A SPECIAL REPORT
Like many technologies, the fl at-screen TV was invented in a manufacturing environment; GE was trying to fi gure out how to convey radar information to an airplane. But making new inventions a reality is a manufacturing challenge that takes a lot of time and money. It took about four decades of manufacturing research to make the now-popular product scaleable at an affordable price. Today, most fl at screen TVs are made in Taiwan.
The fi eld of advanced manufacturing also consists of older technologies that have grown very sophisticated over time, with the help of software and other developments. Take grinding. In medieval times, knives and swords were
created after forged metal, usually banged into shape by a hammer, was sharpened on a grindstone as it revolved in circles. Today, fi ve-axis CNC (computer numerical control) grinding machines make some of the most complex parts with smooth surfaces used in aircrafts, cars, and in medical devices. Modern grinding machines use highly engineered grinding wheels made from a matrix of bonding and cut- ting materials, such as diamond. These machines and their wheels can cut through metal as if sculpting butter. Even more importantly, the way these technologies are now being integrated, or linked, is growing. Sensors and software are enabling machines to record critical data that may prove useful in everything from product recalls to machine mainte- nance to helping machines communicate with one another in an effort to be more productive. And they are helping to usher in a new era of robotics, where machines can use those visual, touch and other data inputs to make decisions or even learn how to do something without complicated programming. In fact, from every corner of manufacturing, a raft of advances have been made over the past decade, driven
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AdvancedManufacturing.org | June 2015
by software, sensors and maybe, even, from the lull in manufacturing that occurred during the Great Recession. Some manufacturing technology companies used those years of downtime to be productive, researching new ways of making things and solving nagging old problems while business was slow. “We think the advance- ments in shop-fl oor program- ming over the past 10 years have been nothing short of remarkable,” Todd Drane, marketing manager, Fagor Automation Corp. (Elk Grove Village, IL) recently told ME. “What was once thought to be impossible to do at the
CNC keyboard can now be accomplished in a matter of minutes in front of the machine.”
Manufacturing to Innovate Many people may not realize it, but a deep understand- ing of these manufacturing technologies, and how they work together to make things, is actually necessary to design many of the cutting-edge products of today and the future. This fact was one of the key arguments of a 2012 book, “Producing Prosperity: Why America Needs a Manufacturing Renaissance,” by Harvard Business School professors Gary P. Pisano and Willy C. Shih.
In this book, Pisano and Shih argued that as America loses its so-called industrial commons, or communities of knowledge built around these manufacturing technologies, the nation will lose its ability to successfully innovate. The relationship between manufacturing technologies
and product innovation can sometimes be as enigmatic as the question about whether the chicken or egg came fi rst. That’s because the knowledge about how to make things is central to innovation—if it can’t be made, it’s just an idea— and usually it is the development of manufacturing tech- nologies that actually leads to the new widgets and gadgets of the future.
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