As manufacturers strive to optimize and improve profitability, they often use various business strategies to stay competitive. These actions include mergers, acquisitions, promotions, layoffs, funding, and much more. Below are just a few of the companies that are making moves and making headlines in the industrial sector.
Acquisition: Formlabs has announced plans to acquire Micronics, which is well known for its Kickstarter desktop SLS printer, the Micron. Henry Chan and Luke Boppart, the founders of Micronics, will be staying on to help the Formlabs team engineer the next generation of SLS 3D printers. In a recent press release, Formlabs said, “We can’t wait to build amazing products with our new team members, and we can’t wait to see what ideas you bring to life with them.”
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Capital: SirenOpt has raised $6.6 million in its seed round of funding. The company, which specializes in advanced manufacturing intelligence, received funding from Voyager Ventures and TOMORROW, with additional investments coming from Union Labs, Berkeley Skydeck Fund, Wireframe Ventures, Access Industries, Climate Club, and Climate Capital. In a recent quote, Jared O’Leary, Co-Founder and CEO of SirenOpt, said, “Our platform creates a uniquely distinctive, multifaceted material fingerprint in real-time. This enables AI-based decision-making and multi-dimensional quality control to maximize manufacturing performance and yield. Empowering our customers to simultaneously evaluate material quality and improve industrial efficiency is a win-win and will enable a new wave of sustainable and smart manufacturing processes.”
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Layoffs: While reporting on its second-quarter 2024 financial results, Intel Corporation announced that it plans to reduce headcount by more than 15%, with most of the layoffs being completed by the end of 2024. In a recent quote, Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO, said, “Our Q2 financial performance was disappointing, even as we hit key product and process technology milestones. Second-half trends are more challenging than we previously expected, and we are leveraging our new operating model to take decisive actions that will improve operating and capital efficiencies while accelerating our IDM 2.0 transformation.”
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Personnel: Boeing’s Board of Directors has elected Robert K. "Kelly" Ortberg to be the new president and CEO of the company. Ortberg will succeed Dave Calhoun, who previously held the position from January 2020. In a recent quote, Steven Mollenkopf, Chair of the Board, said, "The Board conducted a thorough and extensive search process over the last several months to select the next CEO of Boeing and Kelly has the right skills and experience to lead Boeing in its next chapter. Kelly is an experienced leader who is deeply respected in the aerospace industry, with a well-earned reputation for building strong teams and running complex engineering and manufacturing companies. We look forward to working with him as he leads Boeing through this consequential period in its long history."
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Divestiture: Soft Robotics Inc. has announced plans to sell its gripper business assets to the Schmalz Group. In addition, the company will rebrand itself as Oxipital AI and focus its business on its end-to-end visual AI solutions for high-speed product inspection and robotic picking. In a recent quote, Mark Chiappetta, President and CEO of Oxipital AI, said, "For years, our AI vision solutions have enabled the automation of labor-intensive processes in the food industry. Although under a new banner, we remain steadfast in our commitment to customers as they embrace Industry 5.0, and in providing the AI technology they need to unlock previously unattainable levels of resiliency, sustainability, and resource efficiency in their manufacturing operations."
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