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C O M P A R I S O N S & A N A L Y S E S
O F U.S. & G L O B A L E C O N O M I C D A T A & T R E N D S
Subproject E:
Advanced Technology and the
Future of U.S. Manufacturing
Manufacturing Extension Partnership
P14171.001
April 2004
C O M P A R I S O N S & A N A L Y S E S
O F U.S. & G L O B A L E C O N O M I C D A T A & T R E N D S
Subproject E:
Advanced Technology and the
Future of U.S. Manufacturing
Manufacturing Extension Partnership
P14171.001
April 2004
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Advanced Technology
and the Future of U.S. Manufacturing
Proceedings of a Georgia Tech research and policy workshop
Edited by
Philip Shapira, Jan Youtie, and Aselia Urmanbetova
Georgia Tech Policy Project on Industrial Modernization
School of Public Policy and the Georgia Tech Economic Development Institute
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332-0345, USA
SRI International, Prime Contractor
Center for Science Technology and Economic Development
Arlington, VA 22209-3915, USA
April 2004, Revised May 2004
All opinions, findings, or recommendations expressed in this report are those of individual
authors and discussants as presented in a workshop and do not necessarily reflect the views of
the Manufacturing Extension Partnership or the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
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Table of Contents
Preface.............................................................................................................................................. i
Summary........................................................................................................................................ iv
Participants in the Workshop on Advanced Technology and the Future of U.S. Manufacturing .. x
1. A Brief History of the Future of Manufacturing: U.S. Manufacturing Technology Forecasts in
Retrospective, 1950-present........................................................................................................ 1
2. Technological Opportunities to Develop New Capabilities: Manufacturing, Strategic
Engineering, Adaptive Technologies, and Controls................................................................. 28
2.1. Manufacturing Directions from Manufacturing Research Center (MARC) Perspective .. 28
2.2. Strategic Engineering on the Integrated Design of Products and Processes...................... 31
2.3. Additive Manufacturing Technologies: Opportunities for Customization, Flexibility,
Complexity, and Simplicity................................................................................................ 34
2.4. Future Trends in Machine Tools and Controls and their Potential Impacts on U.S.
Manufacturing..................................................................................................................... 44
2.5. Discussion of Panel Presentations. Technological Opportunities to Develop New
Capabilities: Manufacturing, Strategic Engineering, Adaptive Technologies, and Controls
............................................................................................................................................. 49
3. Panel on Technological Opportunities to Develop New Capabilities: Microelectronics,
Nanotechnology, Medical Devices........................................................................................... 52
3.1. Technological Prospects for Microelectronics................................................................... 52
3.2. What is Nanotechnology? And How Will This Small Wonder Make a Big Change in
Manufacturing?................................................................................................................... 55
3.3. Advances in Materials and Self-assembly......................................................................... 65
3.4. Medical Devices and Global Manufacturing..................................................................... 69
3.5. Discussion of Panel Presentations. Technological Opportunities to Develop New
Capabilities: Microelectronics, Nanotechnology, Medical Devices................................... 72
4. Organizing Manufacturing to Compete at Global Scales......................................................... 74
4.1. New Opportunities in Logistics: Technology and Trucking.............................................. 74
4.2. Futures for Traditional Industries: Strategic Issues in the Pulp and Paper Industry in
Georgia................................................................................................................................ 84
4.3. Human Side of Manufacturing Technology: Demographic Changes, Training Needs and
Skill Gaps............................................................................................................................ 98
4.4. Discussion of Panel Presentations. Organizing Manufacturing to Compete at Global
Scales ................................................................................................................................ 108
5. Concluding Comments............................................................................................................ 110
5.1. Reflections on the History of the Future of Manufacturing Technology......................... 110
5.2. Discussion........................................................................................................................ 111
5.3. Closing Remarks.............................................................................................................. 113
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i
Preface
Philip Shapira, Jan Youtie, and Aselia Urmanbetova
Attention to the technological capabilities of U.S. manufacturing is enduring theme for business
and policy. Since early industrialization, U.S. manufacturing competitiveness has been founded
on the development and adoption of advanced technologies, innovative processes, and novel
management practices. In recent decades, concerns about global competition, the pace of
innovation and discovery, and the prospects for industrial jobs and skills have stimulated further
efforts to look to technology as a remedy to sustaining the position of the U.S. as a competitive
base for manufacturing.
Traditionally, policy-makers view manufacturing from the view of jobs, production, and trade
balances. From this perspective, the current state of American manufacturing raises concerns.
In particular, U.S. manufacturing lost 2.8 million jobs in the period 2001-2003, while its
manufacturing trade deficit with the rest of the world has continued to grow. These
developments reflect a mixture of cyclical and structural trends. For example, we know that
manufacturing employment tends to increase during economic expansions and decrease during
downturns. Indeed, during the 1990s economic upturn, U.S. manufacturing employment grew
from 16.8 million jobs in 1992 to 17.3 million jobs in 2000, but then fell to 14.5 million jobs in
2003. We also know that the modern peak of manufacturing employment was 19.4 million jobs
– achieved almost a quarter of a century ago in 1979. Yet, while these headline job numbers
indicate that U.S. manufacturing sector employment has significantly declined since the
beginning of the 1980s, the underlying story is more complex. Over the long run, U.S.
manufacturing output and productivity have both increased tremendously – primarily because of
enhancements in technological capabilities. Real output per hour per worker in American
manufacturing was more than four times greater in 2000 than fifty years earlier. However,
manufacturing’s share of total U.S. economic output (measured as a proportion of gross domestic
product) has consistently declined, from about 30 percent in 1950 to 15 percent in 2000, due to
the great expansion of service sectors. At the same time, it is also clear that in the 21
st
century,
these statistical categories are less relevant now than they were in the middle of the last century.
Manufacturing today involves significant contributions from activities counted in the services
sector, including research, development, engineering, finance, advertising, maintenance,
logistics, and other business-oriented functions. It is also worth noting that long-run
employment losses in manufacturing coupled with increased productivity have been experienced
not only in the U.S. but in most other industrial countries, as well as in developing countries
(including, surprisingly, China). Moreover, we are now increasingly appreciative that service
jobs, like their manufacturing predecessors, can be outsourced too.
As we reflect on such current trends and seek to think forward, it seems that the future of
manufacturing in the United States will hinge increasingly on capabilities to develop, deploy,
and commercialize new products, processes, organizational structures, human skills, and
management practices. And all this is in the context of increasingly capable international
competition and globalization of trade and technology. To be sure, the innovative American
“factory” of the future will surely not look like the large American factory of the 1950s, with its
assembly-line processes and cadres of routine shop-floor and administrative workers. But what
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will the American factory of the future look like? What will be its competitive edge, and what
systems of research, production, supply, and distribution will it use? And, who will work in it?
To try to answer these kinds of questions, we assembled an interdisciplinary group of leading
researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in January 2004. Coming from
fields which included science and engineering, management, economic development, and public
policy, we asked the group to stretch beyond the short-term business cycle and the immediate
economic issues – to discuss and debate longer-run opportunities for manufacturing in the United
States and to consider the role that advanced technology and innovation might play in creating
this future. We challenged workshop participants with this set of specific questions and issues:
• What are the next generation manufacturing technologies? How have technologies evolved
to date, how might they emerge in the future? Who are among the leaders in the research,
development, and application of these technologies?
• What are the potential impacts of next generation technology on future U.S. manufacturing
capability? How can these technologies be used to enhance manufacturing competitiveness
and to sustain the manufacturing base in the United States?
• How will next generation technologies change the profile of what we know today as
manufacturing industry? What will be the impacts on direct and indirect labor? On
advanced service inputs? On the form and attributes of manufactured products? On
suppliers? On what we consider as manufacturing enterprise? On value-added services
associated with manufactures?
• To what extent can small and midsized manufacturers benefit from these future technologies?
How can existing SMEs enhance their competitiveness through these technologies? What
are the potentials for new small firm start-up ventures?
• To what extent can traditional industries (e.g., textiles, pulp and paper) benefit from these
future technologies? How can traditional industries enhance their competitiveness through
these technologies?
• What organizational structures need to be in place for these technologies to be widely
adopted or leveraged to enhance competitiveness? What changes are needed in management
strategies?
• What impact do these technologies have on the future manufacturing workforce? Does
adoption of new technologies always mean fewer manufacturing employees? What human
capabilities and skills will the future manufacturing workforce possess?
• To what extent will next generation manufacturing technologies be successfully implemented
in the United States? What are the risks that these technologies will be implemented
elsewhere? What kinds of linkages will U.S. manufacturing need to establish with other
global manufacturing locations to best take advantage of next generation technologies?
• What are the constraints and threats to the adoption of next generation technologies?
• What public policies, relationships, and programs need to be in place to address constraints
and threats and to foster the adoption of these technologies?
The papers and discussion comments contained in these proceedings summarize the various
ways in which workshop participants responded to these questions. No participant was able to
address all issues in a single presentation, but collectively the workshop shed significant light
on the posited questions and indicated a series of current and prospective technological
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opportunities, strategies, and challenges for U.S. manufacturing. After an opening review of five
decades of studies on U.S. manufacturing and technological opportunities, panelists presented
papers on future trends and impacts of a series of emerging technologies in manufacturing as
well as on issues of manufacturing organization, logistics, and workforce. These presentations
are included in the proceedings, along with summaries of discussion comments.
The workshop was held at Georgia Tech on January 30, 2004, as part of a project on U.S.
manufacturing trends that a team of researchers from SRI International and Georgia Tech are
undertaking for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (MEP, Manufacturing
Futures Group). The Georgia Tech team was led by Professor Philip Shapira (School of Public
Policy) and Dr. Jan Youtie (Economic Development and Technology Ventures). We gratefully
acknowledge support from the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program of the
National Institutes of Standards and Technology, under award number SB1341-03-Z-0014. Any
opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this report are those of the
authors and discussants and do not necessarily reflect the views of the MEP.
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Summary
In January 2004, an interdisciplinary workshop was held at Georgia Institute of Technology
(Georgia Tech) which brought together a group of eighteen researchers, policy analysts, and
technology program managers to examine the potential impacts and trajectories of advanced
emerging technologies on the future of U.S. manufacturing.
The group considered a range of next generation emerging manufacturing technologies,
including nanoscience and its applications in microelectronics and medicine and new
developments in rapid prototyping, machine tools, distributed production and supply chain
technologies, and logistics. These emerging technologies were discussed in the context of the
current and anticipated position of U.S. manufacturing in the global economy and the sector’s
current and prospective challenges and opportunities. Additionally, participants explored the
implications of these technologies for new forms and modes of business operations, internal and
external business linkages, supply chains, and educational and training programs.
Drawing on historical as well as current developments, workshop participants discussed issues
about how these technologies will affect the workforce, whether public policies adequately
respond to technological opportunities, and what types of programs should emerge to advance
technological developments and enhance their impact on U.S. manufacturing and business
operations.
In the opening paper of the workshop, “A Brief History of the Future of Manufacturing: U.S.
