When Ford closes the doors on its vehicle manufacturing operations today about 600 workers will walk out of the factory gate for the last time at the Broadmeadows assembly plant in Melbourne’s northern suburbs and at the company’s engine and stamping plants in Geelong. Preliminary results from a survey of more than 400 auto workers show that most of them still want to work but are unlikely to find secure, long-term jobs.

Local manufacturers that aren’t connecting the dots will not survive this era of the Internet of Things.

THERE’S been a lot of debate in the US about when and whether fuel cell-powered lift trucks will become standard equipment in plants and DCs.