Hasske und Meermann Antriebstechnik GmbH (HuM) has taken over distribution of Bansbach easylift products in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

Société électromécanique diversifiée (SED) will construct a 2,000 sqm building at its La Flèche site for storage, with delivery expected by end of first half 2020. The company also invests €800,000 per year in robots.

Norwegian compressor supplier TMC Compressors of the Seas won a contract to supply complete marine compressed air systems and compressors for four TMS Cardiff Gas LNG carriers being built at Hyundai Heavy Industries and Samsung Heavy Industries in South Korea, with undisclosed value.

Fermat Machine Tool opened a new production plant for CNC grinding machines in Radejovice, Czech Republic, on October 24, 2019. The facility is the first built and owned by the company.

Chiron opened the Chiron Precision Factory in Neuhausen ob Eck, Germany, after 15 months of construction. The factory has a capacity of up to 400 machines per year and is described as the most modern machine tool factory in Europe.

Siemens announced plans to acquire Edge technology from US company Pixeom to strengthen its Industrial Edge portfolio with software components for Edge runtime and device management.

Shareholders of C&J Energy Services and Keane Group approved an all-stock merger of equals to create NexTier Oilfield Solutions Inc., a well completion and production services company. The merger is expected to close on October 31, 2019.

Kazakhstan opened a new Kirovets tractor factory at the Kostanay Tractor Plant, with a design capacity of 700 tractors per year. Total investment is 7.3 billion tenge, creating about 500 jobs in production and 700 in related industries.

Nidec's subsidiary Motores de Reynosa Nidec broke ground on a second plant in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, to manufacture motors for the robotics industry. The $25 million facility will span over 150,000 square meters and create about 400 direct jobs.

Rubix UK completed the acquisition of Peter Campbell Sales Ltd, a specialist supplier of metalcutting tools with sales of £8 million, operating from two sites in Scotland and North East England.

Rio Tinto awarded a contract to Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group (XCMG) to supply auxiliary heavy mining equipment for its iron ore operations in the Pilbara region of Australia. XCMG will deliver 5 graders and 2 wheel loaders early next year to support Rio Tinto's rail maintenance fleet upgrade.

ANDRITZ received an order from North Star BlueScope Steel to supply a tunnel furnace and two shuttle furnaces for the Delta, Ohio plant. The shuttle furnaces will be installed in Q4 2020 and the tunnel furnace is scheduled to start production by end of 2021. The expansion will increase annual capacity by 800,000 to 900,000 metric tons.

Hefei Risever Machinery held a grand opening for its new $20 million manufacturing plant in Jonesboro, Arkansas, on October 23, 2019. The plant will produce steel machine parts for heavy construction equipment and is expected to be fully operational by January 2020.

RegO, a maker of valves and controls for propane and LNG, is expanding its Whitsett, North Carolina manufacturing facility with new automated machining stations, adding about 50 jobs. The machines will be installed over eight months and roughly double plant capacity.

ATS subsidiary Comecer S.p.A. received a CAD 32 million order booking from a leading global pharmaceutical company for a turnkey automated pharmaceutical assembly and filling line, to be delivered over two years.

Linde agreed to form a joint venture with ITM Power to implement large-scale hydrogen electrolysis projects, targeting metals, glass, electronics, refinery, chemical and steel industries. The announcement was made on October 23, 2019.

Linde acquired a minority stake in ITM Power plc, a British maker of PEM electrolyzers for hydrogen production, completed on October 22, 2019. The stake was announced on October 23, 2019.

Yamazaki Mazak has made multimillion-pound investments at its European manufacturing plant in Worcester, including new manufacturing cells, a factory extension, and plans to upgrade the facility to iSMART Factory status.

International Tractors Ltd. entered a joint venture with Shandong Luyu Heavy Industry to set up a tractor and engine assembly plant in China. The JV, named Luyulika (Laizhou) Agri Machinery Co. Ltd., will invest $10 million in phase 1 and have a capacity of 50,000 units.

Atlas Copco Compressors LLC acquired the assets of California distributors Accurate Air Engineering and Compressed Air of California, which will become factory direct branches across five locations from San Diego to Sacramento. More than 50 staff join Atlas Copco.

The Marchesini Group invested €7 million to double the size of CORIMA's aseptic packaging machinery plant in Pianoro, Italy, adding 6,000 square meters. The 30 new technician and engineer jobs were announced with the factory's official opening.

Inner Mongolia First Machinery Group and XCMG signed a joint venture agreement on October 21, 2019, to form a company based on Inner Mongolia First Machinery Group's subsidiary to develop, manufacture and sell bulldozers and other military-civilian engineering machinery products.

Avon Machining, a portfolio company of Speyside Equity, acquired Plasma-Tec on October 21, 2019, to enhance capabilities and expand into new industries.

International Tractors (ITL), part of Sonalika Group, announced a joint venture with Shandong Luyu Heavy Industry Co. to produce tractors and engines in China, with a $10 million investment for a 50,000-unit capacity facility in phase 1.

Bobcat Company announced a $17 million investment at its Gwinner, North Dakota, facility to install a new powder-coat paint line and add 30,000 square feet of manufacturing space, with completion expected in July 2020.

