HYDERABAD, India—Panic gripped Hetero Group’s pharmaceutical manufacturing plant here after a leopard was spotted inside the building in the early morning hours of Dec. 18. 

Nearly 3,900 manufacturing professionals saw the latest robots, fastening tools, software and automation at the 10th annual ASSEMBLY Show, which was held Oct. 25-27 at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL.

U.S. manufacturers have faced significant headwinds this year: supply chain problems, a skilled labor shortage, inflation, and the war in Ukraine. And yet despite these issues—or perhaps, because of them—manufacturers continued to invest in people, plants and equipment.

DÜSSELDORF, Germany—Henkel has introduced three new low pressure molding (LPM) materials designed to seal and protect medical devices from moisture, temperature extremes, chemicals, vibration, impact and other environmental concerns.

NORTHBOROUGH, MA—Trelleborg Healthcare & Medical is investing “several million dollars” to expand its assembly plant here.

COOKEVILLE, TN—ATC Automation has delivered a state-of-the-art, modular automated assembly system for a global leader in drug manufacturing and drug delivery medical devices to. The system was designed and built at ATC’s campus in Cookeville, TN, and installed at the customer’s assembly plant on the East Coast.

CLINTON, PA—Haemonetics has begun operations at its new assembly plant here to make medical disposables and consumables.

AUSTIN, TX—Enovis has opened a state-of-the-art assembly plant here. The 40,000-square-foot, ISO 9001-certified center complements Enovis’ existing 75,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Austin.

Rotor blades, guide vanes and other components for jet engines are made from costly materials and machined to precise tolerances. Such components are typically made in batches, due to the time involved in setting up machine centers. The process also requires a fair number of people to tend the machines and assist in changeover.

There’s nothing quite like a multistation automated assembly system. Watching robots, actuators and indexers go about their carefully choreographed routines with little or no human intervention can seem nothing short of miraculous.