Manufacturing Topics

• Network Structure of an Industrial Cluster: Electronics in Toronto - The literature on the theory of regional industrial success, including that focused on regional innovation systems, provides the conceptual foundation for this exploration of the extent to which firms in clusters of advanced technology industry depend on inter-regional sources for a wide variety of knowledge inputs to support innovation. The substantive focus is the electronics cluster of the Toronto region, CanadaÕs largest manufacturing center. A small, stratified sample of establishments drawn from this cluster is used to verify the importance of external sources of material inputs, and other knowledge sources and the strength of distant market connections. Inter-regional and local collaboration vary in importance as a result of scale-dependent resource differences between firms and in response to choices associated with foreign rather than domestic ownership. The results support the rejection of simple models of clusters and learning regions in which internal connections are privileged over inter-regional and international transactions operating either between or within firms.
• Dispersed Concentration: Industry Location and Globalization in Hard Disk Drives - The disk drive industry is both internationally dispersed and regionally concentrated. U.S. companies held 80% of the market in 1995, but they assembled 70% of their disk drives in S.E. Asia; and while only 20% of the people employed in the HDD industry worked in the U.S., R&D employees were overwhelmingly in the United States, centered on Northern California. The purpose of this paper is to explain how the industry came to have this pattern of dispersed concentration. It traces the location of each plant that assembled disk drives and each facility engaged in product development since the industry's establishment in 1956. The paper makes two specific points. First, the spatial pattern of the industry reflects the emergence of two kinds of clusters: operational and technological. Each cluster is differentiated by function and motivated by its own logic, with technological clusters "stickier" than operational ones. Second, industry location is dynamic: as an industry evolves, so does its location. The evolving location of industry results from the interaction of four locational determinants: market access, factor costs, public policy and agglomeration economies. In addition, the relative importance of each factor to the attractiveness of a specific location changes with time.
• Customizing for the Masses - Thanks to digital technology, the mass market of the 20th century is giving way to a market of one. The automation that made cloned cars and clothes ubiquitous is being replaced by technology that allows a staggering degree of individualization. Customers can communicate directly with manufacturers via the Internet, and their instructions can be absorbed into production at little--if any--extra cost. This so-called mass customization has profound implications for many traditional manufacturers. It will prod many to overhaul production lines to combine the benefits of automated assembly with the power to include a vast array of personal touches.
• Images of a Wood Industrial Network - Many firms today are working together more intensively in order to gain relative competitive advantage. The wood industry is no exception. When firms are working together more tightly, relationships and interaction are urgent to study. In this paper we try to use several different or parallel perspectives in order to get a rich picture/image of an industrial in the wood industry. The perspectives we use are the industrial business network approach, the "Uppsala School", as well as the virtual organisations/imaginary systems metaphors and the methods and concepts from the information systems and business development field. The main purpose of this paper is to describe images from, and analyse the studied wood industrial network with a combined, imaginary organisations and business/information systems development approach. These images can help us, and hopefully the reader of this paper, to increase our ability to study and understand the empirical data in new or complementary ways. Images of the wood industrial network from our combined use of perspectives/approaches show among other things that the studied wood industrial network is a complex pattern of, often, informal relationships based on social interaction and mutual trust. As a result of our study we also present different empirical findings explicitly related to the perspectives and an outline of a tentative multi-perspective approach.
• Manufacturing Online - Advanced Manufacturing Magazine - Tomorrow's ideas at work today! - The Internet has forever changed the way that manufacturing organizations do business. The Web's global access to people, data, software, documents and multimedia have allowed organizations to shorten the development cycle for new products, decrease the costs associated with procuring parts from suppliers, and achieve lead time reductions while providing personalized service and support. But achieving success on the Internet doesn't happen without clear strategic objectives and a considerable commitment of resources. Manufacturing corporations involved in e-commerce must rethink their vision for the future, says Richard Mathieu, the author of "Manufacturing and the Internet." His article offers an overview of what leading manufactures are doing online.
