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Hospital PMI® at 55.8%; June 2024 Hospital ISM® Report On Business®

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TEMPE, Ariz., July 5, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Economic activity in the hospital subsector grew in June for the 10th consecutive month after contracting twice in the previous four-month period, with 35 consecutive months of growth prior to that, say the nation’s hospital supply executives in the latest Hospital ISM® Report On Business®.

The report was issued today by Nancy LeMaster, MBA, Chair of the Institute for Supply Management® (ISM®) Hospital Business Survey Committee: “The Hospital PMI® registered 55.8 percent in June, a 2.6-percentage point decrease from the May reading of 58.4 percent, indicating a 10th consecutive month of growth after a contraction in August. The Business Activity Index expanded for the 10th consecutive month. The New Orders Index expanded for the 10th straight month, and the Employment Index remained in growth territory. The Supplier Deliveries Index remained in expansion (which indicates slower delivery performance). The Case Mix Index expanded in June, registering 51 percent, a decrease of 0.5 percentage point compared to the previous month’s figure of 51.5 percent. The Days Payable Outstanding Index remained in expansion territory in June, registering 51.5 percent, down 5.5 percentage points from the 57 percent reported in May. The Technology Spend Index reading of 61.5 percent is an increase of 1 percentage point compared to the 60.5 percent recorded in May. The Touchless Orders Index was ‘unchanged’ in June, registering 50 percent, up 1.5 percentage points from the 48.5 percent reported in May.”

LeMaster continues, “The majority of Business Survey Committee respondents indicated that patient volumes in June were strong — just not as strong as in May. Some panelists commented that their facilities experienced a shift to more medical versus surgical patients, while others noted elevated levels of surgeries and outpatient volumes. The Employment Index continued to indicate growth, with respondents crediting successful recruitment efforts and a reduction in turnover. To preserve margins, hospitals continued to focus on (1) replacing agency labor with permanent staff to reduce labor costs and (2) reducing utilization and increasing standardization of supplies. Weather impacted supply deliveries in parts of the country, and the syringe shortage continues to be problematic.”

Hospital PMI® History

Month

Hospital PMI®

Month

Hospital PMI®

Jun 2024

55.8

Dec 2023

62.5

May 2024

58.4

Nov 2023

59.8

Apr 2024

53.5

Oct 2023

52.1

Mar 2024

52.3

Sep 2023

57.0

Feb 2024

56.6

Aug 2023

47.5

Jan 2024

61.5

Jul 2023

53.3

Average for 12 months – 55.9

High – 62.5

Low – 47.5

 

About This Report
The information compiled in this report is for the month of June 2024.

The Hospital PMI® was developed in collaboration with the Association for Health Care Resource & Materials Management (AHRMM), an association for the health care supply chain profession, and a professional membership group of the American Hospital Association (AHA).

The data presented herein is obtained from a survey of hospital supply executives based on information they have collected within their respective organizations. ISM® makes no representation, other than that stated within this release, regarding the individual company data collection procedures. The data should be compared to all other economic data sources when used in decision-making.

Data and Method of Presentation
The Hospital ISM® Report On Business® is based on data compiled from hospital purchasing and supply executives nationwide. Survey responses reflect the change, if any, in the current month compared to the previous month. For each of the indicators measured (Business Activity, New Orders, Employment, Supplier Deliveries, Inventories, Prices, Prices: Pharmaceuticals, Prices: Supplies, Backlog of Orders, Imports, Inventory Sentiment, Case Mix, Days Payable Outstanding, Technology Spend, and Touchless Orders), this report shows the percentage reporting each response and the diffusion index. Responses represent raw data and are never changed. Beginning in January 2021, the Report On Business® staff and consultants are gathering market information to better validate the Exports Index. Exports Index data are still being collected.

The Hospital PMI® is a composite index computed from the following, equally weighted indexes: Business Activity, New Orders, Employment and Supplier Deliveries. Diffusion indexes have the properties of leading indicators and are convenient summary measures showing the prevailing direction of change and the scope of change. A Hospital PMI® index reading above 50 percent indicates that the hospital sub-sector is generally expanding; below 50 percent indicates that it is generally declining. For the sub-indexes, except Supplier Deliveries, an index reading above 50 percent indicates that the sub-index is generally expanding; below 50 percent indicates that it is generally contracting. A Supplier Deliveries Index above 50 percent indicates slower deliveries and below 50 percent indicates faster deliveries.

The Hospital ISM® Report On Business® survey is sent out to the Hospital Business Survey Committee respondents the first part of each month. Respondents are asked to ONLY report on U.S. operations for the current month. ISM® receives survey responses throughout most of any given month, with the majority of respondents generally waiting until late in the month to submit responses to give the most accurate picture of current business activity. ISM® then compiles the report for release on the fifth business day of the following month.

