Guest Editorial Bryan G. Dods


Chief Engineer – Manufacturing GE Power & Water Member Since 2010


smeSpeaks Brilliant Factories T


he light is shining brightly on manufacturing, and the “brilliant factory” is emerging. The increased awareness of manufacturing’s importance to the success of com- panies, such as GE, and to a nation like the US, has brought a positive light to a career in manufacturing. The US public, private and academic communities are coming together to develop a holistic manufacturing strategy under the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership 2.0 and the creation of the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI). Many of the topics and technologies being discussed will enhance the capabilities of the brilliant factory. At GE, we are building the brilliant factory to connect the various streams of individual digital data with physical assets to visualize, analyze and optimize the manufacturing network. The brilliant factory can be considered as a multilayer integra- tion of sensor to machine, machine to machine, machine to factory, factory to factory, factory to supply network and supply network to customers. The brilliant factory completes the con- nection with the industrial Internet.


When viewed as a system, manufacturing is comprised of product, process and information flows. The quality improve- ment environment of the 1980s, highlighted by Ford’s “Quality is Job 1” and Motorola’s Six Sigma, instilled process flow discipline in manufacturers. The Toyota Production System (TPS), documented in “The Machine that Changed the World,” brought product flow discipline to the forefront in the 1990s. The manufacturing community is just beginning to realize the importance and overwhelming value of the manu- facturing information flow. The brilliant factory completes the trilogy and ties these three flows together.


I have been invested in bringing this dream to reality for nearly my entire career. I first began looking at sensing and embedded devices in the 1980s, while working in aerospace


as a nondestructive testing engineer. The first professional de- velopment course I took after starting my career was on digital signal processing (I am a metallurgist by education). Automa- tion was just beginning to take off, and my interests expanded as I moved into manufacturing R&D roles. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to benchmark companies like Cisco, In- tel, P&G and a number of automotive OEMs, which turned me on to the bigger manufacturing system perspective. I began to connect with various academic/industry consortiums on sub- jects ranging from model-based manufacturing to intelligent manufacturing systems to high-performance computing. Each one was way out of my comfort zone, but I had a desire to expand my knowledge and to be a part of creating something unique in manufacturing like Henry Ford did with the adap- tion of the assembly line. Ten years ago, I was asked to put my own vision down in a comprehensive concept model, and I became an architect for network-enabled manufacturing. I have watched as capabilities of sensors, equipment, controls, communication, computing and standardization emerged and are converging to make the brilliant factory a relevant entity in today’s manufacturing system.


So what does the industrial Internet and brilliant factory mean to SME members and the manufacturing community at large? 1. We need to broaden our skill base. Not just our own individual skills, but the source from which we pull and develop future manufacturing engineers. The traditional mechanical and industrial engineers will be comple- mented by an increasing number of mechatronics, electrical and controls engineers along with the addition of mathematicians and computer scientists on the shop floor. Manufacturing engineering will be more of an inte- grated, multifunction team than an individual role.


September 2014 | ManufacturingEngineeringMedia.com 19


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