• Web-Based Virtual Reality in Design and Manufacturing Applications - The term Virtual Reality (VR) initially referred to the use of immersive technologies like head-mounted displays or CAVE systems for the interactive visualization of three-dimensional environments. Today, the meaning of VR has broadened and includes semi-immersive as well as non-immersive techniques. At the core is always a three-dimensional computer model, often enhanced with functionality and behavior. VRML, the Virtual Reality Modeling Language, is a recent ISO standard that allows for the distribution of such computer models over the World Wide Web and for interactive model viewing within the framework of a regular Web browser. The Virtual Reality Laboratory at the University of Michigan has explored this revolutionary technology for collaborative applications over the Internet in support of concurrent engineering and distributed work over distances. The underlying principles of Web-based VR via VRML is described and applications in design and manufacturing tasks are illustrated by examples including ship motion simulation, virtual prototyping of sailing yachts, simulation of ship production processes, virtual factory planning, and others.
• Global Collaborative Outsourcing: How Products Will be Built in the 21st Century - If your business sells a technology-based product, dramatic changes occurring today in the entire product life cycle, in world trade, and in the global economy can turn your business upside down or exponentially accelerate its success.
  • What are these changes and their causes?
  • What can you do to avoid being capsized by these economic currents?
  • What processes and decisions will optimally leverage your product and sales cycles?
  A solution called Global Collaborative Outsourcing (GCO) may very well provide the answers. Let us examine this phenomenon more closely.
• International Outsourcing: The Legal View of What¹s Different - This article highlights legal aspects of "what¹s different" in international outsourcing. International outsourcing involves complexity and risks not found in a typical domestic outsourcing. These risks are cultural, political, financial, technological, managerial and legal.
• Tele-Manufacturing Facility Project - Our vision of the Global Information Infrastructure (GII) is as a vehicle to raise the standard of living through productivity improvements that come about by sharing information-based resources. Nowhere is a productivity increase more crucial than in mechanical product design, and in particular, manufacturing of consumer goods. In recent years, a number of industrialized nations have lost ground in what used to a major strength: the ability to design and produce consumer products quickly, cheaply, and with a level of quality that makes them competitive worldwide. This project is motivated by the belief that it is important to develop new ways of enhancing design and manufacturing productivity by taking advantage of the Internet.
  This document describes a research and development project called the Tele-Manufacturing Facility (TMF). The TMF is creating an automated rapid prototyping (RP) capability on the Internet. It is undertaking the necessary research and development to ensure that it is viable for engineers and scientists to use over long distances. One portion of the effort is the connection itself and how to allow users to easily submit jobs and have the system automatically maintain a queue. Another effort is to reduce the need for human-checking of RP part files. Rapid prototyping STL files are notorious for containing geometric and topological flaws. Special attention is being paid to automatically checking for such flaws in STL files, and in many cases, automatically fixing them.
• Zen and the Art of Information Technology - e-manufacturing is about the increasing need for communications to and from the factory floor. I have often said in this column that information is power, and that the information bottleneck, i.e., getting the right information to the right people at the right time in the right form, is a key strategic challenge for our industry. In the bad old days (more recent than you may think), the factory floor - the heart of manufacturing - was disconnected from the rest of the enterprise. There was an information blackout between the time an order entered the plant to the time product rolled off the assembly line. In this day and age of build-to-order manufacturing, an OEM must have clear and detailed visibility to every order and of the individual products within the order as they move through production, even if the contract manufacturer now owns the productive assets. In fact, for the build-to-order model to be successful, visibility down to the unit level on an "as built" basis is required throughout the extended supply chain.
• Mass Customization: How logistics makes it happen - The more things change, the more they are the same, said 19th century French writer Alphonse Karr. Karr, writing during the Industrial Revolution, was referring to the immutability of human nature in the face of social and technological change.
  Today, as society faces similar challenges, Karr's words still make sense. The human race has seen more technological change in this century than it has in the entire course of its existence, yet some aspects of human nature remain constant.
