Content about USA and Canada

After shattering both its international and domestic store growth records last year, 7-Eleven, Inc. is on target to have an even bigger year in 2012.

The world's largest retailer by units added more than 4,600 stores worldwide in 2011 and plans to continue the company's accelerated growth.

Some 600 additional stores were built, acquired or transitioned from another business to the 7-Eleven brand in the United States and Canada during 2011.

As part of an on-going upgrade of health services in the area, the Niagara Health System is on the verge of completing a state-of-the-art new hospital for the St Catharines area. Jane McCallion talks to chief planning and development officer Gloria Kain to discover how you turn one million square feet of building into one million square feet of care.

Osisko Mining Corporation reported record production in its Q1 2012 results today, but also issued a warning after a fire at its Canadian Malartic Mill in Quebec, Canada.

A fire occurred in the cyclone separator portion of the mill just before midnight on Wednesday 9 May, most likely started by welding near to the number four cyclone area, and then spread to the mill roof of that sector.

Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has announced it will go hostile with its $2.6 billion bid for Human Genome Sciences by taking the offer directly to shareholders.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is refusing to participate in the strategic alternatives review process offered by US-based Human Genome Sciences (HGS), on the basis that it is unnecessary and that there is existing strategic and financial logic to the combination of the two companies. GSK said that HGS shareholders should have the opportunity to decide for themselves on the merits of the offer. 

Lean manufacturing is not about adopting Toyota’s tools, or using Japanese terminology, it’s a continuous improvement philosophy that becomes a way of life, says plant manager Billy Taylor.

Goodyear’s Fayetteville plant in North Carolina was struggling to survive in 2010. It was a high cost plant and it wasn’t meeting market demand. The plant was producing 31,200 tires a day, but the market wanted between 36,000 and 38,000. Something had to change.

The partnership between the Renault-Nissan Alliance and Daimler reached a milestone today when state officials joined Nissan leaders to break ground on a new manufacturing facility in Decherd, Tennessee.

The new facility – located at the existing Nissan powertrain assembly complex – will produce Mercedes-Benz 4-cylinder gasoline engines for Infiniti and Mercedes-Benz models.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based LB Foster Company has completed the relocation of its threaded products water well group from Houston to a new facility in Magnolia, Texas.

The Magnolia plant uses advanced technology and has extended operating hours to increase production capacity. "The new facility provides our production team with single flow manufacturing that expedites the movement of pipe through our threading process," said Merry Brumbaugh, vice president, LB Foster Tubular Products.

Blackland Aerospace, LP, the aerospace component manufacturing platform of Dallas based private equity firm, Blackland Group, LLC, has acquired Lewis Machine Company.

Based in East Hartford, Connecticut, Lewis Machine specializes in manufacturing complex precision-machined components for clients in the commercial and military jet engine, airframe, missile and power plant industries.

It may not be quite the highest mine in the world, but Los Bronces in the Chilean Andes has its own set of challenges for its new general manager Sam Rasmussen, as Alan Swaby learns.

Readers of this publication will be long familiar with arduous mining ventures. Normally, this means somewhere miles from nowhere in some hard to reach corner of the country. But in the case of one of the richest copper mines in the world, all the challenges and feelings of remoteness stem from the fact that it lies some 11,000ft above sea level.

The new Humber River Regional Hospital will be North America’s first truly digital hospital. Dr. Rueben Devlin, president and CEO and Peter Bak, information, communications, automation and technology strategy officer, explain their vision to Richard Halfhide.

Economic activity in the US manufacturing sector expanded in April for the 33rd consecutive month, according to the latest Manufacturing ISM Report On Business.

The Institute for Supply Management index of manufacturing activity rose to 54.8 last month, from 53.4 in March. An index figure above 50 indicates growth. The ISM's measure of employment in the sector also rose to a nine-month high.

The recession of the last four years has been abnormal in many ways but one sign of normality is appearing – the US being the beacon of wider global recovery.