Reporting

Data center construction boom driving historic manufacturing opportunities

By Shefali Kapadia If someone told Trey Travis five years ago he’d be walking the floor of a supercomputing show, he wouldn’t have believed them. Georgia-based Southeastern Hose, where Travis is VP of operations, manufactures corrugated metal hoses and traditionally serves customers in industries such as steel and petrochemicals. But the hoses have another purpose:… Read more
Facebook fraud becomes lightning rod

By Shefali Kapadia Social media platforms, especially Facebook, have become a hotbed for payment scams, putting financial institutions in a position of playing the last line of defense to stop money transfers from a victim to a criminal. The Federal Trade Commission tallied the toll on consumers last month in a new report: $2.1 billion in… Read more
How NASA is using AI and digital twins to replicate outer space on Earth

By Shefali Kapadia When NASA’s Mars rover, Perseverance, needs to move from point A to point B, it’s not as simple as plugging in GPS directions. The rover has to avoid boulder fields, sand dunes, and steep slopes on a foreign planet. To help chart a course for Perseverance, NASA has enlisted the help of… Read more
Inside CPG’s AI advertising boom, from Super Bowl spots to synthetic focus groups

By Shefali Kapadia Coca-Cola’s holiday ad and Svedka’s Super Bowl commercial share more in common than promoting a beverage — both were generated with the help of AI. The technology is catching on at consumer goods companies, with marketing leaders adding AI to their processes on both the creative and strategic sides. As a result, assets and… Read more
Second-chance hiring continues to gain traction among major manufacturers

By Shefali Kapadia Drew Crowe had been incarcerated multiple times and was stuck in a vicious cycle, as he described it: getting “locked up,” lacking skills and having no idea how to craft a resume or secure a job. Crowe found a turning point when a manufacturing employer hired him to work as a third-shift… Read more
How Chicago’s outskirts rose to national intermodal dominance

By Shefali Kapadia A truck drives out of an Amazon fulfillment center in Joliet, Illinois. Another hauls an intermodal container into a nearby BNSF’s Logistics Park. And another pulls into a Lineage warehouse to pick up a refrigerated load. It wasn’t always like this in Joliet, located in Will County to the southwest of Chicago.… Read more