Manufacturing Technology Forecasts in Retrospective, 1950-present,” Professor Philip Shapira
of the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy reviewed past manufacturing technology forecasts
over the last five decades. This paper was co-authored with Jan Youtie, Aselia Urmanbetova, and
Jue Wang. Shapira observed that new technology has frequently been seen as both a remedy and
a threat: in the manufacturing sector, it has aided substantial improvements in manufacturing
productivity and quality, yet at the same time it has generated concerns about impacts on the
number, type, skill requirements, and location of manufacturing jobs. Currently, the technologies
anticipated to be influential in the future of manufacturing include molecular and nano-
manufacturing, biomaterials and bio-processing, microelectromechanical systems, free-form
fabrication, and new software control technologies. However, it was noted that predictions as to
how technology will evolve in future periods have had mixed records of fulfillment. Some
manufacturing technologies have not fulfilled expectations (e.g., integration technologies in the
1980s) whereas others have greatly exceeded expected adoption rates (e.g., the Internet in the
1990s). Moreover, technology forecasts did not occur in a vacuum; they were always conjoined
with projections about how to manage these technologies, global responses to these technologies,
and the impact they will have on employment and skill. Here, Shapira noted the emphasis on
innovation, knowledge management, customer relationships, and life-cycle waste reduction as
among the organizing concepts expected to be prominent in the future period.
The ways in which manufacturing systems have changed in the past and are likely to change in
the future were discussed by Steven Danyluk, Director of the Georgia Tech Manufacturing
Research Center and Professor of Mechanical Engineering in his paper on “Technological
Opportunities to Develop New Capabilities: Manufacturing, Strategic Engineering, Adaptive
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Technologies, and Controls.” The three most significant trends are: (1) movement away from
mass production towards semi-customization, (2) shifts away from centralized production
location towards distributed production sites, and (3) transformation of centralized business
control towards corporate collaboration between production sites. These changes have been
anticipated by the research community, which has responded by investigating how
manufacturing could embrace advances in molecular sciences, and how the new forms of
manufacturing could be enhanced by intelligent web-based data management systems that
embrace supply chain systems within and between complex multi-site manufacturers.
A new vision of engineering was offered by Farrokh Mistree, Georgia Tech Professor of
Mechanical Engineering, in “Strategic Engineering on the Integrated Design of Products and
Processes.” Mistree argued that strategic engineering is a comprehensive approach for designing
products and processes that efficiently and effectively accommodate changing markets and
associated customer requirements, and technological innovations in a collaborative, distributed
environment while safeguarding the economic viability of a company. Additionally, strategic
engineering considers global outlook. The main requirements for successful strategic
engineering are people who are highly trained in traditional engineering-related sciences and
well-versed in disciplines that enhance one’s ability to evaluate the general trends and needs of
manufacturing within the governmental and global contexts.
New products and processes may change the roles of traditional consumers and producers,
according to Professor David Rosen of the School of Mechanical Engineering and the
Manufacturing Research Center at Georgia Tech in “Additive Manufacturing Technologies:
Opportunities for Customization, Flexibility, Complexity, and Simplicity.” Additive
manufacturing (AM) is the usage of layer-based “rapid prototyping” (RP) technologies for
manufacturing. Additive manufacturing, through customized geometry and functionality, makes
it possible for end users to participate in the design of fully customized products such as hearing
aids, dental alignments and other dental restorations, eye glasses and lenses, and joint
replacements. In the near-term, new AM applications will continue to take advantage of the
shape complexity capabilities for economical low production volume manufacturing. Longer
timeframes will see an emergence of applications that reflect more functional and material
complexity. As AM technologies improve, the number of machines will increase and their costs
will decrease. Since AM technologies are capable of fabricating complex shapes and potentially
highly functional devices, it becomes possible to embody an entire manufacturing system within
a single, small machine. Rosen predicts that AM machines will begin to be used in the home in
less than 10 years.
Professor of Mechanical Engineering Steven Y. Liang, in “Future Trends in Machine Tools and
Controls and their Potential Impacts on U.S. Manufacturing,” outlined the challenges currently
faced by the U.S. machining tools industry. The U.S. has experienced the world’s largest drop in
machine tool production, almost 36% from 2001-2002, which occurred in parallel with a
significant decline in R&D spending. Liang suggests that U.S. machine tooling can be sustained
through increased research and development in areas such as precision cutting, microscale free-
form magnetoabrasive machining, and microscale machine tools. Increased collaborations
between industry, government, and academia could result in further new technology, new
product, and new process technologies for the machine tool industry.
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Moving to the world of micro- and nanotechnology, Jim Meindl’s “Technological Prospects for
Microelectronics” described the future prospects of microelectronics in one word:
nanoelectronics. Meindl is Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Director of the
Microelectronics Research Center at Georgia Tech. Drawing the analogy of steel as the major
structural material that drove the industrial revolution, Meindl pointed to the importance of
silicon as the principal material of the information revolution in the second half of the 20th
century. The advances of the last four decades enabled improvements in silicon microchip
production by one trillion times with virtually constant costs. Meindl’s expectation is that, with
continued transistor size reductions and increases in silicon wafer diameter, by 2020 there will be
chips containing one trillion transistors. This will become possible when the 100-nanometer
minimum feature size is reduced to 10 nanometers within the next 20 years. The challenge for
U.S. silicon manufacturers is to maintain their primary position in innovation and development.
Zong Lin Wang’s paper “What is Nanotechnology? And How Will This Small Wonder Make a
Big Change in Manufacturing?” conceptualized nanotechnology as based not only on nano-size
but also on size-induced novel, unique and significantly improved physical, chemical, and
biological properties, phenomena, and processes of materials and systems. Wang is Professor of
Materials Science and Engineering and Director of the Georgia Tech Center for Nanoscience and
Nanotechnology. Wang observes that these distinctive nanoscale properties make nanomaterials
very different from materials observed and manipulated at larger scales. Nanotechnology could
impact the production of virtually every human-made object – from automobiles and electronics
to advanced diagnostics, surgery, advanced medicines, and tissue and bone replacements. By
using structures at nanoscale as a tunable physical variable, we can greatly expand the range of
performance of existing chemicals and materials. Entirely new biological sensors based on self-
assembled monolayers can facilitate early diagnostics and disease prevention of cancers.
Switching devices and functional units at nanoscale can improve computer storage and operation
capacity by a factor of a million. Nanomanufacturing technologies are produced using massive
parallel systems via self-assembly. Current research focuses on using nanoscience to discover
new materials, phenomena, characterization of tools, and fabricating nanodevices.
Nanomanufacturing represents the future impact of nanotechnology for human civilization. For
successful implementation, nanomanufacturing needs standardized measurements at the atomic
level molecular-scale manipulation and assembly, and micro-to-millimeter-scale manufacturing
technologies.
Traditionally, manufacturing has been viewed as an engineering field. Nanomanufacturing
requires capability beyond engineering in fields such as mechanics, electrical engineering,
physics, chemistry, biology, and biomedical engineering. Thus nanomanufacturing requires not
only innovative research and development, but also a new educational system for training future
scientists and engineers.
Professor Rina Tannenbaum of the Georgia Tech School of Materials Science and Engineering
in her paper on “Advances in Materials and Self-assembly” described self-assembly as the
process of starting at the nano level and building up to the micro level. Small changes in size at
the nanoscale can produce large changes in reactivity and chemical properties of materials,
which leads to selective depositing of material-specific functional group characteristics that can
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be used for molecular recognition in a variety of ways. Three main areas for future applications
(1) nanocomputers that utilize nanotubes as interconnections replacing today’s transistors, (2)
controlled drug delivery, and (3) optoelectronic materials that are created out of block polymers.
Nanoscale manufacturing faces several challenges to produce these future applications including
providing for special manufacturing environment equipment; meeting high costs of maintenance,
equipment, and raw materials; controlling for production time horizons (some nanoscale
processes can take days or weeks); developing quality control mechanisms or enhancing the
ability to fix problems in small scale; and defining ways to integrate small nano devices into
macro world.
In “Medical Devices and Global Manufacturing,” David Ku indicated that medical devices
constitute the largest industry group within the entire medical technologies sector, accounting for
$40 billion in value globally with half of that attributed to the United States. Ku is Regents
Professor of Management and Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. He observes that the
medical device industry’s complex production processes favor manufacturing locations in high-
wage regions, particularly those with well-established metalworking capability, although future
materials innovations may impact this linkage between metalworking and devices. Devices that
are less invasive, more cost-effective, and require shorter recovery and rehabilitation time define
the future of the medical device industry to the extent that manufacturing systems capable of
producing highly-customized products for different types of populations come to fruition.
Chip White, Professor in the Georgia Tech School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, drew
on his paper “New Opportunities in Logistics: Technology and Trucking” to portray
developments in trucking logistics technologies and the challenges that emerge from different
adoption levels. The U.S. trucking industry transports more than three-quarters of the freight in
the country. There are two main forces that drive the industry: the 1980’s era just-in-time
manufacturing that requires higher time and load precision on the part of carriers, and the 2000’s
era just-in-case policies to meet sudden supply chain disruptions. Additionally, trucking
companies have to meet regulations in emissions, ergonomics, and diesel fuel. The operating
environments undergo tremendous shifts for the driver, the fleet manager, and the firm as new
technologies are offered. Many of these new technologies address security, emissions,
ergonomics, fuel efficiency, and information and communications areas. Fleets differ in their
levels of technology adoption and utilization. Adopting a technology before the fleet and the
firm is ready for it can be as detrimental as waiting too long to adopt it. The challenge of the
future for the trucking industry is to incorporate technological advances at just the right time so
that the benefits from the use of technology can be fully accrued, but not so late as to lose
competitive advantage.
In presenting his work “Futures for Traditional Industries: Strategic Issues in the Pulp and Paper
Industry in Georgia” with Alan Porter and Alisa Kongthon, Charles Estes emphasized the
importance and relative weight that traditional industries still have in the U.S. economy. Estes is
Manager of the Traditional Industries Program with the Georgia Tech Economic Development
Institute. Faced with declining demand and employment, such traditional industries as pulp and
paper, textiles and carpet, and food processing, are becoming key focal points for local and state
governments in their effort to maintain dynamic/healthy employment and output growth within
their constituencies. Georgia’s Traditional Industries Program (TIP) is one such policy effort.
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Overall, the TIP program receives about $3.4 million a year to fund about 40 research projects
annually that address common issues and encourage innovation in pulp and paper, textiles and
carpet, and food processing sectors. In the case of the pulp and paper industry, there are about
550 mills employing 175,000 workers in the U.S. that generate $100 billion in shipments or 30
percent of global production. In Georgia, pulp and paper accounts for about $10 billion in
annual shipments and 30,000 employees. The U.S. pulp and paper industry faces increasing
cost-based competition in a mature, slow growth, high capital intensive environment. More and
more of these firms are consolidating to maintain production output and profitability. It is
important to be able to apply technological innovation not just to high tech firms, but also to
these traditional industries. The paper describes a forecasting and planning process that identifies
research that results in more cost-efficient production processes, reduction of environmental
byproducts, and biotechnology-generated replacement of virgin pulp.