  New Supply Chain Business Models - Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are increasingly outsourcing core manufacturing operations and focusing on other strengths such as marketing, customer relationship management, or R&D. Many interconnected specialized firms are stepping up to carry out operations once completed by larger vertically integrated corporations. The reason is, once again, these three measures: time-to-market; time-to-volume; and time-to-profit. In this particular case, the solution is downstream of the design process. The electronics industry provides a dramatic example of these trends and demonstrates the evolution that other industries may also experience. Traditionally, OEMs used electronics manufacturing service (EMS) providers for capacity overflow and retained the manufacturing of printed circuit assemblies and final product assembly as core competencies. But OEMs now look to product innovation, customer and channel management, brand marketing, and sales for competitive differentiation. With the increasing complexity and cost of capital equipment, many are divesting themselves of capital-intensive manufacturing operations - thereby effectively converting fixed costs to variable costs. This allows rapid scale-up when markets are good but buffers them against economic ownturns and seasonality. EMS providers, in turn, can build similar products for competing OEMs in the same facility, thus spreading their risk across a portfolio of customers.
• Virtual Engineered Composites (VEC) - Distance and distribution complexity have long created problems for manufacturers, but today companies have new tools with which to tackle the challenges. The problem of shipping parts to where they are needed has always gotten in the way of faster cycle times. Distance creates particular challenges for companies making products from materials that are molded to make Jacuzzis, Jet Skis, automotive parts and the like -- materials such as fiberglass or plastics. Because molds are expensive and consistent quality is difficult to achieve, manufacturers requiring molded parts have been forced to rely on a handful of suppliers, adding shipping time and coordination complexities to their burdens. So imagine how life would improve for some manufacturers if high-quality molded parts could be made in a portable minifactory placed in their own backyard.
  Inventor Gene Kirila believes his system for producing molded plastic products may usher in a new era. Formerly the CEO of Pyramid Composites and now head of GK Ventures, Kirila is co-inventor with Robert McCollum of VEC cells. VECs are transportable factories for manufacturing molded parts. They run a patented manufacturing process whose operating system is best described as a controlled process-in-a-box. VEC cells provide operators with computer controls and simple visual and audio instructions that guide operators through the molding process. Because the software can be upgraded and controlled centrally over the Internet, VEC cells can deliver a consistent process regardless of where they are located or who is operating them.
• Executive Manufacturing Technologies - Information has evolved into the most potent business force on the planet. But just gathering data isn't enough. Especially in manufacturing facilities, where daily operations are often remote from corporate decision makers, who need accessible, real-time information about what's happening on the plant floor. When manufacturing intelligence is communicated instantly to all points along the supply chain, it stimulates systemic response to operational challenges. It becomes a powerful business tool - one that can bring a razor sharp edge to competitive advantage. And the consequence of not realizing the importance of a supple, system-wide corporate intelligence flow? A system that lacks the agility to respond to shifting production needs and processes. Wasted time. Wasted resources. Wasted profits. By transforming the speed and efficiency of corporate intelligence flow, EMT technologies have revolutionized manufacturing and offer a new slate of options for increasing profit, encouraging investment, and deploying human and physical resources.
• The Future of Automation Control - It's about time we put this all in perspective - we need to step back and evaluate the future of automation control not in a vacuum, but in the context of what it will do for tomorrow's manufacturing enterprise.
• Agent-Based Intelligent Manufacturing System - The intelligent manufacturing system is a solution to the problems of the 21^st century’s manufacturing industry. In this paper, the historical evolution of manufacturing industry is outlined. According to the literature published during the last decade, 34 modern manufacturing systems and production modes and 35 mathematical methods for modern manufacturing system modeling are listed and summarized. An intelligent object called Manufacturing Agent (MA) is proposed based on the conceptual model of an agent that is being discussed and studied in Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) technology, and an agent-based intelligent manufacturing system architecture is presented.
• Shape of Manufacturing - The most important technology for manufacturers in the upcoming years is software, according to a Delphi study conducted by the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (Ann Arbor, Mich.). More significantly, the types of software manufacturers will be most concerned with are those we think of as "intelligent," i.e., neural networks, autonomous agents, expert systems, chaos theory, object-oriented, etc.

