Industrial Manufacturing

Towson – September 22, 2026 -- A DEWALT survey of 534 WorldSkills competitors across more than 60 countries found that 76% believe technical and vocational skills are increasingly critical to the global economy, yet 51% say too few young people are entering the trades.

Survey exposes gap between perception and enrollment pathways

While 71% of respondents said the public image of skilled trades has improved, 52% reported being steered toward traditional academic paths versus just 14% encouraged into vocational careers. The disconnect starts early: 45% said young people are not exposed to skilled career opportunities soon enough, and 53% felt direct pressure to pursue university over trade training.

Milan – September 22, 2026 -- Pirelli's Board of Directors has majority approved a roughly €1 billion ($1.2 billion) multi-year investment to expand its Rome, Georgia plant, with three board members -- Zhang Haitao, Xi Xiaohong and Wang Kun -- voting against the plan.

Rome, Georgia capacity to double to 6 million tyres by 2033

The expansion will lift annual production capacity at the Rome facility to approximately 6 million car tyres by 2033, including CyberTM Tyre technology, and is expected to create around 1,000 new jobs. The buildout begins in 2027 in two phases: a robotized production line using Pirelli's proprietary MIRS (Modular Integrated Robotized System) technology will scale from 2028 to 3 million tyres annually, while a separate fully automated conventional facility dedicated to premium products will add another 3 million tyres of capacity at full operation.

Pittsburgh – September 22, 2026 -- Viam will debut BoxBot, a robot arm that opens taped cardboard boxes, at IROS 2026 in Pittsburgh, running September 27 through October 3. The system was trained on just 125 teleoperated demonstrations collected in roughly five hours over four days, using a fine-tuned open-source vision-language-action model with no custom architecture required.

BoxBot combines visual servoing with a fine-tuned SmolVLA model on one data path

The robot uses image-based visual servoing to guide a cutting tip along tape seams typically 1 to 2mm wide, since no two sealed boxes present identical geometry. A fine-tuned SmolVLA model then handles the contact-rich task of peeling open and adjusting four box flaps. Both systems run as native services on the same machine, with the VLA policy inferring locally on an NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano through Viam's ML model service.

Austin, Texas – September 22, 2026 -- Sparx Engineering has opened its third Texas office, a 3,117-square-foot location at 1023 Springdale, Bldg 12B, in the Springdale General community in East Austin.

Sparx expands its Texas footprint with new East Austin lease

The Greater Houston-based engineering consultancy secured the space with representation from Aquila Commercial's Noah Yetley. The new office follows Sparx's first satellite branch, opened in Dallas in 2023, giving the firm operations in Houston, Dallas, and now Austin.

Initial team to grow to 10 staff by next year

An initial team led by Steven Block, P.E., and Tyler Chaney, P.E., will anchor the Austin operation, which is expected to reach a staff of 10 within a year. The office will support Sparx's four core service lines: electrical, mechanical, software and chemical engineering.

Redwood City, Calif. – September 22, 2026 -- Ivalua has been named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide AI-Enabled Direct Spend 2026 Vendor Assessment (#US54900426, September 2026), based on evaluations of its capabilities, strategy, market presence, and core architecture.

Unified data model spans sourcing, BOM, contracts and quality

IDC MarketScape identified Ivalua's single data model, which natively links sourcing, bill of materials, contract, quality, and supply chain collaboration objects, as its most substantive differentiator. The architecture enables full traceability from item to BOM to award to contract to invoice, reducing fragmentation that competitor suites reportedly struggle with.

Chicago – September 22, 2026 -- Charter Next Generation (CNG), a North American material science solutions provider, has named Todd Herndon as Chief Financial Officer, bringing more than 35 years of financial, commercial, and operational leadership experience to the role.

Herndon joins from Consilio, a global legal technology and enterprise legal services firm, where he served as CFO

His prior leadership roles include positions at Diversey, now part of Solenis; Gardner Denver, now part of Ingersoll Rand; and Capital Safety. Herndon began his career at S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc. and has worked extensively with private equity firms including KKR, Bain Capital, CD&R, and Stone Point Capital.

Debrecen -- CATL began trial production on September 22, 2026 at its newly built battery cell factory in Debrecen, Hungary, after clearing all preconditions tied to its IPPC environmental permit.

Trial run targets first two production lines at Debrecen facility

The trial phase covers the first two production lines of the cell manufacturing plant, following the occupancy permit obtained in August 2026. CATL will use the period to set up, optimize and validate production equipment and manufacturing processes ahead of full series production.

County government confirms earlier compliance deficiencies resolved

The Hajdú-Bihar County Government Office conducted repeated on-site inspections before issuing the occupancy permit, responding to concerns previously raised by local residents. Authority representatives confirmed that CATL had resolved all deficiencies identified earlier in the permitting process.

Natick, Mass. – September 22, 2026 -- Cognex Corporation (NASDAQ: CGNX) has agreed to acquire RealSense, the market leader in depth-sensing cameras for robotic perception and Physical AI, for approximately $500 million in cash, the company announced. The deal, financed entirely from Cognex's existing cash and investments, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026 subject to customary conditions.

RealSense revenue is set to grow more than 50% to $80-90 million in 2026

RealSense, originally founded by Intel in 2014 and spun out as an independent company in 2025, is projected to generate $80 million to $90 million in revenue this year, representing growth of more than 50% over the prior year. The company's 3D perception technology serves fixed-arm robotics, autonomous mobile robots, quadrupeds and humanoids.

Delray Beach – September 22, 2026 -- The global heat transfer fluids market is projected to expand from $5.33 billion in 2026 to $6.60 billion by 2031, a 4.4% compound annual growth rate, according to a new report from MarketsandMarkets.

Asia Pacific leads growth as chemical and electronics output expands

Asia Pacific is both the largest and fastest-growing regional market, expanding at a 5.1% CAGR through 2031. China, India, Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asian manufacturing hubs are driving demand for process heating and temperature-control solutions across chemicals, automotive, electronics and pharmaceutical production, alongside rising investment in data centers and HVAC infrastructure.

Drayton Valley – September 21, 2026 -- Weyerhaeuser Company (NYSE: WY) has committed $1 million in multi-year investment to Drayton Valley, Alberta, marking the first Canadian community selected for its Thrive rural-development program.

Weyerhaeuser designates Drayton Valley as first Canadian Thrive community

The investment will be deployed over several years with input from local officials, business leaders, nonprofits and employees. Weyerhaeuser has operated a sawmill in the town of roughly 8,000 people, located 90 minutes southwest of Edmonton, for nearly 40 years, following a $23 million production-upgrade investment announced in 2013.