Public Policy Professor Cheryl Leggon’s “Human Side of Manufacturing Technology:
Demographic Changes, Training Needs and Skill Gaps” pointed out that it can be difficult to
predict workforce needs because technological forecasts are not always accurate. Given that the
workforce is becoming more diverse (with higher percentages of women and minorities), is
aging (as the baby boomer cohort approaches retirement), and will be affected by some varied
degree of technology-induced job dislocation, Leggon makes the case for restructuring training
to instill more specialized skills, capabilities to work in an environment that requires flexibility,
and transferable competencies.
In his role as a discussant, Professor Robert McMath of the School of History, Technology, and
Society at Georgia Tech employed an historical perspective to identify three themes emerging
from the workshop. The first theme deals with mass customization and flexible manufacturing.
McMath notes that flexible production recalls the manufacturing modes used prior to the first
industrial revolution that were based around “communities of practice” working in a common
industry and location. The second theme addresses the need for leadership—a new type of
engineer—capable of realizing the promise of nanotechnology to create the next technological
revolution in much the same way that past leaders utilized technology to foment the first
industrial revolution. The third theme has to do with consideration of the social and policy
impacts of technological progress. Technology is typically associated with a reduction in labor
and increased emphasis on research and development capabilities. The need for policies to assist
the rest of the workforce in making employment transitions is heightened against the backdrop of
concern about global competition, outsourcing production, and the current downturn in the
manufacturing sector.
In summary, the workshop highlighted several paths for manufacturing’s technological future in
the United States. To fulfill increasing demand for widescale product customization,
manufacturing is becoming less vertically centralized and integrated and more widely
distributed. Managing and coordinating production in this environment has the potential for
stimulating a range of technologies such as Web based intelligent systems and technologies in
the logistics area to deal with security checks, emissions, ergonomics, fuel efficiency, and
information and communications. Future opportunities lie in creating the services as well as the
technologies to accomplish this management and coordination function.
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A second path is focused on high value niche areas for manufacturing. The medical devices
industry is an example of a high margin business that manufactures with higher wage, skilled
U.S. workers that can work with sophisticated equipment to fulfill stringent quality standards. It
is interesting that today’s medical device companies depend on traditional technologies and skills
in the metalworking sector, even as the industry is among the current and future users of additive
manufacturing technologies that apply rapid prototyping and sterolithography to create highly
customized products. The future of manufacturing will also rest on the ability of future high
value niche areas to be identified, innovated, and exploited.
The third path places attention toward revolutionary opportunities generated by advances in
nanotechnology. Highly miniaturized, functional, and efficient electronics devices, and precise
and selective biomolecular materials are part of this future. At the same time, it is not yet well
known how to manufacture nanomaterials and how to integrate nano- and large-scale
manufacturing. Advancing these developments depends on the ability to foster multidisciplinary
interconnections between researchers in a range of scientific and engineering disciplines,
business managers, policy makers, and educators. A new type of engineer that combines
generalist, leadership, and technical capabilities is envisioned to provide a bridge between
business, policy, and technical worlds.
History has shown that technological outcomes are not always easy to forecast, witness 1980s-
era predictions about the fully automated and integrated shop floor. Nevertheless it does appear
that there are a set of next generation technologies around mass customization and flexible
production, high-value niche areas, and nanotechnology that have the potential to sustain and
advance U.S. manufacturing in the future. This workshop raised an important risk to the ability
to advance these technologies in the United States. Global competitors are also working in these
same technological areas. In addition to industrialized nations, countries such as China and India
are developing very competitive indigenous research, engineering, education, and training
capabilities.
Innovation and discovery alone are not sufficient to implement next generation manufacturing
technology in the United States. The workshop highlighted the need for organizational strategies,
structures, leadership, and workforce training to bridge fields, provide linking services, and make
the interconnections necessary to commercialize and upgrade these technologies. Policies and
programs are essential to transferring new soft practices, as well as relevant next generation
technologies, to traditional industries and SMEs. Workshop participants agreed that it is vitally
important that such frameworks of supporting factors and policies are put in place to ensure that
next generation manufacturing technologies are not only developed but effectively deployed in
the U.S.
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Participants in the Workshop on Advanced Technology and the
Future of U.S. Manufacturing
1
David Cheney, SRI International, Arlington, VA
Steven Danyluk, Director, Manufacturing Research Center, Professor, School of Mechanical
Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Rick Duke, Director, Economic Development Institute, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta,
GA
Ned Ellington, Leader, Manufacturing Futures Group, Manufacturing Extension Partnership,
National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
Charles Estes, Program Manager, Traditional Industries Program, Economic Development
Institute, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
David Ku, Professor, DuPree College of Management, School of Mechanical Engineering,
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Cheryl Leggon, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology,
Atlanta, GA
Steven Liang, Professor, School of Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Research Center,
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Robert McMath, Professor, School of History, Technology, and Society, Georgia Institute of
Technology, Atlanta, GA
Jim Meindl, Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Chair in
Microelectronics, Director, Microelectronics Research Center, Georgia Institute of Technology,
Atlanta, GA
Farrokh Mistree, Professor, School of Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Research Center,
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
David Rosen, Associate Professor, School of Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing Research
Center, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Philip Shapira, Professor, School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Rina Tannenbaum, Associate Professor, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia
Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
1
The workshop was held at the Economic Development Institute, Technology Square, Georgia Institute of
Technology, January 30, 2004.
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Marie Thursby, Professor, College of Management, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta,
GA
ZL Wang, Professor, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Director, Center for
Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Electron Microscopy Center, Georgia Institute of
Technology, Atlanta, GA
Chip White, Professor, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of
Technology, Atlanta, GA
Jan Youtie, Principal Research Associate, Economic Development Institute, Georgia Institute of
Technology, Atlanta, GA
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1
A Brief History of the Future of Manufacturing: U.S. Manufacturing
Technology Forecasts in Retrospective, 1950-present
Jan Youtie, Philip Shapira, Aselia Urmanbetova, and Jue Wang
1
1.1
Introduction
Since the days of Eli Whitney and the emergence of the “American system of
manufactures” in the early nineteenth century, U.S. manufacturing competitiveness has been
founded on the development and adoption of advanced technologies, innovative processes, and
novel management practices. Attention to the technological capabilities of U.S. manufacturing
has continued as an enduring theme through to the present. Indeed, in recent decades, concerns
about global competition, the pace of innovation and discovery, and the prospects for industrial
jobs and skills have stimulated many efforts to look to the future and the promise of technology
as a remedy to sustaining the position of the U.S. as a competitive base for manufacturing.
This paper examines a series of forecasts about manufacturing technologies and business
practices from the 1950s forward to today. This brief history of manufacturing’s anticipated
future is offered to provide context – and perhaps some moderation – to current assessments
about the relationship of new technology and manufacturing. As is often the case in
technological forecasting, a look back over the last five decades confirms that there have been
many widely anticipated technologies that have resulted in unfulfilled expectations. In other
cases, the pace and extent of adoption for some technologies has greatly exceeded initial
expectations. For example, the 1980s promoted intensive expectations about the integration and
control of shop floor functions, which did not come to fruition to the extent predicted (i.e., fully
automated factories). On the other hand, early predictions about Internet technologies were far
outstripped by rapid rates of email, Web, and network adoption, which in turn has led to
significant changes throughout all aspects of the manufacturing process. A similar
transformational trajectory is foreseen in recent predictions about nanotechnology and biological
materials; this molecular perspective on materials has now supplanted the chemical view of
future materials (i.e., polymers and ceramics) that was dominant in 1980s-era forecasts.
We begin the paper by first offering a summary overview of long-run output, share of
value-added, productivity, and employment trends in the U.S. manufacturing base. This is
followed by a discussion of selected technology forecasts and predictions in reports published in
successive decades from 1950 through to 2000. The publications that we discuss in the paper
were identified, in part, through search terms such as the “future of manufacturing,” “future
factory,” “critical technologies,” “next generation manufacturing,” “technology foresight,” and
“technology road mapping.” We focused on publications with relatively near term forecasts (10
years or less), rather than highly futuristic predictions. The publications’ analyses and
1
Jan Youtie is a Senior Research Associate in the Economic Development Institute at Georgia Tech. Philip Shapira
is a Professor in the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech. Jue Wang and Aselia Urmanbetova are Ph.D. students
in the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech and research associates with the Georgia Tech Policy Project on
Industrial Modernization.
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predictions, summarized in Appendix 1 (at the end of this paper) are organized into five main
areas: economic environment, current manufacturing technologies, predicted future
manufacturing technologies, management practices, and workforce trends.
1.2
Developments in the U.S. Manufacturing Base: the Long Run
The loss of 2.7 million manufacturing jobs in the last three years (Bureau of Labor Statistics,
2004) has focused attention on the sharp short-term decline in U.S. manufacturing employment
and output since the start of the economic downturn in 2001. However, viewed over the long-
run, the picture is more complex. In fact, manufacturing output has increased considerably in the
second half of the twentieth century. Manufacturing output (inflation-adjusted value of industry
output) in the U.S. has increased in every one of the last five decades through to 2000 (Table
1.1). The 1960s was the decade of the largest average annual percentage growth in
manufacturing output, followed by the 1970s and 1990s. Since the 1960s, average annual
growth in durable goods (which includes metal and wood products, machinery, cars, and
electronics) has outpaced the growth of non-durable goods (which includes food, textiles,
apparel, paper, chemicals, and plastics). This difference was especially marked over the last
decade. In 1990, the difference between durable and non-durable output, indexed to 1950, was
only 78.4 index points; by 2000, durable output had outscored non-durable output by 260 index
points (See Chart 1.1).
Table 1.1 Manufacturing Output, Productivity, and Employment
(Average Compound Growth Rates for the Decades)
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Output
Total Manufacturing
2.95%
4.94%
3.75%
2.81%
3.73%
-2.70%
Durables
2.76%
5.98%
4.67%
3.18%
5.30%
-3.20%
Nondurables
3.27%
3.95%
2.60%
2.25%
1.99%
-2.20%
Productivity (output per hour)
Total Manufacturing
2.07%
2.78%
2.85%
2.85%
3.78%
4.14%
Durables
1.27%
3.21%
3.30%
3.40%
5.00%
4.73%
Nondurables
3.09%
2.63%
2.45%
2.05%
2.54%
3.14%
Employment
Total Manufacturing
1.00%
2.08%
0.95%
-0.45%
-0.24%
-5.84%
Durables
1.57%
2.57%
1.42%
-0.66%
0.10%
-6.46%
Nondurables
0.24%
1.34%
0.19%
-0.12%
-0.77%
-4.80%
Services
2.27%
3.44%
3.22%
2.67%
2.22%
0.29%
Output and productivity indexed to 1992 dollars. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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Despite the large growth in real output in the U.S., the manufacturing sector’s share of the whole
economy (manufacturing value-added measured as percentage of the total gross domestic
product or GDP) decreased from almost 30% in the 1950’s to only 15% in 2000. In this most
recent year, durable goods accounted for about 10% of the U.S. GDP, while non-durable goods
contributed a little over 5%, with both showing consistent declines in their share of the national
economy in every one of the past five decades (See Chart 1.2). In other words, while the real
Chart 1.1 Manufacturing Output Index, 1950-2000
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
1
950
1
952
1
954
1
956
1
958
1
960
1
962
1
964
1
966
1
968
1
970
1
972
1
974
1
976
1
978
1
980
1
982
1
984
1
986
1
988
1
990
1
992
1
994
1
996
1
998
2
000
In
d
ex,
195
0=
1
0
0
Total Manufacturing
Durable
Nondurable
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 1950 manufacturing output = 100.