Bobcat Company announced a $17 million investment in its Gwinner, North Dakota, facility to install a new powder-coat paint line and add 30,000 square feet of manufacturing space. Construction begins immediately, with full completion expected in July 2020.

Hydroline expanded its Vuorela factory by 2000 m², with 1000 m² reserved for a new automated production line for hydraulic cylinder tubes and rods. The project started in 2017 with funding for growth and capacity increase.

Giffin, a paint shop supplier, has won contracts with FCA to supply conveyors, booths, ovens and other components for painting vehicles.

Morris Property will build a 60,000 sq ft manufacturing and office plant for sister company Morris Site Machinery at the i54 South Staffordshire business park. Construction starts November 2019 and is expected to take 12 months.

Marchesini Group officially opened the new Siena factory of its CORIMA division, which makes machines for sterile drug packaging, in Monteriggioni, Tuscany, on October 19, 2019.

Loadpoint Bearings, a UK manufacturer of air bearing spindles, acquired a new factory three times larger than its existing building to serve as its new UK headquarters, supporting growth plans.

PMT Boluosipan (Beijing Boluosipan Precision Machine Tool Co., Ltd.) held a groundbreaking ceremony for a new high-end machine tool production base in Zhuzhou High-tech Zone, Xinma Industrial Park. The project has a total investment of CNY 500 million (approx. USD 70 million) and covers 100 mu (approx. 6.67 hectares).

CBS Packaging installed a new 2.5m BHS corrugator at its Birmingham plant as part of its continuing investment programme, reported October 18, 2019.

XCMG and Cummins signed a strategic partnership agreement on October 17, 2019, in Xuzhou, pledging to deepen global cooperation across the complete product lineup and whole value chain.

ABB supplied and installed a Compact HMI SCADA system for British Cables Company in Manchester, replacing controls on two cable-making lines, increasing production by 29% and reducing energy costs by £16,000 per year.

Deere & Company announced it will acquire Unimil, a Brazilian aftermarket service parts business for sugarcane harvesters, located in Piracicaba, Sao Paulo. Unimil has about 430 employees.

Tadano Ltd. completed the acquisition of the Demag Mobile Cranes business from Terex for US$215 million ($319 million). The deal adds lattice boom crawler cranes and expands Tadano's all-terrain crane range, creating a combined product line of over 80 models.

Gardner Denver is investing over £7 million in a new centre of excellence at its Simmern production site in Germany, adding machinery and continuous-flow production for CompAir compressors. The article states completion was due at the end of 2016, so the date may be older than the publication date.

Atlas Copco Compressors completed delivery of four containerised instrument and process air compressor modules, worth over £6 million, to Kazakhstan for an oil and gas industry project. The modules were flown in by Antonov 124 aircraft.

Atlas Copco launched its new GV oil-sealed rotary screw vacuum pump system for rough vacuum between 0.5 and 500 mbar, with capacities of 20 to 5,000 m3/h. The launch was reported on 17 October 2019.

Chenggong Heavy Industry Machinery Co., Ltd. signed an agreement to build a wheeled construction machinery project in Suining, Sichuan, with a total investment of about CNY 5 billion, producing loaders, excavators and other construction machinery.

Swire Universal Machinery (Qingdao) Co., Ltd. won the bid for the 'Digital workshop integration - Textile' project from China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology as part of the 2019 Intelligent Manufacturing System Solutions Provider program.

Chenggong Heavy Industry signed a contract to relocate its entire operations to Suining, Sichuan, China, investing 5 billion yuan to build a new engineering machinery R&D and manufacturing base. The new base will have an annual production capacity of 20,000 units, create over 3,000 jobs, and is expected to be completed by September 2020 with initial production by end of 2020.

XCMG opened its first spare parts center in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, in partnership with local dealer AODE. The center will connect with Xuzhou Headquarters and other distribution centers to support mining customers in the region.

Sunpower Group secured manufacturing and services contracts worth RMB 71.7 million from Wanhua Chemical Group to supply energy-saving piping products including insulating pipe supports, low-friction pipe supports and cryogenic pipe supports. Delivery is expected to be completed in 2019.

The Friedhelm Loh Group acquired startup Iotos, which provides industrial IoT applications for smart factories. The purchase price was not disclosed.

The first line of Reifenhäuser Reicofil's new RF5 generation for spunbond, meltblown, and composite nonwovens successfully extruded first filaments at PFNonwovens in Znojmo, Czech Republic.

Austrian screw manufacturer 3S has added 1,600 m² of production space with modern machinery at its headquarters in Roitham to meet rising demand for extruder screws and core parts. The company employs 100 people across Roitham and Wartberg.

Liberta Partners, through its Liberta Partners Fund II, has taken over the majority of FMA Mechatronic Solutions AG, a mechatronic contract manufacturer based in Schaan, Liechtenstein. The founder Stefan Dürr remains as managing shareholder; the purchase price was not disclosed.

SAMSON AG and InfraServ Wiesbaden announced a strategic cooperation on October 14, 2019, to develop digital IIoT solutions for medium-sized industrial companies, including a pilot project for optimized control of a biological water treatment plant.