  According to Dick Morley, president of Flavors Technology (Manchester, N.H.) and the keynote speaker at the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Conference held last month in Cleveland, Ohio, "Only one thing creates wealth - technology and the ability to use it. In ten years, computers will be 100 times more powerful than they are now, at one/tenth of the cost."

  Morley, a well-traveled technology futurist, expounded on the Japanese view of manufacturing in the first decade of the this century:

  • We'll see the end of mass production, with all manufacturing done at the point of consumption;
  • Concurrently, we'll see the end of centralized factory manufacturing, and the rise of fully distributed manufacturing and personal manufacturing;
  • EVERYTHING will be on the Information Superhighway.
  "Even here in the U.S., people are talking seriously now about automobiles being manufactured right at the dealership," Morley said, "in a room no larger than a typical meeting room."
• The Dynamics of Industrial Location: The Flexible Specialization Debate - Piore and Sabel's (1984) seminal book, The Great Industrial Divide, has sparked an ongoing debate regarding the nature, importance and potential of flexible specialization as a form of industrial organization. The past two decades has seen a revitalization of flexibly specialized production, specifically in the form of industrial districts organized around small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). In essence, Piore and Sable think of industrial districts in terms of populations of interacting small and specialized firms that compete and cooperate with one another in way that is conducive to growth and is highly flexible in meeting differentiated and constantly changing markets. Critics, however, reject this thesis and argue that giant multinational corporations (MNCs), are becoming more important and their structures and strategies are undermining - fragmenting - flexibly specialized industrial districts. The purpose of this note is to briefly introduce and assess the criticisms that have been directed towards the emergence of flexibly specialized industrial districts from this point of view.
• What is the State and Future of Web Connectivity in Manufacturing? - Is Web connectivity important for manufacturers? The study indicates that Web connectivity is an integral component to achieving world class manufacturing. The survey respondents were asked a number of questions regarding whether electronic (EDI and Web/Internet based) connectivity supports their supplier- and customer-facing processes. The following analysis focuses on the role of Web-based commerce from the perspective of today and tomorrow's manufacturing environment.
• Queue Systems offers connectivity between shop floor and boardroom - Queue Systems, Inc., Columbia, S.C., announced delivery of the Q-Connect product suite, a family of software and hardware products that provides connectivity for manufacturers from the shop floor to the boardroom. Through Q-Connect products, critical plant data can be moved as necessary throughout the entire manufacturing facility.
• AutomationWeb - Networks - The PC is bringing fundamental change to the manufacturing and process industries, from lab test and prototyping new systems to pilot plants and control applications. Specifically, the PC offers powerful processing, domain knowledge, and easier/lower cost connectivity to other systems such as device and fieldbus networks.
• Harnessing the Power of the Internet to Create Design-to-Order Manufacturing 'Communities' - How does a firm offer a cost-sensitive value proposition to its customers while contending with pressures to improve efficiencies and better the bottom line? How will manufacturers compete, as customers demand products built my way? Traditional manufacturing values associated with mass production are rapidly giving way to mass customization, ultimately leading to a customer-tailored, customer-demand-driven manufacturing model.
• The Information Society - The information society model claims that the new information hegemony is transforming industrial society. But is it not the case that the major change has to do with the increasingly greater integration of information and communication into the functioning of the economy and society, in the submission of information and communication to the operative rules of industrial society, in sum, in the commodification of information, culture, and communication? Rather than a "post-industrial society," the period of transition which we are experiencing consists more modestly in the shift from one industrial mode of organization to another mode of industrial organization, that is, from Fordism to Gatesism.
  ... With developments in informatics, production cannot only be automated, but mass production can be replaced by production on demand. Distribution can be made "just-in-time," and inventories can be managed much more efficiently. No doubt there will be profound changes to production norms. But the organization of work will also be turned upside down, and little is known about how to deal with the consequences.
• Scaling for Hypergrowth: Site Selection Challenges for High-Tech Manufacturers - Hypergrowth at many global, high-tech manufacturers presents new challenges for corporate decision-makers contemplating future space requirements. Huge capital investment decisions must be made and new manufacturing plants, R&D, and engineering centers must be located and developed in an environment of continuous change and uncertainty.