Chart 1.2 Manufacturing Share of U.S. Gross Domestic Product (1972 SIC basis),
1950-2000
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
1950
1952
1954
1956
1958
1960
1962
1964
1966
1968
1970
1972
1974
1976
1978
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
% o
f
G
D
P
Total Manufacturing
Durable
Nondurable
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis.
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4
value of manufacturing output has grown over the past half-century, manufacturing’s share of the
overall economy has declined as non-manufacturing sectors – particularly in “tertiary” sectors
such as trade, transportation, business, financial, and consumer services, education, and health –
have grown even faster.
There is ongoing debate about the causes and implications of this shift in the structure of
the national economy. Some analysts argue the declining share of manufacturing and the rising
share of services in GDP reflects a long-term transition towards a knowledge-based, post-
industrial or services society (Bell, 1973). Others suggest that manufacturing remains a
fundamental driver of economic and technological development, but that today many activities
integral to modern manufacturing (such as research, design, business service inputs, logistics,
marketing, training, and maintenance) are now carried out in businesses that are counted in
services sectors (Cohen and Zysman, 1987; Office of Technology Assessment, 1990).
While debate continues about the “boundaries” of modern manufacturing, it does seem
clear that employment within the officially-defined manufacturing sector peaked in the late
1970s. Manufacturing employment generally moved upwards from the 1950s through the 1970s,
with the greatest job increases occurring in the durables goods industries during the 1960s. By
the 1980s, manufacturing employment remained relatively flat with the exception of economic
cycles such as employment gains in the 1990s associated with durable goods industries (See
Chart 1.3) or declines in the early 2000s. Employment growth in service industries has
consistently exceeded that of manufacturing employment, particularly from the 1970s through
the 1990s.
Chart 1.3. Manufacturing Employment, 1950-2000
0
5
10
15
20
25
1950
1952
1954
1956
1958
1960
1962
1964
1966
1968
1970
1972
1974
1976
1978
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
E
m
pl
oy
e
e
s
,
Thous
a
nds
Manufacturing
Durable
Nondurable
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Growth in manufacturing productivity (output per hour) also has followed a significant
upward trajectory since 1950s. Productivity growth has consistently risen in the durable goods
industries. Non-durable goods also showed productivity gains, although not at an increasing rate
such as was the case for durable goods industries. The greatest productivity gains for non-
durable goods occurred in the 1950s. Productivity growth rates for durable goods, however, rose
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by more than 2.5% between the 1950s and the 1960s, and again by about 1.5% between the
1980s and the 1990s (See Table 1.1 and Chart 1.4).
Finally, in this section, we note briefly that perspectives on the composition of the
manufacturing workforce also have differed significantly from the relative homogeneity of the
1950s to today’s ethnically diverse workforce. Table 1.2 shows that from 1965 to 1985, the
percentage of women in the manufacturing workforce increased by more than 5%. The
percentage of female employees has held steady since that time, and the percentage of black
employees has similarly held steady since 1975. However, the percentage of Hispanics in the
workforce rose by nearly 5% from 1985 to 2000. As a result of these trends, the current
manufacturing workforce includes a larger share of females, blacks, and Hispanics than was the
case in the 1950s.
Chart 1.4. Manufacturing Output Per Hour Index, 1950-2000
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
500
195
0
195
2
195
4
195
6
195
8
196
0
196
2
196
4
196
6
196
8
197
0
197
2
197
4
197
6
197
8
198
0
198
2
198
4
198
6
198
8
199
0
199
2
199
4
199
6
199
8
200
0
I
n
d
ex,
1950=
10
0
Total Manufacturing
Durable
Nondurable
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
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Table 1.2. Trends in Diversity in Manufacturing Employment.*
Manufacturing Employment
Total
Female
Nonwhite
Year
(in thousands)
%
%
1955
16,882
27.0%
1965
18,032
27.0%
8.3%
1975
19,275
29.0%
10.8%
Year
Total
Female
Black**
Hispanic
1985
20,879
32.3%
10.0%
7.6%
1995
20,493
31.6%
10.4%
10.2%
2000
19,940
32.5%
10.3%
12.3%
2001
18,970
31.8%
10.1%
12.3%
*Changes in industrial classifications mean some data may not be strictly comparable
**In 1965 and 1975, the percentage of Non-White workers is reported. In subsequent
years, the percentage of Black and Hispanic workers is reported.
Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States (various years).
1.3
Five Decades of Manufacturing Technology Predictions
The next sections review historical predictions about the future of manufacturing
technological innovations. We have been selective (since there are a large number of studies).
This literature is presented on a decade-by-decade basis.
The Nineteen Fifties
The main technological advances forecast at the midpoint of the twentieth century
involved improvements in mass production through the application of technologies developed
and utilized during World War II.
For example, in the American Management Association’s Toward the Factory of the
Future, computerization and quality processes were expected to be the hallmarks of the future.
Future plants were foreseen to be empowered with digital computation, linear programming,
inventory control, quality control, and statistical quality control (AMA, 1957, p.22). Automation
was also predicted to reduce the rate of consumption of our natural resources, since automation
decreases entropy in systems and processes (Grabbe, 1957, p.6). There also were forecasts about
changes in business processes to optimize automated production systems by splitting production
from finance and selling (AMA, 1957, p.22).
Observers pointed toward future challenges in efforts to further automate production.
Grabbe (1957, p.7) criticized “black-box” approaches to implementing automated control
functions. The costs to design the automatic features themselves were small in comparison to the
costs of redesigning the larger surrounding production systems. Diebold (1952, p.59) called
attention to the problem of inflexibility in automating manufacturing systems, particularly for
short production runs.
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Automation was not viewed as being synonymous with the worker-less factory. Grabbe
(1957, p.87) claimed that although automation could relieve man of many monotonous and
arduous tasks, it could not supplant the need for human beings to create, design, build, and
maintain the equipment. Toward the Factory of the Future maintained that although automation
might lessen the need for production manpower, it would increase the need for engineers and
white-collar workers (pp.22-23). Diebold (1952, p.142) further emphasized that automated
factories would not be workerless factories.
The Nineteen Sixties
1960s-era literature focused on automation, its applicability to certain routine processes,
and its limitations. In addition, the 1960s placed an emphasis on globalization and the future
proliferation of multinational corporations.
Automation: Its Impact on Business and People, 1961. In this book, Walter Buckingham
(1961) predicted that automation was most appropriate for process manufacturing, especially
continuous process. “Nearly any continuous process can be automatically controlled whereas a
non-continuous process can never be fully automated” (p.36). He divided industries into three
groups depending on the extent to which automation could be applied: (1) those in which the
entire system could be reduced to a continuous flow process (e.g. rubber, telecommunication,
fiber and food products); (2) those in which automation was possible but full or nearly complete
automation is not likely (e.g. furniture manufacturing); and (3) those in which no significant
automation was likely. Buckingham maintained that automation could actually increase
operating expenses due to loss of flexibility, increased risks, and time-consuming changeovers
(p.75). He noted that to reduce the costs of raw materials, manufacturers of the future would
place greater emphasis on the use of manmade gasses, liquids, electric power, and pure
compounds and less emphasis on natural products, crude mixtures, and solids. Buckingham
expected that automation would increase the geographical mobility of industry and the
attractiveness of low cost labor regions. He predicted that middle managers would be partly
replaced by the staff programmers, research analysts, and over-all coordinators who would
become necessary to aid top management in planning (p.62).
The Age of Automation, 1965. Leon Bagrit (1965) envisioned that automation would
result in consolidation of establishments into large corporations. Automation would enable
industry to produce more and more goods with fewer and fewer people and establishments. As a
result, smaller units could eventually disappear. “In manufacturing industry, automation will
even accelerate the disappearance of the smaller units. With full automation, one might expect
the industrial giants to reduce these internal pockets of inefficiency and so make the small firm a
steadily less important feature of the industrial life of the nation” (p.103). He also raised
concerns about job losses, particularly at the lower ends of workforce, as a result of automation.
“Many of the people displaced by automation will be the unskilled and semi-skilled, among
whom the black form a large part” (p.104).
International Investment and International Trade in the Product Cycle, 1966. References
to globalization and multinationals also emerged in the 1960s. Raymond Vernon (1966)
addressed these trends in his theory of product life cycles, which was developed to explain how
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the United States switched from an exporter of the product to an importer of the product as
production became concentrated in lower-cost foreign locations.
Vernon suggested four stages of trade: (1) development of innovative product for
domestic market; (2) rapid expansion of domestic market, starting to export; (3) emergence of
competitors (home + overseas), saturation of domestic market, importing of lower priced
products; and (4) transformation of competition from advanced countries to less-developed
countries. Vernon argued that most U.S. companies initially produced new products in America
since it was better to keep production facilities close to the market and to the firm’s center of
decision-making, given the uncertainty and risks inherent in new-product introduction. While
demand for a given new product started to grow rapidly in the United States, demand in other
countries was limited to high-income groups, which made it not worthwhile for firms in those
countries to produce the new product, but necessitated some exports from the United States.
Over time, demand for the new product in other countries would grow, making it worthwhile for
foreign producers to domestically manufacture for their home markets, which would limit the
potential for exports from the United States. As the market in the United States and other nations
matured, the product became more standardized, and price became the main competitive
weapon. One result was that foreign producers where labor costs were lower than in the United
States might now be able to export to the United States.
The Nineteen Seventies
Technological forecasts during the 1970s addressed the rise of the microprocessor and its
impact on the shop floor. In parallel, there was a renewed debate about whether technology
would “deskill” the workforce or result in more creative and complex work.
Technology, International Competition, and Economic Growth: Some Lessons and
Perspectives, 1973. Keith Pavitt (1973) observed that during the 1960s, multinational firms
showed a growing tendency to set up component manufacturing and assembly plants in the less
developed countries to take advantage of lower labor costs. He claimed such activities would be
considerably expanded in the future: “provided that the population has primary education, labor
costs are considerably lower than productivity levels by comparison with the advanced
countries.” Technological progress in the advanced countries would lead to substitution and
economies in the use of raw materials, and thereby turn the terms of trade against less developed
countries dependent on the export of raw materials.