ISM ROB Content
The Institute for Supply Management® (“ISM”) Report On Business® (Manufacturing, Services, and Hospital reports) (“ISM ROB”) contains information, text, files, images, video, sounds, musical works, works of authorship, applications, and any other materials or content (collectively, “Content”) of ISM (“ISM ROB Content”). ISM ROB Content is protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret, and other laws, and as between you and ISM, ISM owns and retains all rights in the ISM ROB Content. ISM hereby grants you a limited, revocable, nonsublicensable license to access and display on your individual device the ISM ROB Content (excluding any software code) solely for your personal, non-commercial use. The ISM ROB Content shall also contain Content of users and other ISM licensors. Except as provided herein or as explicitly allowed in writing by ISM, you shall not copy, download, stream, capture, reproduce, duplicate, archive, upload, modify, translate, publish, broadcast, transmit, retransmit, distribute, perform, display, sell, or otherwise use any ISM ROB Content.

Except as explicitly and expressly permitted by ISM, you are strictly prohibited from creating works or materials (including, but not limited to tables, charts, data streams, time-series variables, fonts, icons, link buttons, wallpaper, desktop themes, online postcards, montages, mashups and similar videos, greeting cards, and unlicensed merchandise) that derive from or are based on the ISM ROB Content. This prohibition applies regardless of whether the derivative works or materials are sold, bartered, or given away. You shall not either directly or through the use of any device, software, internet site, web-based service, or other means remove, alter, bypass, avoid, interfere with, or circumvent any copyright, trademark, or other proprietary notices marked on the Content or any digital rights management mechanism, device, or other content protection or access control measure associated with the Content including geo-filtering mechanisms. Without prior written authorization from ISM, you shall not build a business utilizing the Content, whether or not for profit.

You shall not create, recreate, distribute, incorporate in other work, or advertise an index of any portion of the Content unless you receive prior written authorization from ISM. Requests for permission to reproduce or distribute ISM ROB Content can be made by contacting Rose Marie Goupil in writing at: ISM Research, Institute for Supply Management, 309 W. Elliot Road, Suite 113, Tempe, AZ 85284-1556, or by emailing rgoupil@ismworld.org; Subject: Content Request.

ISM shall not have any liability, duty, or obligation for or relating to the ISM ROB Content or other information contained herein, any errors, inaccuracies, omissions or delays in providing any ISM ROB Content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. In no event shall ISM be liable for any special, incidental, or consequential damages, arising out of the use of the ISM ROB. Report On Business®, PMI®, Manufacturing PMI®, Services PMI®, and Hospital PMI® are registered trademarks and trademarks of Institute for Supply Management®. Institute for Supply Management® and ISM® are registered trademarks of Institute for Supply Management, Inc.

About Institute for Supply Management®
Institute for Supply Management® (ISM®) is the first and leading not-for-profit professional supply management organization worldwide. Its community of more than 50,000 in more than 100 countries manage about US$1 trillion in corporate and government supply chain procurement annually. Founded in 1915 by practitioners, ISM is committed to advancing the practice of supply management to drive value and competitive advantage for its members, contributing to a prosperous and sustainable world. ISM empowers and leads the profession through the ISM® Report On Business®, its highly-regarded certification and training programs, corporate services, events, and assessments. The ISM® Report On Business®, Manufacturing, Services, and Hospital, are three of the most reliable economic indicators available, providing guidance to supply management professionals, economists, analysts, and government and business leaders. For more information, please visit: www.ismworld.org.

The text version of the public Hospital ISM® Report On Business® is posted on ISM®’s website at www.ismrob.org on the fifth business day* of every month at 10:00 a.m. ET.

The next Hospital ISM® Report On Business® featuring July 2024 data will be released at 10:00 a.m. ET on Wednesday, August 7, 2024.

*Unless the New York Stock Exchange is closed.

Contact: 

Rose Marie Goupil

Report On Business® Analyst

ISM®, ROB/Program Manager

Tempe, Arizona

+1 480.752.6276, ext. 3005

Email: rgoupil@ismworld.org

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SOURCE Institute for Supply Management

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X Square Robot Unveils New Embodied AI Model, Says Robots Will Arrive in Homes in 35 Days

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Backed by Alibaba, ByteDance, Xiaomi and Meituan, X Square Robot unveiled a next-generation embodied AI foundation model for home robots and said its first deployments in everyday households will begin within 35 days.

