VIEWPOINT [ INSIGHT ]
by Ira Moskowitz Chief Executive Officer, Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Institute, part of the Manufacturing USA Network ira.moskowitz@arminstitute.org | 412-785-0462
Why We Need Advanced Manufacturing What I learned over 40 years in manufacturing is that innovation and manufacturing are intertwined. Brilliant scientists and engineers invented some of the world’s most innovative and impactful products, and many of them need to be manufactured on innovative processes. full advantage of that unique human characteristic—our brains. Advanced Manufacturing is an ecosystem where the entire product life cycle is digitized, modeled, and tracked through analytics and big data, feeding
in analytics, automation, advanced technologies…and even AI. AI can now be enabled in a manufacturing environment because it can operate in the confluence of technologies now widely available: digital twins and threads that provide the modeling required for intelligent systems, a profusion of new sensors for vision and path planning, and massive, universally available computing power and storage within a laptop or in the cloud. This revolution is fueled not just by the maturing of these individual capabilities but in their simultaneous emergence and confluence in the manufacturing environment. THE AI REVOLUTION Accessibility of AI-driven machine learning tools and technology can now be applied to manufacturing processes like never before. As the supply of manufacturing workers has become problematic, we are now able to train autonomous and semi-autonomous industrial robots to do difficult, dangerous, repetitive tasks, freeing our scarce workforce to do tasks that take
a constant stream of information to autonomous and semi-autonomous systems on the shop floor and managed by operators who have been upskilled to monitor, maintain, and program this technology. The chip manufacturing industry is a great example. Integrated circuit manufacturing was one of the earliest and most sophisticated Advanced Manufacturing processes in the world. Today it enables chip makers to pack over 100 million active electronic devices into one square millimeter of silicon. The entire value chain in chip manufacturing is automated, integrated, and continuously improved. We need to continue to invest in federal programs that promote and accelerate the adoption of Advanced Manufacturing capabilities. Robotics, autonomy, AI, cybersecurity, additive/3D printing, digital twins and similar technologies—coupled with a highly trained workforce making a living wage— are the foundation of every Advanced Manufacturing process. Ultimately, they are key to the prosperity of our economy and our country. n
But in many cases the knowledge that we gain by manufacturing those products leads us to the next generation of innovations. We cannot maintain our innovative edge if we invent products but send them overseas to be manufactured. “Traditional” manufacturing typically depends on labor-intensive processes, paper logs, and manufacturing workers training new employees in the manual processes exactly as they were trained by their predecessors. The most innovative, impactful, efficient and competitive manufacturing will be what we call Advanced Manufacturing (or Industry 4.0, Smart Manufacturing, Factory of the Future). This is manufacturing where people and technology work together to produce innovative and competitive products. An Advanced Manufacturing factory provides a fully integrated, closed loop, automated digital enterprise system tracking data from design to customer and back to design. People work alongside machines driven by artificial intelligence; deploy mixed-reality tools for training, maintenance, and operation of those machines; and train workers
28 Inbound Logistics • November 2024
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