Evolution of Computers and Computing, 1977. The 1970s saw the rise of the
microprocessor and resulting utilization of computers in manufacturing processes. Ruth Davis
(1977) envisioned, “By 1980 the number of minicomputers will reach about the number 750,000,
and the number of microprocessors will be more than 10 million. They will be so small and so
inexpensive for central processing units and logical units that it will be more practical to buy a
number of them than to test a single one for reliability.” Because of the highly labor-intensive
nature of software design, development, and testing, software development costs were predicted
to increase along with the absolute costs of software. Davis was troubled that “the really useful
and exciting advances in computing will probably only proceed at the same pace as advances in
software engineering. And, this will be distressingly slow.”
In terms of computer applications, Davis foresaw the use of computer control of
continuous and discrete processes and of real and near real-time process. He predicted that the
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computerization of control process would result both in substitution of computer control for
traditional control systems (as is already occurring in automobiles) and in the invention of
entirely new processes not previously possible without computer control. Anticipated computer-
based applications also alluded to include working robots and space exploration.
The Third Industrial Age: Strategy for Business Survival, 1975. The concept of logistics
was suggested in analyses of business globalization issues in the 1970s. Charles Tavel (1975)
reviewed three factors that would have a considerable influence on strategic thinking:
transportation, computers and communications. He indicated that as travel fares and time
declined, distance became less and less of an obstacle, and national borders became less and less
of a barrier. Overcapacity and widely fluctuated raw materials prices contributed to
multinationals’ interest in less developed countries. As a consequence, less developed countries
should be able to greatly increase their influence over multinational corporations in the future
compared to the period of 1950 to 1970. The increasing bargaining power of less developed
countries would have negative effects on either the absolute standard of living or the growth in
the standard of living in more developed countries (Mueller, 1975). One of the difficulties in
industrializing less developed countries was quality control, problems arising from which could
sometimes cost more to address than the assembly itself (Tavel, 1975, p.70). The only effective
way to deal with forces relating to overcapacity and raw materials was to have the best
processes, which meant having a technological lead over the competition (Tavel, 1975, pp.82-
83).
The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting, 1973. The
impacts of technological innovations and changing business practices on the workforce were
embodied in two countervailing works. Daniel Bell (1973) proposed the notion of the post-
industrial society, which dealt with changes in the economy, occupational system, and social
structure. The creation of a service economy, the pre-eminence of the professional and technical
class, the primacy of theoretical knowledge, and the rise of intellectual technology characterized
the post-industrial society (pp.12-13). Bell predicted that manufacturing would grow at much
slower rates in the future, so there would be fewer jobs manufacturing things (p.131).
Technology would free workers to pursue more creative mental work tasks. Formal hierarchical
management organizations would give way to new egalitarian participatory organizational
structures in the post-industrial society.
Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century, 1974.
In contrast, Henry Braverman (1974) envisaged that trends in business practices would result in
the deskilling of the workforce. Braverman contended that large corporations sought to
maximize profit by minimizing costs. This led them to use system analysis and other techniques
to simplify work tasks, and replace skilled workers with less skilled and less expensive
jobholders. As a result, workers would be steadily deskilled and work degraded. Professionals
as well as craft workers were subject to these trends.
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The Nineteen Eighties
Following the oil shocks of the 1970s, the 1980s was marked by growing concern about
the competitiveness of U.S. industry. This concern reflected the rise of strong European
performers, but especially the full development of Japan as an advanced manufacturing
economy. U.S. companies faced stiff competition in domestic and export markets not only in
industries such as textiles, steel, or consumer electronics, but increasingly in complex
manufactures such as machine tools or automobiles and in the high technology manufacture of
semiconductors and other electronic components. The fact that the toughest foreign competition
was based not so much on cheap labor but on the adoption of advanced technology and superior
manufacturing techniques struck at the heart of notions of U.S. ascendancy established in prior
decades following World War II. For example, in 1986, the Council on Foreign Relations (cited
in Vogel, 1986) commented on Japan’s growing economic power:
Future historians may well mark the mid-1980s as the time when Japan surpassed
the United States to become the world’s dominant economic power. Japan achieved
superior industrial competitiveness several years earlier, but by the mid-1980s its high-
technology exports to the United States far exceeded imports, and annual trade surpluses
approached $50 billion a year. Meanwhile, America’s trade deficits mushroomed to $150
billion a year. By late 1985, Japan’s international lending already exceeded $640 billion,
about ten percent more than America’s, and it is growing rapidly. By 1986 the United
States became the world’s largest debtor nation and Japan surpassed the United States
and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest creditor.
Alarm at the position and prospects of U.S. manufacturing led to a fresh round of studies
and predictions about manufacturing and technology (as well as new policy initiatives to
promote technology transfer and manufacturing competitiveness). Some of these studies are
discussed below.
Toward a New Era in U.S. Manufacturing, 1986. The Manufacturing Studies Board
(MSB) Report of the National Research Council, Toward a New Era in U.S. Manufacturing
(New Era report), outlined technologies that were expected to “have major impact on
manufacturing competitiveness” (MSB, 1986).
New Era Materials. Metal-based composites, polymer, and ceramic materials were
expected to experience future development. Advances in metal-based composites were
anticipated in powder metallurgical processing, superplastic forming, alloys, laser welding
substituting, warm- and cold-formed steel parts, silicon-based switches replacing iron-based
magnetic devices, metal matrix composites with silicon carbide reinforcements, aluminum-
silicon carbide in auto pistol ring and crankshaft applications, and nickel superalloy and stainless
steel matrix composites strengthened with silicon carbide in power systems.
Polymers and polymer-based composites were expected to replace carbon steel and
aluminum in structural and paneling applications in the auto industry, electronic hardware,
appliance chassis applications, and home building components. Polymers and polymer-based
composites were also expected to be important in the development of new industrial adhesives
such as high temperature epoxies, adhesives with greater strength and elastic range, primerless
adhesives (e.g., silicon), and faster-curing adhesives (e.g., cyanoacrylates, urethanes).
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Ceramics such as aluminum oxide, zirconia, yttria, silicon nitride, and silicon carbide
were estimated to play an important role in electronics, particularly optical fiber production,
multi-layer ceramic-to-metal interconnecting and mounting packages for integrated circuits,
ceramic multi-layer chip capacitors, piezoelectric ceramic transducers, chemical, mechanical,
and thermal sensors. In addition to tooling for metalworking and bioceramics for bone
replacement, high-tech ceramics were envisioned to be significant in automobile manufacturing:
“An almost totally ceramic engine is a major research objective of virtually every automobile
manufacturer and should be extant by the early 1990s.” (MSB, 1986, p.81)
Computerization of the Shop Floor. The New Era report discussed utilization of
computer-based technologies to automate design, control, and handling functions. The concept
of a fully automated factory was also revived through Computer Integrated Manufacturing
(CIM).
Developments in microelectronics had a particular impact on the ability to embed
intelligence into processing and plant equipment. In the machine tools area, rapid advances to
computerized numerically controlled (CNC) machines were predicted for drilling, milling, and
boring. It was anticipated that microelectronics, through a combination of flexible fixturing
devices and sophisticated smart robots, would be applied to costly manual fixturing functions.
Microelectronics also played a role in the advancement of sensors in micromechanics, three-
dimensional vision for depth sensing, artificial skin for heat and touch sensing, and a variety of
special-purpose sensing devices. The ability to process sensor-generated data was seen to impact
very large scale integration (VLSI) for processing data within integrated circuits (ICs), enabling
manufacturing at very fine tolerances and very low defect rates. Sixty percent of all smart robots
over a 10-year period were predicted to utilize sensors to operate within a closed-loop feedback
system that adapted to the changing environment. The lack of standardized universal robot
programming languages was viewed as a challenge to contemporary robotics research, however.
In the design area, computer-aided design (CAD) was not a new technology in the
1980’s, but its application to manufacturing was relatively novel. It was envisioned that the use
of single- and system-process graphic simulation in conjunction with CAD and other design and
process technologies would be a promising new area of research. Great hopes also were placed
on developments in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) to complement and in some cases even
substitute human experts in areas such as chip design, arc welding, painting, machining, and
surface finishing:
As human experts with years of experience become scarce, the expert system
provides a way in which to capture and “clone” the human expert… In the 1990’s, expert
systems are expected that will learn from experience; this means that expert systems
eventually will be developed for specialties in which there are no human experts… By
the year 2000, managers will probably be communicating with their work stations by
voice… artificial intelligence technology promises to make it much easier for computers
and computerized equipment to be used by personnel not having computer training, such
as managers, engineers, and operators on the factory floor (MSB, 1986, pp.101-102).
The introduction of just-in-time manufacturing drove advances in computerization of
materials handling and transport equipment and facilities in the 1980s. Further development of
automatic guided vehicles (AGV) and automatic recognition technologies was predicted.
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CIM received significant attention in The New Era report regarding the need to integrate
the newest information technologies into all of the stages of manufacturing processes. Advances
in the application of several information enabling technologies were predicted to promote the
effective use of CIM: communication networks, interface development, data integration,
hierarchical and adaptive closed-loop control systems, modeling and optimization techniques,
and flexible manufacturing systems. It was noted that despite U.S. leadership in the introduction
of flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) in 1972 Germany and Japan outpaced the United States
in applying FMS across industries, which provided sizeable cost savings to manufacturers in
those countries.
Quality-Based Practices. Although The New Era report did not specifically mention the
Toyota system, it did predict that several of the principles inherent in this system would impact
the future culture of the shop floor. These included increased employee empowerment;
coordination of design, manufacturing, purchasing, marketing, accounting, and distribution;
cross training; and utilization of information to track quantifiable improvements and
performance. Adoption of these cultural changes was envisioned to “at best, proceed in fits and
starts” as management, workers, unions, subcontractors, and other groups react to these changes.
Design and Analysis of Integrated Manufacturing Systems, Compton, Dale W., Ed.
National Academy of Engineering, 1987. This book was a collection of articles presented at the
1987 National Academy of Engineering Conference entitled “Design and Analysis of Integrated
Manufacturing Systems: Status, Issues, and Opportunities.” The primary purpose of the
Conference, as identified by Dale Compton (1987), was to explore the status of integrated
manufacturing systems design and analysis tools, and identify issues that arise in the use of these
tools in designing and later in controlling these systems. The book focused largely on the future
of integrated manufacturing. It criticized existing manufacturing technology as being too
segmented. Integrated manufacturing, “collaborative manufacturing” and “simultaneous
engineering” were distinguished as being more collaborative in nature, requiring greater
technological coordination from design labs to factory floors to shipment decks.
The book predicted that flexible production equipment would be more widely adopted in
the future given the increased pace of international competition and the shortening of product life
cycles. This would be particularly true for the electronics industry, which at the time of the
book’s publication had an average product life cycle of 18 months. Another forecast was that
cost reduction measures inherent in inventory management, along with systems to carefully
synchronize supply and demand, would be critical for future competitiveness. Information
technologies were expected to provide not only analytic capabilities but also greater predictive
power, as manufacturing moved away from trial-and-error methods toward “a priori”
approaches.
