Derrick Gaddis knew his equipment was nearing the end of its useful life. Two of his logging skidders — the heavy-duty machines that haul cut timber — needed to be replaced. But most manufacturers at the time had shifted gears to bigger and heavier models, he said, and no longer made the size of skidders required for what is known as selective...

B iopharmaceutical manufacturing uses living cells to produce therapies that treat diseases like cancer, diabetes, and autoimmune disorders. Manufacturing medicine using biology presents different challenges from the traditional chemical manufacturing processes that stamp out identical pressed pills.

Biomanufacturing processes are hard to control...

American factories are about twice as efficient today as they were three decades ago. Cutting-edge “Industry 4.0 technologies” such as artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, data analytics, and the Internet of Things have bolstered productivity. They’ve also automated many low-skill factory jobs and created new, high-skill jobs requiring...

Looking through the glass wall into the 22,000 square foot manufacturing floor at MxD in Chicago, one of 14 federal manufacturing research and development institutes in the United States, the uninitiated may be mystified by the gleaming space with testing stations of machines old and new, digital screens, and other equipment with functions and...

HHS launched on Monday the nation’s first Foundry for American Biotechnology for producing technological solutions that help protect against and respond to health security threats, as well as improve daily medical care and bolster the bioeconomy.

The HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response is working in conjunction with...

Inside one of the new labs at the University of New Hampshire’s Manchester campus on a recent afternoon, assistant professor of biotechnology Kristen Johnson and two students evaluated genes as part of pancreatic cancer research.

The process is known as quantitative polymerase chain reaction, or qPCR.

“We are looking at various aspects of...

Anxious Astronaut has suffered an anxiety attack in space. It could be debilitating, they’re not sure. And unlike, say, a broken arm, it is not immediately visible to Anxious’ co-workers. Anxious Astronaut is good at hiding their problem, which is how they got through the screening process on Earth. But Anxious Astronaut needs to be operating at...

In my capacity as the Chair of the Council of the Manufacturing USA institute directors, I often get asked about trends in U.S. advanced manufacturing. When I receive a question like this, I try to think about advanced manufacturing as broadly as possible — and consider technologies that could stand to benefit most manufacturers, as well as the U.S...

Manufacturing is key to securing America’s future, and with Industry 4.0 in full swing, US companies need to act quickly adopt automation and robotics to remain competitive. Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) seeks to ease this burden by identifying the most critical technology and workforce problems and issuing project calls to its base of...

Anyone looking for the future of manufacturing might want to look in Austin.

The city is home to AT&T and Samsung's 5G Innovation Zone, a new research facility where the two telecom giants are demonstrating how the fifth-generation wireless network will change manufacturing and create smart factories that use digitized, connected machines...

Although it may not be obvious, there’s a close link between manufacturing technology and innovation. Elon Musk often talks of the “machines that build the machines” as being the real enabler in both his space and automotive businesses.

Using less-expensive, more scalable processes allows Space X to launch missions on budgets and with speed that...

For the past few decades, agility in the technology sector has largely meant moving faster and faster down a predetermined path; innovation has largely been driven by our ability to cram more transistors onto a silicon wafer. With every new generation of chips came new possibilities and new applications. The firms that developed those applications...