PTC and Stratasys Ltd. are working to deliver a seamless experience between PTC Creo design software and Stratasys 3D Printing Solutions. The joint vision is to make additive manufacturing more accessible to designers and manufacturers and to allow them to fully realize the advantages of the technology. These advantages include geometric freedom and part functionality, economic low volume and on-demand manufacturing, the production of customized products, and more.

A Frost & Sullivan report finds that sales of RFID readers, tags and software to the retail sector will grow from $738m in 2014 to $5.409bn in 2020, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of 38.9 percent.

More than eight million building management systems (BMS) will be integrated with some form of Internet of Things (IoT) platform, application or service by 2020, according to an ABI Research report. However, like many suppliers in established markets today, commercial building management system vendors face both opportunities and threats when navigating the emerging IoT ecosystem.

Tsuneishi Holdings Corporation is exploring the commercial applications of drones at its Hiroshima shipbuilding facility in an effort to increase both safety and productivity in daily operations.

How much does your business spend on trade promotions to drive product sales? According to a recent Forrester report, the average for a CPG company is 20 percent of revenues, but the investment vs. return doesn't always add up. You already know that some of that money doesn't generate any return, but it gets worse: Forrester estimates that one-third of that spend – about seven percent of a typical company's revenues – actually generates negative returns, cannibalizing high-margin lines and encouraging "pantry loading."