Made in America: Regaining the Productive Edge, 1989. The book was the result of the
MIT “Commission on Industrial Productivity,” which portrayed a gloomy outlook for the U.S.
manufacturing productivity for the 1990’s. The report was drafted over a two-year period and
focused on eight industries: automobiles, chemicals, commercial aircraft, consumer electronics,
machine tools, semiconductors, computers and copiers, steel, and textiles. For the purpose of a
detailed analysis, the Commission visited more than 200 companies and 150 plant sites
simultaneously conducting over 500 interviews with the U.S., Japanese and European
companies.
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The report outlined six problems which deteriorated productivity performance: (1)
outdated strategy geared to standardization and mass-production, (2) focus on short-term profits
rather than long-term investments, (3) technological weakness in development of new products
and technologies, (4) weaknesses in general education and vocational and on-the-job training, (5)
failures of cooperation and stakeholder fragmentation, and (6) lack of governmental
encouragement and investment.
As summarized by Michael Dertouzos (1989), the report proposed five imperatives for
improving productivity: (1) developing new fundamentals of manufacturing such as
organizational and technological excellence (vs. short-term financial performance), (2) fostering
a highly-educated workforce through greater job security and on-going job training, (3)
developing a working blend of individualism with cooperation, (4) opening further to
international markets, and (5) gearing macroeconomic policies towards better general education
and financial security that would foster greater long-term investments.
The Nineteen Nineties
The 1990s are marked by a highly concerted effort on the part of the governmental
agencies to analyze the conditions and investigate strategic potential of the U.S. manufacturing
in general. The concern over the success of Japanese and German manufacturers in the early
part of the decade pushed government and industry to seek new business and product
alternatives. Manufacturing business practices had to be re-conceptualized to incorporate many
Japanese management notions.
Government and industry directed specific attention towards the development of new
technologies and practices. Case in point is the electronics industry and information
technologies—the Internet boom and impact this had on the overall economic and industrial
development. 1990s-era trends include technology taxonomies, manufacturing unit processes,
new understanding/definition of national critical technologies, industrial ecosystems,
manufacturing foundations, new definitions of competitiveness, corporate merger strategies,
outsourced/contracted R&D, and off-shore workforce tactics.
Making Things Better: Competing in Manufacturing, OTA 1990. The report prepared by
the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress was written in part because of
concern about U.S. manufacturing competitiveness with Japan and Germany. Manufacturers in
Japan and Germany were able to furnish goods with better performance reliability and ability to
control costs. The report (OTA, 1990) identified systematic disadvantages of U.S. manufacturers
compared to their Japanese counterparts: (1) lack of coherent government-industry-research
institute efforts to foster industry-specific strategic programs promoting technology transfer and
development, (2) lack of collaboration between suppliers and customers and in firm-to-firm
relationships, (3) unwillingness to share information and technology, (4) reluctance to adapt the
newest technological developments from other nations (5) fractured financial support structure,
both public and private, (6) weak education and vocational training systems that ultimately
diminish worker productivity, (7) disinclination to incur high capital costs to acquire and/or
develop new manufacturing technologies, and (8) U.S. antitrust law restrictions.
The report analyzed how the spillover effect of technology transfer may foster a broad
range of manufactured products. For instance, advanced television technologies (ATV) such as
high definition television (HDTV) were shown to likely impact computer, telecommunication,
and other electronics industries.
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The following policy efforts were recommended to improve manufacturing: (1) lower
capital costs and relieve other pressures in the financial markets, (2) upgrade education and
training of manufacturing workers, managers, and engineers, (3) actively engage the U.S.
government in technology diffusion throughout the manufacturing sector via technology
extension services and subsidized equipment leasing systems, and (4) support R&D for
commercially important, not just defense related, technologies that are too costly for individual
firms to develop.
The Competitive Edge, Research Priorities for U.S. Manufacturing, 1991. In 1991, the
Committee on Analysis of Research Directions and Needs in U.S. Manufacturing started off a
series of publications of the National Academy Press about U.S. manufacturing. The
Competitive Edge (1991) focused on advanced manufacturing technology to promote higher
quality, greater responsiveness to consumer demands, and greater capital investment flexibility.
The report identified three major technological advances for the future: (1) integration of
information and materials handling and processing, which are separate in traditional automation,
(2) reliance on higher levels of human and machine intelligence rather than on the skill of
operators, and (3) placement of the production process largely under the control of computer
programs. The report indicated that successful development of these technologies called for:
intelligent manufacturing control, improved equipment reliability and maintenance practices,
wide usage of advanced engineering materials, employment of product realization techniques,
and focus on manufacturing skills improvements.
The Competitive Edge projected that the manufacturing workforce would decline by 20%
between 1950 and 2000. A new smaller, yet highly educated workforce was viewed as a
necessary precondition for a successful take-off of advanced technologies in manufacturing. In
addition, management’s ability to quickly restructure operations and adopt “flatter” corporate
structures was viewed to be critical.
Future Composites Manufacturing Technology, 1994. In 1994 Japanese Technology
Evaluation Center (JTEC) published a report (JTEC, 1994) that makes predictions about polymer
composites likely to be utilized by U.S. and Japanese aerospace manufacturers in the future. The
report states that the rate of expansion and development of composites technologies stemmed
from application of new material technologies to U.S. military and aerospace research projects.
After successive oil shocks in the 1970’s, the demand for the material was at a peak high in the
early 1980’s when U.S. military aircraft pronounced their need for “lighter weight, less fuel.”
By the 1990’s, the advanced composites technologies industry realized its potential in
commercial transport and other commercial applications.
The following composites technologies and techniques were expected to be widely
adopted in the near future: stiched/RTM; filament winding; pultrusion; continuous sandwich
panel; 3-D weaving; mechatronics; automatic tape lay-up machine; automatic ply cutting
machine; tow placement; co-curing technology; forming, stamping, injection molding, rolling;
repair technology; and material technology. The report took the view that major breakthroughs
in usage of composites had already happened, in part because further usage of composite
technologies would not be sufficiently cost-effective to be widely used.
Marshaling Technology for Development, 1994. Marshaling Technology for
Development is a collection of publications that were presented at a symposium on technology
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and economic development held by the National Research Council and the World Bank. The
report (OIANRC and Word Bank, 1994) noted that all areas of an economy, but particularly
electronics, were highly dependent on the state of technology. Marshaling Technology
expressed expectations for electronics growth associated with developments in silicon, protonics,
fast software development, and integrated circuit technologies. These were integral parts of what
was termed as “multimedia communication revolution” and creation of a “national information
superhighway.” Marshaling Technology noted that because life-cycles for electronics were
measured in months (vs. years), electronics companies had to move to integrate formerly
separate design, manufacturing, and marketing operations so that manufacturing and marketing
specialists were involved at the initial stages of design. CAD (computer-aided design) therefore
became a main tool for designing-for-manufacture processes. Advances in million per second
instruction (MIPS) technology reduced costs that made computer integrated manufacturing
(CIM) more widely used in the electronics industry. Successful application of CAD and CIM in
electronics was expected to spill over to other industries.
It was also believed that biotechnology would be a cutting edge research area for
manufacturing. Near-term biotechnology related advances included biomedical applications,
agriculture, marine biotechnology, animal husbandry, environmental biotechnology, and energy
production. However, many biotechnology applications were believed to be too futuristic for
near-term commercial exploitation, including biosensors, bioelectronics, biomaterials,
biocomputing, and molecular machines and submicroscopic molecules.
National Critical Technologies, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1998. The 1990 Defense
Appropriations Act established a requirement for creating and maintaining a National Critical
Technologies (NCT) report. Critical technologies were termed as such because they were
advanced, essential for national security, useful for important products and applications, and
likely to impact many product applications. The first list of critical technologies was published
in 1991, with subsequent reports in 1993, 1995, and 1998. The lists were developed through
consensus-based approaches involving panels of experts. The 1995 NCT list divided
manufacturing into three areas: discrete product manufacturing, continuous materials processing,
and micro/nano fabrication and machining (Table 1.3). In total, the three areas list 48 specific
technologies with 14 of them listed in the micro/nano technology area.
Popper et al (1998) provided a more explicit discussion of the evaluation of the NCTs. In
its executive summary, the report identified the following technologies that were viewed as
critical by the industry experts: technologies with cross-sectoral ubiquity: software,
microelectronics and telecommunications technologies, advanced manufacturing technologies,
materials, sensor and imaging technologies; technologies at the interstices: separation
technologies, overhaul-and-repair technology, complex-product system-coordination technology;
and technologies for society (Popper et al, 1998).
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Table 1.3. National Critical Technologies List for Manufacturing: 1995.
Technology Area
Technology Sub-Area
Specific Technologies
Discrete product
manufacturing
CIM support software
Computer-aided design
Computer-aided engineering
Process, machine performance database
Equipment interoperability
Group technology
Computer-aided process Planning
Data-driven management info systems
Factory scheduling tools
Intelligent processing
equipment
Sensors
Next generation controller
Robotics
Auto. Systems for facilities
operations
Computer-aided production cycle management
Building automation systems
Net shape processing
Hot isostatic pressing
Metal injection molding
Superplastic forming
Liquid transfer molding of polymer matrix
composites
Rapid solidification
processing
Spray forming
Gas atomization
Continuous materials
processing
Catalysts
Tailored protein catalysts
Shape selective catalysts
Catalysts by design
Biometric catalysts
Surface treatments
Laser hardening
Thin films
Grinding and machining of ceramics
Ceramic coatings
Ultrapure refining methods
Various refining methods
Electron beam processing
Pollution avoidance
Process design strategies
Improved processes
Design for the environment
Industrial ecology
Predictive process control
Sensors
Data processing
Micro/Nano fabrication
and machining
Microdevice manufacturing
technology
Silicon machining
Semiconductor
manufacturing
X-ray lithography
Microwave plasma processing
Electron/ion micro-beams
Artificially structured materials
Laser-assisted processing
Metrology
Design testing
Semiconductor integration
technologies
Integrated packaging
Multichip modules
Artificial structuring
methods
Chemical vapor and sputter deposition
Molecular and chemical beam expitaxy
Spin-on deposition
Vacuum evaporation
Source: National Critical Technologies Report (1995).
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Unit Manufacturing Processes, 1995. This report (UMPRC, 1995) focused on
distinguishing various types of manufacturing processes and the specific technologies necessary
to achieving further process efficiencies. Manufacturing processes were grouped into mass-
change processes, phase-change processes, structure-change processes, deformation processes,
consolidation processes, and integrated processes. The report committee agreed on six enabling
technologies that were central to the various manufacturing processes: material behavior,
simulation and modeling, sensor devices, process controls, process-related precision and
measurement technology, and process equipment design. Research opportunities were identified
in each of these technological areas. For example, the following material behavior research
opportunities were identified: quantification of the material microstructure, systematic
representation of the relationship between the microstructural features, process maps of defect
and damage criteria, characterization of boundary conditions, and materials property databases.
