IEN Radio

PepsiCo this week promptly shut down a bottling plant in East Tennessee and cut over 100 jobs amid broader concerns within the company about its beverage business.The food and beverage giant said in a brief statement Monday that it made the “difficult decision” to close the Knoxville plant “immediately.” The company indicated in a filing with state officials that the move would result in 112...

The weather’s getting colder and seat heaters might be getting switched on soon. But for most consumers, comfort levels drop significantly when you go from warming your seat to roasting it over an open flame.That’s why Hyundai has issued a recall impacting nearly 100,000 vehicles. Specifically, the automaker is calling back nearly 40,000 Genesis G80 vehicles produced between March 2016 and...

EV maker Rivian decided they wanted to have some fun with their customers this Halloween and - when that’s the case - who you gonna call?Apparently Sony Pictures - where a collaboration with the studio, says Rivian, will “bring the Ghostbusters universe to all Rivian vehicles.”Delivered last week via an over-the-air software update, Rivian is transforming its vehicles into “ghost-hunting...

Engineers from the University of Colorado Boulder have designed invisible multicolored tattoo inks that can be switched on and off with different kinds of light. The ideological version of this technology would allow individuals to hide their tattoos during important business meetings—and not for any other reason ever. The inks, known as "PhotoTat," are made from dyes and a plexiglass-like...

Welcome to another episode of Gen Z in Manufacturing, a podcast that asks young people about their journeys in manufacturing, how they intend to influence the industry and what they are looking for from an employer.For this episode, I welcome Rayyan Shafqat, a 15-year-old student at Brooklyn Technical High School. Shafqat recently designed an Arduino-based carbon monoxide detection system that...

When Volkswagen-backed Scout Motors announced in 2023 that it would be building a sprawling factory in Richland County, South Carolina, reaction for the community was largely positive. The goal for the 110,000 square-foot-plant was to produce 200,000 vehicles per year and employ 4,000 workers.But more recently, the supporters of this project have declined by at least two.An elderly couple who...

Investigators in Northeast Philadelphia responded to the scene of an alleged cargo theft this week.A truck driver from Wisconsin reported that he had driven his rig to Pennsylvania before settling down for the night to rest in a parking area.At 3:45 am, the driver awoke to his cab shaking and discovered that three individuals had broken the vehicle’s seal and begun loading pallets of meat into...

The name VinFast might ring a bell - not because you’ve likely seen its auto badge out on the road, but because the company has made some headlines over the past few years.This Vietnam-based EV maker, in 2022, pledged to build a $2 billion factory in Chatham County, North Carolina. The goal of this plant was to open in 2026 and produce 150,000 VinFast vehicles each year, a task they said would...

Researchers from North Carolina State University are using powdered eggshells to make high-quality magnesium alloys that could be used in an array of automotive, aerospace and biomedical applications. And while Americans consume roughly 275 million eggs every single day, we certainly have a substantial waste stream to work with. The researchers believe the eggshells could help create a low-cost,...

When Figure, a company developing humanoid robots, needed ideas for disposing of its previous generation, an elegant solution came from a somewhat unlikely source.The company said that with its fleet of Figure 03 bots growing, it no longer had the time and space to support Figure 02. But it couldn’t just throw out the humanoids and risk someone getting their hands on all types of proprietary...