Shanghai, China: The Beijing-Shanghai bullet train has made a profit of close to US$1 billion for 2015, raking rare financial gains when compared to China’s other high-speed trains who are mostly running on losses. The China Railway High-speed line (CRH) reported net profits of 6.58 billion yuan (US$982 million). It covers more than 1,300km within five hours.

Singapore: Enerpac SE Asia, a manufacturer of high-pressure hydraulic products, is making inroads into the industry in Asia with a series of roadshows to showcase how their tools can be applied in industrial settings.

Minneapolis, US and Rehovot , Israel : Stratasys, the 3D printing and additive manufacturing solutions company has named IBM veteran Tim Bohling as its chief marketing officer. Mr Bohling joins the company’s leadership team and will lead Stratasys worldwide marketing strategies to drive growth and deliver the company’s value promise to its customers.

Mr Bohling has served as vice president and head of North America marketing at HCL Technologies, an IT global ser vice provider, where he was charged with both formulation and execution of a marketing strategy designed to strengthen existing client relationships, fuel new signings, and elevate the HCL brand. He has also spent more than 10 years at IBM, engineering successful digital marketing and demand generation efforts as vice president of worldwide performance marketing at IBM Global Technology Services and as vice president of marketing at IBM Global Technology Services, Growth Markets.

A frequent guest speaker at industry conferences and whose research has been published in several scholarly journals including Marketing Science and the Journal of Marketing Research, Mr Bohling’s experience extends from helping organisations make and shape markets and transition from being produc t-or iented companies to integrated solutions focused companies to developing tested methodologies across a range of disciplines such as branding, digital marketing, end-to-end demand generation and market insight.

“Tim is a transformational market leader whose experience fits perfectly into our long-term strategy. A respected voice in the IT industry with a strong track-record, Tim will play a critical role as we accelerate Stratasys’ position as the driving force and dominant player in 3D printing,” said Joshua Claman, chief business officer of Stratasys.

Commenting on his new appointment and role, Mr Bohling said: “Stratasys has been at the forefront of the 3D printing industry since its inception and I believe it has tremendous future growth potential. This is an exciting time to be in the market, and I look forward to helping elevate the Stratasys brand to even greater heights and contributing to the company’s growth and market leadership.”

Bologna, Italy: The 18th edition of Lamiera concluded successfully. Hosted by BolognaFiere from 11 to 14 May 2016, the event registered a 10-percent increase with 20,395 visitors when compared to the 2014 edition. There were 386 exhibitors at this year’s trade show, where 30 percent of the companies were from outside Italy. The exhibition covered an area of 35,000 square metres, which was also a 10-percent increase compared to the previous edition.

United States: US cutting tool consumption totalled US$173.64 million in April according to the US Cutting Tool Institute (USCTI) and the Association For Manufacturing Technology (AMT). With a year-to-date total of US$689.76 million, 2016 was down 10.3 percent when compared with 2015..

United States: Siemens’ product lifecycle management (PLM) software business has been given a 5-Star rating from CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, in its 2016 Partner Program Guide, the 10th straight year that Siemens PLM Software has received this designation. In addition, Jeff Zobrist, Siemens PLM Software’s vice president of global solution partner sales was also recognised by CRN as a 2016 CRN Channel Chief.

Nimes, France: Renishaw’s Resolute series of absolute encoders now supports Symetrie’s Ground Integration and Calibration Support (GICS) and Zonda hexapods, designed for two types of advanced component validation testing in the manufacture of the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) weather satellites, due for launch from 2019.