• The Technology Machine - The Technology Machine will drive manufacturing in 2020. That machine will be built on intelligence, simplicity and distributed manufacturing networks. It will not be driven by lean stripped down entities whose technology skills are minimal and whose obsessive focus is on workforce issues.
• Holonic Manufacturing Systems - The task of the Holonic Manufacturing Systems (HMS) consortium is to translate the concepts that Koestler developed for social organizations and living organisms into a set of appropriate concepts for manufacturing industries. The goal of this work is to attain in manufacturing the benefits that holonic organization provides to living organisms and societies, e.g., stability in the face of disturbances, adaptability and flexibility in the face of change, and efficient use of available resources.
• 21st Century Manufacturing - The successful companies in the 21st Century will provide mass customization at the quality level and cost demanded by ever-changing customer needs. They will reinvent themselves and their processes on the fly. Leaders will forever relinquish their need to control a business and begin to shepherd the interactions which must occur between the people of their organization to meet the increased demands from their customers.
• The case study of the New York garment industry: Development of core-periphery forms of organization: Some lessons from the New York garment industry - International Institute for Labour Studies - The core-periphery framework can be applied in a variety of ways, as illustrated by the diversity of empirical studies mentioned above. Because core-periphery systems are organized on the basis of tasks and employment differentiation within a given production process, the case study focuses on one industry. This choice should enhance the visibility of core-periphery systems by highlighting the organization of work, within firms and between firms, in the production process of a given product. In addition, a specific industry provides a research setting homogeneous enough to identify key economic and social dynamics supporting the diffusion of new organizational forms. However, the general features of the core-periphery model may materialize quite differently from one industry to the other.
• Cities in the New Global Economy - The work of Scott and others who point to manufacturing as the driving force of economic change (including Gordon Clark, Steven Cohen and John Zysman, Piore and Sabel, and Michael Storper) is certainly a corrective to the view that advanced services are the only important part of urban economies. Differences in the structure of local manufacturing economies may explain why some cities have more inequality than others.
• NEON and Commerce One Team to Provide Integration Infrastructure for Manufacturing Supply-Chain - Commerce One MarketSite Direct Material Services will use NEON e-Business integration technology to offer flexible, expanded communication between Commerce One partners and connectivity with advanced planning and scheduling systems.
• The Future of Rapid Prototyping
• Search Results for the Industrial Revolution
• The Concept Of Virtual Technopoles And The Feasibility Of Incubating Technology-Intensive Clusters in Latin-America and the Caribbean
• Globalization and Deindustrialization: Direct Investment and the Decline of Manufacturing Employment in 17 OECD Nations
• Nanotechnology: The Coming Revolution In Molecular Manufacturing
• Research on Industry Evolution by Kenneth L. Simons
• Supply Chain Modeling Software
• Molecular Manufacturing Shortcut Group (MMSG)
• Virtual Manufacturing Enterprise
• The Electronics Industry in Korea
• Virtual Manufacturing Village
• International Manufacturing Home Page
• Stories, Strategies, Structures: Rethinking Historical Alternatives to Mass Production
• Two Views of the British Industrial Revolution
• The Outsourcing Institute Top Ten Reasons to Outsource
• IRL Project: Intelligent Manufacturing
• Integrated Manufacturing And Development Environment Information Technologies
• The Rapid Prototyping Homepage
• The Personal Factory
• Intelligent Manufacturing Systems
• The Coordination of Global Manufacturing
• Outsourcing in the Scottish Highlands
• Where is North American Automobile Production Headed: Low-Wage Lean Production
• What is the Virtual Factory?
• Manufacturing and the NII
• What Next? The Coming Revolution In Manufacturing
• Manufacturing and the National Information Infrastructure
• Spatial Aspects of Product Data Management (PDM)
• Vision of the Future of Manufacturing
• Agile Infrastructure for Manufacturing Systems (AIMS)
• Silicon mountains, silicon molehills: Geographic concentration and convergence of Internet Industries in the US - a pdf download.

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