Next Generation Manufacturing, NSF 1995. NSF was the lead sponsor of the Next
Generation Manufacturing (NGM) project in 1995. NGM was designed to put forth a vision of
the future of manufacturing. More than 5,000 experts worked with a project team to produce the
final report (NSF, 1995).
A next generation manufacturing company was defined as an “extended enterprise with
multiple and ever-shifting business partners” (p.53). The definition explicitly emphasized the
shift from a concept/notion of a profit-making unit to a broadly networked/systemic unit
extending from “the supplier’s supplier to the customer’s customer.” Next generation
manufacturing therefore promoted a future shift in business practices from lean manufacturing to
agile manufacturing, defined as a “loose confederation of affiliates that form[ed] and reform[ed]
relationships depending on changing customer needs” (p.56). In addition, the report predicted
that narrow computer-controlled machine tools would be replaced with rapid prototyping and
free form fabrication. Eventually, the report predicted, the line separating manufacturing and
service industries would become increasingly blurred, resulting in new definitions of industrial
activities.
Visionary Manufacturing Challenges for 2020, 1998. In 1998 the National Research
Council’s Board on Manufacturing and Engineering Design established the Committee on
Visionary Manufacturing Challenges. The Committee set 2020 as their benchmark to enable
revolutionary, as opposed to evolutionary, thinking about manufacturing. Conclusions were
based on the results of a workshop of academic researchers in manufacturing-related disciplines
and a survey of industry experts (CVMC, 1998).
The competitive environment in which manufacturing would operate in 2020 was
envisioned to require rapid response to changing market forces, greater product customization,
competition based more on innovation and creativity, decreasing the dimensional scale of
innovation manufacturing processes and products, greater emphasis on environmental protection
through near zero waste, instantaneous conversion of information into relevant knowledge for
decision making, and greater globalization of production resources.
The following ten technology spheres were chosen as the most critical directions, in
which substantive and timely research was needed:
• adaptable, integrated equipment, processes, and systems that could be readily reconfigured;
• manufacturing processes that minimized waste production and energy consumption;
• innovative processes to design and manufacture new materials and components;
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• biotechnology for manufacturing;
• system synthesis, modeling, and simulation for all manufacturing operations;
• technologies that could convert information into knowledge for effective decision making;
• product and process design methods that addressed a broad range of product requirements;
• enhanced human-machine interfaces;
• educational and training methods that would enable the rapid assimilation of knowledge; and
• software for intelligent systems for collaboration.
The report put special emphasis on biotechnology for manufacturing and its potential for
developing revolutionary products and processes. Further research was recommended to better
understand the precision and flexibility of biological processes. Particular areas of interest
included biomemory and logic devices that could recognize, learn, and adapt; biomaterials such
as durable ultrasoft membrane materials and materials based on genetically engineered biological
feedstocks; fabrication of parts and assemblies with design enzymes, tissues, and biocatalysts;
and self-organizing manufacturing systems. It was believed that self-organizing manufacturing
systems could leverage bioprocessing technology to develop new approaches for deploying
manufacturing equipment, tools, human capital, and software.
Also important to manufacturing in the future were technologies that enhanced large and
small scale manufacturing simulations using real-time control at all levels of manufacturing,
multi-purpose network technologies, and effective combination of human and computer
interaction for efficient, real-time decision-making.
The New Decade of the 21
st
Century (2000s)
Concerns about low-cost competition drove technological forecasts in the early 2000s to
emphasize the adoption of high value, innovative manufacturing approaches. Emphasis was
placed on new product development technologies such as modeling and simulation, the use of
technology for sustainable manufacturing, and knowledge management practices to ensure
effective supply chain integration. Predictions called for the integration of manufacturing
process techniques with biomaterials and micro- and nanotechnology to produce the next wave
of high value products and production technologies.
Integrated Manufacturing Technology Roadmap, 2000. The Integrated Manufacturing
Technology Roadmap Initiative (IMTI, 2000) is a nonprofit organization set up to help direct
future manufacturing investments. The U.S. Departments of Commerce, Energy, Defense and
the National Science Foundation sponsor IMTI, and there are many leading company members
as well. IMTI’s initial roadmapping exercises culminated in a report in 2000. Since that time,
other projects and reports have followed to further embellish the roadmap.
The 2000 roadmapping began from the assumption that “all enterprise systems and
processes interconnect[ed] seamlessly and dr[ew] on a deep base of science capturing experience
to enable design, manufacture, and support of products with unprecedented speed, accuracy, and
cost-effectiveness” (p.10). It was also assumed that competitive advantage came from
innovation and creativity. Five roadmaps comprised the effort: (1) information systems, (2)
modeling and simulation, (3) manufacturing process and equipment, (4) technologies for
enterprise integration, and (5) intelligent controls. These roadmaps were designed to address six
“grand challenges” for a modern enterprise: lean, efficient production; customer-responsiveness;
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total connectedness; environmental sustainability; knowledge management; and technology
exploitation.
The report acknowledged that lean manufacturing principles have been widely adopted.
However, eliminating industrial wastes posed some difficulties, in particular, it was said to
contribute to relative losses in operational flexibility and lowered improvement potential. IMTI
suggested that manufacturers achieve higher levels of improvement by incorporating into lean
processes such technologies as newly engineered materials, micro-electromechanical systems
(MEMS), nanodevices, biological processing, and freeform fabrication techniques. IMTI also
suggested increased utilization of unobtrusive networks of low-cost sensors in manufacturing
control systems.
According to the report, customer responsiveness will rest less on quality and advertising
and more on customer relationships, customer satisfaction, and soliciting ideas for products and
services in the future. Totally connected enterprises will move beyond enterprise resource
planning (ERP) and product data management (PDM) systems to link internal functions and
external partners. As manufacturers increasingly depend on their suppliers, supply chain
management (SCM) will connect processes and equipment with a web of suppliers and partners
to enable critical data sharing and dynamic business relationships.
Environmental sustainability will become a basic cost of doing business. This means that
manufacturers will have to move beyond process technology to compete with other countries
with lax environmental regulations. It is predicted that greater emphasis will be placed on zero
net lifecycle approaches, products engineered at the molecular level to replace environmentally
undesirable materials, and products with longer lives that can be recycled or reused.
Greater demand will exist for knowledge management that only involves not just analysis
of basic data but also experience and lessons learned. Knowledge mapping, process prototyping,
electronic collaboration, and knowledge management teams are among the knowledge
management techniques coming to the forefront.
Emerging process and product technologies will continue to drive economic
development. These include micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), rapid prototyping,
freeform manufacturing, net-shape and fixtureless processes, ultra high-speed machining,
intelligent assembly, flexible material handling, and remanufacturing technologies that will
enable totally closed-loop product life cycles. Receiving sufficient resources to enable rapid
development and exploitation is the key in ensuring that technology enables manufacturers to
provide customers with high quality, cost-competitive products.
Surviving Supply Chain Integration, 2000. At the request of the National Institute of
Standards and Technology and U.S. Senator Robert Byrd, the National Research Council (NRC)
formed a committee to study the challenges that integrated supply chains pose to small and
medium sized manufacturing establishments (SMEs) (CETS, 2000). Integrated supply chains, in
which customers and suppliers work together to optimize their performance, were expected to be
more prevalent in the future. Integrated supply chains rely on just-in-time low inventory
systems, suggesting that quality components from suppliers are even more critical. The rate of
implementation of techniques such as six sigma, ISO certification, and statistical process control
therefore is expected to increase. To further reduce redundant inventories and excess
manufacturing capacities, manufacturing enterprises will invest more in supply chain
communication systems, flexible manufacturing techniques, and sophisticated logistics systems.
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The report recommended that SMEs find ways to provide value-added services, such as
storage, rapid response to warranty issues, ready access to spare parts, improved logistics, and
increased design capabilities. In response to increasing customer expectations for timely service
and support, SMEs should make effective use of Internet and Web technologies to release
announcement, post maintenance manuals, get customer’s response, answer questions, and place
orders. Senior management in these enterprises should monitor changes in information
technology, invest in basic capabilities and plan for future investments. In addition, management
should have a strategic view of the business environment rather than focusing on daily business
issues alone. Due to the limitations of resources, SMEs should develop partnerships to achieve
competitive advantage at lower cost and improve their responses to changing business
conditions.
Information Systems and the Environment, 2001. This report is based on a National
Academy of Engineering-sponsored workshop that explored how information technology could
be used in the future to support sustainable manufacturing. Monsanto’s CEO, Robert Shapiro,
predicted that “the early twenty-first century is going to see a struggle between information
technology and biotechnology on the one hand and environmental degradation on the other.
Information technology is going to be our most powerful tool…The substitution of information
for stuff is essential to sustainability” (Allenby, 2001). For example, textual material, data, and
software upgrades provided through the Internet and via electronic mail can substitute for
physical products. The ability for this substitution depends on continued reductions in the cost of
information processing and exchange that result from the rate of technological evolution in chip
capacity and memory, optical transmission, information storage, signal compression, and
efficient spectrum use.
Deanna Richards and Michael Kabjian (2001) proposed that knowledge management
techniques can enhance the use of information technology in sustainable manufacturing in
relationships with upstream suppliers, downstream customers, and collaborations with other
firms, government, and academia. Knowledge management technologies encompass data
management; document management systems; groupware and collaborative applications;
networking, intranets, extranets, and the Internet; and information retrieval. Knowledge
management faces many challenges in the current business environment such as corporate
outsourcing and contracting, rapid employee turnover, downsizing, and telecommuting-enabled
disbursement of workers across the globe.
Several product design and development techniques were proposed to incorporate
sustainability directly into new products. Thomas Graedel (2001) recommended the use of
environmental information in “gate reviews” at each stage in the product realization process.
Kosuke Ishii (2001) proposed integrating recyclability into modular design through methods
such as quality function deployment and design for assembly tools. Reverse fish-bone diagrams
can represent a product’s retirement process and recyclability maps can provide information on
materials and assembly to improve recyclability.
Attention must also be paid to the consumption of energy, which is anticipated to
increase rapidly, particularly in Asia (Ishii, 2001). Energy is likely to be more expensive in the
future, it is likely to shift from primary fuels to electricity, and a new energy infrastructure will
have to be built to accommodate these trends.
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Modeling and Simulation in Manufacturing and Defense Acquisition, 2002. This is a
report of the National Research Council’s (NRC) Committee on Modeling and Simulation
Enhancements for 21
st
Century Manufacturing and Acquisition, which was formed in response to
a request by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). Modeling and simulation (M&S) are
important to DOD decisions about future combat situations that minimize risk and to commercial
manufacturers’ efforts that “quickly innovate, design, and produce the ‘right product right’ the
first time” (BMED, 2002).