BEIJING, April 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — X Square Robot on Tuesday unveiled Wall-B, a new embodied AI foundation model designed for deployment in real-world homes, marking what the company described as a major step toward bringing general-purpose robots into daily family life.

At a launch event themed “Born to Bot, Bot to Family,” the company also introduced its World Unified Model (WUM) architecture, a training framework that combines vision, language, action and physical prediction within a single system from the outset. X Square said the model is intended to help robots operate in the far more unpredictable setting of a home, where tasks, layouts and interactions vary from moment to moment.

“Robots in factories and robots in homes are fundamentally different,” said Qian Wang, founder and CEO of X Square Robot. “In factories, they repeat the same action 10,000 times. In a home, they may need to perform 10,000 different actions, each in a different context. The real challenge is not repetition, but whether a robot can execute new, untrained actions in an unstructured environment.”

Wall-B is the company’s first full implementation of its World Unified Model architecture. Unlike modular systems that train perception, language and control separately, X Square Robot said World Unified Model optimizes those capabilities jointly from the very beginning. The company said that allows physical prediction — including force, friction and collision dynamics — to emerge as part of the model itself, rather than being layered on afterward.

“We train vision, language, action and prediction in the same network from day one,” said Wang Hao, chief technology officer of X Square. “Human infants do not learn to see, move and communicate in isolated stages. They learn by integrating perception and action at the same time, with constant feedback from the physical world. That is the principle behind our architecture.”

X Square Robot said the model was built on two core foundations. The first is a data strategy centered on real, non-staged home environments, aimed at exposing the system to the long tail of household scenarios — misplaced objects, temporary occlusion, unexpected obstacles and spontaneous human activity. The second is a physics-aware predictive mechanism that enables the robot to anticipate physical outcomes before taking action, rather than merely reacting after contact occurs.

Together, those elements are meant to narrow one of robotics’ hardest gaps: moving from controlled demos to reliable performance in live environments. The company said its work on physical robotic platforms has helped it accumulate practical experience in bridging simulation and reality across diverse operating conditions.

At the event, X Square demonstrated a series of live tasks. In one experience zone, a robot arranged flowers while adjusting its grip and motion in real time as stems shifted position under visual occlusion. The task was completed without pre-set trajectories, according to the company, and drew attention from both domestic and international media attending the event.

Even so, X Square acknowledged that the technology remains early. Wang said current systems can make mistakes that require remote intervention — such as placing slippers in the kitchen or pausing mid-task to process the next action. But he said the robots’ ability to operate continuously and generate new real-world data around the clock gives the system a path to rapid improvement.

That learning loop is central to the company’s next milestone: within 35 days, X Square plans to place its robots into everyday homes, underscoring the company’s long-term commitment to the home robotics sector.

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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/x-square-robot-unveils-new-embodied-ai-model-says-robots-will-arrive-in-homes-in-35-days-302751058.html

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Manhattan Associates Announces Latest Enhancements for Retailers

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SYDNEY, April 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Manhattan Associates (NASDAQ: MANH), the global leader in supply chain commerce with unmatched AI capabilities, today announced major enhancements to Manhattan Active® Omni. These innovations are designed to help retailers maximise in-store and online sales while delivering best-in-class customer experiences across all touchpoints. New capabilities include embedded agentic AI for store associates and customer service teams, real-time sales, and fulfilment insights delivered natively within the user experience, and brand-new capabilities focused on maximising both revenue and profit when shipping from stores.

Manhattan announced commercial availability of three new AI agents, a Store Associate Agent, a Contact Centre Agent, and an OMS Configuration Agent, all available within the Manhattan Active Omni user interface, to support retailers’ selling and service teams. Using a natural language interface, these agents deliver immediate, actionable insights into store activity, sales trends, inventory, returns, and customer behaviour, helping associates and customer service teams resolve issues faster and provide more personalised support.

“Retailers are under constant pressure to move faster, operate smarter, and deliver seamless experiences across every touchpoint,” said Brian Kinsella, SVP of Product Management at Manhattan Associates. “Our latest updates reflect Manhattan’s ongoing commitment to delivering cutting edge artificial intelligence within our applications. Whether it’s the myriad machine learning algorithms present for years or our new Agentic AI and Fulfilment Simulation capabilities, we’ve long believed true AI needs to live within rather than alongside our applications. We’re proud to partner with a number of world class retailers on the design and development of these breakthrough technologies.”

