The robotics industry is feeling the impact of a capital equipment slowdown as new orders for North American robotics companies fell 36% in the first quarter of 2001 compared to the same period last year.

Motion Industries Inc. (Washington, D.C.) is a recipient of the General Motors Corp. 2000 Supplier of the Year award for the fifth consecutive year.

Mark Ellis has been hired as regional manager for Virtek Vision's Industrial Imaging Division (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada).

The book, "Lean Manufacturing for the Small Shop," is available from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers.

General Electric Co. became one of industry's most ardent and best-known practitioners of Six Sigma quality methodologies under former Chairman Jack Welch.

Customer service is key when looking to gain and maintain customers. If a company fails to provide the customer service a client feels he or she deserves, the client will seek business elsewhere.

Newport Corp. (Irvine, CA) has announced that it intends to sell the majority of its Industrial Metrology Systems Div. The division will be sold in two transactions to separate buyers.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has released a new version of ISO/TS 16949, a quality management standard aimed at the international automotive sector.

While it is not known exactly how many companies have begun the upgrade to ISO 9001: 2000, ISO Management Systems, a journal published by the International Organization for Standardization, sponsored a special report, "Feedback on ISO 9000: 2000 -- Worldwide Round-Up of Early Market Reactions."

Boeing (Chicago) delivered the wings for the first F-22 production aircraft to Lockheed Martin (Bethesda, MD) ahead of schedule.