M&S has been applied to the lifecycle of a system-of-systems rather than to a single
component. To maximize the effectiveness of M&S, basic research needs to be conducted in
areas such as scalability and object oriented technology, multiresolution modeling between
various resolution levels during run times, agent-based modeling that adequately represents
behavior, semantic consistency between different simulation systems, abstract modeling to
represent situations under conditions of minimal knowledge and time, fundamental limits of
modeling and computation, and models evaluating uncertainty and risk in dangerous situations.
Also important to M&S application is the development of shared process, database, standards,
and architecture infrastructures.
The NRC report (1999; cited in BMED, 2002) specified four priorities for R&D of
defense manufacturing for the year 2010 and later: (1) efficient sustainability of weapons
systems; (2) modeling and simulation based design tools; (3) leveraging of commercial
resources; and (4) crosscutting defense-unique production processes. M&S can address these
areas by promoting the development of models of defense products, manufacturing processes,
and life-cycle performances; developing algorithms for design trade-offs that optimize life-cycle
costs; developing enhanced and easily usable parametric models that facilitate design trade-offs
at the conceptual stage; and initiating the development of product database that will permit
simulation at various levels of resolution.
1.4
Conclusions
Over the last fifty years, there has been significant change and evolution in the U.S.
manufacturing base and in how, at any particular point in time, it forecasts technological
prospects and trajectories. A noticeable theme in these forecasts is the increased coupling, over
time, of assessments of technological paths and opportunities with assessments of broader
economic, social, and competitive trends. Thus, in the immediate post-World War II decades,
forecasts emphasized continued improvements to mass production such as standardization,
functional specialization, coordination and planning, and how to integrate workers into
automated processes. Such forecasts predicted a “technologically-determined” path, with
implicit assumptions of American manufacturing preeminence, and less attention to human
factors. By the 1980s, competition with Japan and Germany had resulted in dramatically
changed business practice predictions. The rise of the Toyota method, flexible production, mass
customization, inter-company teams and investments, and empowered workers were evident in
1980s- and 1990s-era business practice literature. Studies of this era emphasized the importance
of the internal relationships between workers, managers, and technology and of the linkages
between suppliers and customers in supply chains. Today, there is a new emphasis on viewing
technological change in the context of knowledge and intellectual capital. Recent studies have
highlighted calls for innovation-based business strategies supported by knowledge management
systems, rapid product development, and decreased dimensional production scales.
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Significantly, technologically progressive companies are viewed in the context of a network of
knowledge-based and innovation relationships and clusters.
In contrast with the relatively upbeat tone of technological and business practice
estimates, global competition has been a consistent concern since the rise of globalization and
multinationals in the 1970s. It was in the 1970s that fears about routine competition from low-
wage, less developed countries increasingly surfaced. In the 1980s, concerns expanded to focus
on high-end competitor countries, Japan and Germany and, in the 1990s, fast developing yet
technologically capable “tigers” such as Korea and Taiwan. Yet, also in the 1990s and
continuing into the 2000s, U.S manufacturers’ global concerns shifted again, this time to focus
on China which, today, has a huge reservoir of low-cost labor, but is also increasingly upgrading
its technological capabilities.
Forecasts about the manufacturing workforce also have reflected worries. For example,
there has been an ongoing tension between technological and business practice advances and the
numbers and types of jobs available in the manufacturing sector. Fears that automation and
industrial management developments will simplify manufacturing tasks and utilize machinery or
computers instead of workers have been expressed since the 1950s. The debate about the nature
of manufacturing work and employment has been juxtaposed against the rise of the post-
industrial society and the growth of the service and/or information economy.
At root, however, this brief historical review of studies of the future of manufacturing
technology has shown an enduring belief in the future itself – in the concept that, despite current
challenges and difficulties, the U.S. innovation system is capable of developing and adopting
new technologies and techniques that promise to sustain the manufacturing base. In practice,
technological forecasts tend to deliver less than promised, although in every technological
generation there are always surprising outcomes. Lags in the take-up of predicted technologies
are, perhaps, partly a reflection of the perpetual over-optimism of technology proponents.
Market failures and path dependencies (including the sunk costs, institutional rigidities, and
network effects associated with older technologies) are also part of the story. At the same time,
there are arguably also issues related to implementation systems for new technology in the U.S.
(including corporate time horizons, financial systems, training, and policy) that affect adoption.
These are all discussions for another paper, not this one. But, as we enter a new round of
assessment of future technologies that can sustain U.S. manufacturing in the face of international
competition – involving possibly manufacturing at nano-scales, the fusion of bio and
engineering, and further transformations of what manufacturing is and can do – it is always
worthwhile to keep these contextual elements and challenges in mind.
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25
Table A.1. Technologies and Economic Environment, U.S. Manufacturing, 1950-2000.
Decade
Domestic and Global
Economic Environment
Leading-Edge of
Current Technologies
Future Technology
“Predictions”
Trends in Management
Practices
Workforce Impact,
Concerns
1950’s
Rise of post-industrial
society;
Mass market expansion and
stable economic growth in
manufacturing
Mass-production;
assembly line; dedicated
tools
Emergence of real-time
processing – but with high
cost
Automation;
Digital computation;
Linear programming;
Advances in inventory
control; quality control;
statistical quality control
Concern about flexibility;
The problem of the black-
box approach in factory
production control
Early fears about automation
and workerless factories;
First discussion of
computerization;
Concern about the situation of
small units in automation era;
The shortage of engineer and
programmer
1960’s
MNC’s shifting to low-wage
companies;
Growing economy;
The increase of the
geographical mobility of
industry;
Expansion and
diversification of enterprises
Greater emphasis on the
use of gasses, liquids,
electric power, and pure
compounds and lesser
emphasis on natural
products, crude mixtures,
and solids
Automatic language
translation;
Moore’s law
Idea of product life
cycles;
Split routine
manufacturing from R&D
Concern about loss of shop-
floor jobs; confidence about
retention of R&D,
management, and advanced
production jobs
1970’s
Continued globalization;
Declining economy;
Slower rate of growth for
manufacturing;
The creation of new science-
based industries;
Geographical expansion;
Environmental regulations
effecting traditional
industries
NC Tools;
Microprocessor;
Microelectronics;
Multiple processor on
chip;
Computer control ‘boom’
CAD
Realize the limit of
vertical integration;
The obsolete of
conventional batch
manufacture; Shrinking
manufacturing cycle;
Reduce inventory;
Slash delivery times;
Radical revision in
management structures
Renewed debate;
Fear of loss of jobs;
“Deskilling”; Problem of
overcapacity; Concern of
greater government control
over technology
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Opposition to Free Trade Is Internationalist, Not Isolationist
by Karen Hansen-Kuhn
The current debate on fast-track or “trade promotion” authority has been marred by
accusations by public officials that are either inflammatory, irrelevant or both. A recent example is
U.S.Trade RepresentativeRobertZoellick’sassertion thatthose opposingthe Bush Administration’s
request for that authority are “xenophobes and isolationists”.
1
In fact, opposition to this model of
corporate-led globalization is both global in scale and internationalist in perspective. In this
hemisphere, for example, there is substantial opposition to the proposed Free Trade Area of the
Americas (FTAA). Tens of thousands of people from Buenos Aires to Quebec have taken this
message to the streets, to city councils and national legislatures to demand a very different kind of
economic integration.
Many of these people have raised the concern that free-trade agreements, rather than
engendering development, will only increase economic inequality and insecurity.
2
Alberto Arroyo,
a member of the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade, examining the negative impacts of the
North American Free Trade Agreement on the Mexican people and economy warns, “[I]t is
importantthattheU.S. Congress understand the enormous opposition to neoliberal globalization that
has emerged around the world. Authorizing the President to negotiate even greater liberalization
would feed people’s growing discontent and mobilization against this kind of globalization…
Legislators should understand that the majority of people, as much in developed countries as in less
developed, have not benefited but instead have been harmed by this corporate-led globalization.”
Peruvianorganizationsmeeting recentlyinLimaalsoquestiontheassumptionthatfree-trade
deals will help the poor. “In the FTAA talks,” theywrote, “officials speak of a direct,almostmagical
relationship between development, free trade and economic growth. We question this relationship,
given the depth of poverty in the region and in our country. Ten years of free trade in Peru has
generated greater povertyand increased concentration of wealth. This is unacceptable. Wewant fair
trade; we wantgrowththat results from technological, economic and social development, not growth
based on the over-exploitation of workers, communities and the environment.”
_________________
1. “Zoellick Calls for Date on House Fast-Track Vote to Firm Up Votes,” Inside U.S. Trade, 26 October 2001.
2. The full texts of the statements cited in this article are included in Latin Americans Against the FTAA – Another Americas is
Possible, which is available from The Development GAP or at www.art-us.org.
Page 2
The Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers (ORIT), which represents some 48
million workers in the Americas, declared that, “[O]ur experience with free-trade agreements at the
global and regional levels is that the promised benefits have not been realized. On the contrary, the
result has been to increase the power of multinational corporations, limit the abilityof governments
to regulate in the public interest, degrade the environment and reduce the standard of living, rights
and protections for working men and women. In particular, investment liberalization clauses have
damaged our nations’ sovereignty while contributing to increases in unemployment.”
Many people also question the lack of democracy in current trade talks. In a joint statement
with U.S. groups, Chilean civil-society organizations urge governments to take the time to conduct
comprehensive and public assessments of the potential social, economic and environmental impacts
of free trade. “Such consultations take time,” they write, “but it seems that this process is on a ‘fast
track’ that is advancing without the proper process. We are also concerned that, in both countries,
our legislative representatives are not adequately involved in the preparation of this accord. In the
United States, Congress is considering whether to grant the President so-called “Trade Promotion
Authority” that would effectively prohibit the inclusion of social issues in trade agreements and
would unreasonably limit congressional debate on those accords.”
Each of these critiques reflects broad-based concerns about poverty, inequality and
democracythat transcend national borders. People in Mexico, Peru, Chile and the United States, as
well as international organizations such as ORIT, work together in the Hemispheric Social Alliance
(HSA), a network that opposes the current model of free trade because it grants great privileges to
corporations while disregardingthe needs of the hemisphere’speoples and environments. The HSA
has developed a set of policy proposals for a different kind of economic integration, one that would
support improvements in living conditions for people in every country in the Americas. The
document, Alternatives for the Americas: Building a Peoples’ Hemispheric Agreement, includes
proposals designed to support local efforts to determine development plans democratically and to
channel investment appropriately, to reduce inequalities both within and among nations, to ensure
theprotectionofallpeoples’basichumanand laborrights, and to prioritizesustainabledevelopment
and environmental protection over the expansion of trade and investment.
The real issue is not whether opposition to free trade is nationalistic or not but who wins and
who loses under the resulting accords. People throughout the Americas understand that it is not
countries that benefit or suffer from these policies but rather specific sectors within each nation.
Workers, environmentalists, family farmers, women and many others in the United States have
joined forces with their counterparts in other countries to advance a common agenda, one that stands
in sharp contrast the goals of corporate-led trade and investment agreements.
November 2001