Along with the newly announced agentic AI innovations, Manhattan Active® Point of Sale continues to advance with Customer Facing Display, a powerful new enhancement that brings shoppers into the checkout experience. Customers can view their cart in real time, attach their loyalty information to a transaction, enter shipping details, and choose how they’d like to receive their receipt, all from a dedicated display. Retailers can also capture additional customer input, ensuring greater accuracy and faster transactions at the point of sale, bridging the gap between associates and shoppers, and delivering a smoother, more engaging checkout experience.

Additionally, the Fulfilment Optimisation Simulation engine enables enterprises to model and compare alternative fulfilment strategies by balancing cost, speed, service level, and margin. It provides data-driven insights into split shipments, total fulfilment costs, location-level distribution, and key KPIs using a consistent set of orders for each strategy. Users can easily adjust optimisation rules, rerun simulations, and compare results side-by-side to understand the true impact of each change. The engine also supports “what if” scenario planning – allowing teams to anticipate constraints, evaluate operational shifts, and analyse trade-offs in a fully self-serve manner. By replaying historical or selected orders, businesses can continuously optimise fulfilment, uncover new savings, and drive meaningful performance improvements.

Together, these innovations reflect Manhattan’s continued focus on delivering practical, enterprise-ready advancements that help retailers move faster and operate with greater confidence.

Receive up-to-date product, customer and partner news directly from Manhattan on LinkedIn.

ENDS

ABOUT MANHATTAN ASSOCIATES:

Manhattan Associates is a global technology leader, providing supply chain and omnichannel commerce solutions with unmatched AI capabilities. We design, build and offer best-in-class, AI-powered, cloud-based solutions that drive resilience and efficiency for businesses. We enable enterprises to uniquely unify front-end sales with back-end supply chain execution.

Our commitment to innovation, cloud-native platform and API-first architecture create simpler experiences and faster paths to value for our customers. We empower them to preempt and react to emerging trends and global disruptions with technical expertise and operational confidence, transforming challenges into competitive advantage. For more information, please visit www.manh.com.

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SOURCE Manhattan Associates

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Global Telecom Leaders to Convene in Singapore for Definitive Summit on AI-Native Transformation and Industry Reinvention

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SINGAPORE, April 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Twimbit, the global research and advisory firm, has finalized the strategic agenda for the Twimbit Telecom Summit & Awards 2026, scheduled for 21 May 2026 at the Capitol Theatre, Singapore. This high-level forum serves as a catalyst for addressing the shift toward AI-native architectures and digital sovereignty.

As the telecommunications sector moves beyond traditional connectivity toward a ‘Techco’ model, the 2026 summit will provide a framework for navigating margin pressure through structural innovation, with insights on ROIC growth, EBITDA optimization, and the integration of generative technologies into core business functions.

Architects of the Industry: Featured Perspectives

The 2026 summit features a curated lineup of visionaries redefining the telecom blueprint:

Soma Velayutham, VP Telecoms & AI, NvidiaWong Soon Nam, Chief Planning and Transformation Officer, TelekomselRajesh Chandiramani, CEO, ComvivaVikram Sinha, CEO, Indosat Ooredoo HutchisonAayush Bhatnagar, Chief Technology Development Officer, JioUlf Ewaldsson, Advisor, Indosat (Former President of Technology, T-Mobile)Juhi McClelland, Managing Partner, IBM Consulting APACManoj Menon, Founder & CEO, Twimbit

Strategic Forum: The Telecom Summit (08:00 – 14:35)

Designed as a high-impact leadership forum, the morning sessions will address three critical levers for telco success in 2026:

Accelerating the AI-Native Core: Leveraging generative AI to rebuild network operations and customer service modelsDigital Sovereignty & Infrastructure: Navigating data residency and localized AI infrastructure for competitive advantageGrowth Engineering & Customer Experience: Implementing high-touch service philosophies to drive customer lifetime value

The Recognition Gala: Twimbit Telecom Awards (17:00 – Late)

The day concludes with a prestigious black-tie awards ceremony, celebrating organisations and leaders demonstrating innovation and strategic transformation, using Twimbit’s proprietary research frameworks across Asia-Pacific.

Strategic Partnerships and Support

The event is supported by industry leaders. F5 joins as Strategic Partner, while Nokia and Comviva serve as Gold Sponsors, highlighting the role of secure infrastructure, customer experience, and digital financial solutions.

“We are at a point where incremental change is no longer sufficient,” said Manoj Menon, Founder & CEO of Twimbit. “This summit is about the reinvention of the telecom business model and providing a roadmap for leaders to architect the next era of digital intelligence.”

About Twimbit

A global tech and advisory firm powering customer success through research, innovation and community, Twimbit provides actionable insights that fuel innovation and growth through its proprietary research platform.

Media Contacts:
Vansh Sehgal
vansh@twimbit.com 

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