Walmart welcomed more than 500 manufacturers recently at its world headquarters, during the company's first Made in the USA open call. Suppliers met with senior company officials and merchants to pitch products for stores, clubs and online.

The largest private employer in China and one of the biggest supply chain manufacturers in the world, Foxconn, announced it will soon start using robots to help assemble devices at its several sprawling factories across China. Apple, one of Foxconn's biggest partners to help assemble its iPhones, iPads, will be the first company to use the new service.

ThomasNet.com has added a quality certification application to its free platform of suppliers.

Zycus, a vendor of software for procurement management, has added a number of features to its applications.