like learning how to drive from humans, how to anticipate what people or other vehicles will do on the road, and how best to interact with people.

Vestas Danish wind energy giant Vestas has announced seven newly awarded wind turbine contracts to provide a total of 332 MW in five different countries.

Industry Week A planned Nevada factory will allow Tesla to churn out the Model 3, which has a price tag half as much as the Model S. Tesla will begin producing the lower-cost Model 3 in two years, founder and CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday.

Canadian Manufacturing Canadian exports climbed 2.3 percent in July, with strong growth in motor vehicles and parts and consumer goods as well as aircraft and transportation equipment leading the way.

Aerospace manufacturing and Design Liechti Engineering AG, a subsidiary of GF Machining Solutions, is celebrating its 150th anniversary this month. Established in 1865 as a farm equipment manufacturer, Liechti Engineering is now a global leader in the production of airfoil machining solutions for the aerospace and power generation industries.

Industry Week Foreign car makers that raced into China to profit from what has become the world’s biggest automobile market by volume have no intention of backing out, despite slowing sales as the Chinese economy shifts down.

Reuters The future of manufacturing in the U.S. will largely be shaped by the strength of the U.S. dollar, energy costs, and the outcome of trade deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But companies face a human challenge too – how to recruit young Americans to replace millions of Baby Boom-generation employees retiring over the next decade.

The Wall Street Journal Read up-to-the-minute news, analysis, interviews, and explanatory journalism on logistics, supply-chain management, e-commerce, and more.

Industry Week Standby Screw produces more than 1,000 different parts and ships out millions of pieces every week. Not every job can be turned over to robots, but some can, and the company is reaping the related benefits without getting rid of workers.

Manufacturing Business Technology It is tough to be in manufacturing today, especially when it comes to gaining a true competitive edge. This is why it is important for manufacturers to increase productivity, control costs, and optimize labor resources and align them to the most important project or goal. Conceptually, all of this sounds good, but, for many manufacturers, the question remains: How?

Boeing Boeing and Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa, one of the largest defense groups in Europe, have signed a broad-based agreement outlining areas where Boeing and PGZ member companies may collaborate in support of the Technical Modernization Plan of the Polish Armed Forces.

Industry Week Automakers posted Tuesday strong U.S. auto sales in August, with sport utility vehicles and pickups continuing to see robust demand amid low gasoline prices and an improving jobs market.

Industry Week As Manufacturing Day nears, the new head of the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership shares her thoughts on delivering value to the smaller manufacturer and being a champion of manufacturing.

Forbes Over the last ten years, supply chain risk management has certainly grown in importance. Research shows that, in 2014, 22 percent of manufacturers surveyed reported they did not worry about supply chain issues; in 2015, only 9 percent reported this.

Manufacturing Business Technology The U.S. trade deficit declined by $3.3 billion in July compared to the previous month, but the year-to-date trade gap remained $10.6 billion above 2014 levels. Experts anticipated that foreign trade would continue to hamper U.S. growth due to weak foreign economies and a comparatively strong dollar, which makes American exports more expensive.