Software-defined manufacturing systems promise to transform the factory of the future by allowing more-sophisticated products to be made and put into production more quickly. The implications are becoming apparent
“Thirty years from now we will laugh at our generation of humans, putting products together by hand,” predicts Lior Susan, the boss of Bright Machines, a San Francisco-based company that installed the plant’s software. It is not that the design of the electric drills or the various steps involved in making them have changed.
Eventually, all the kinks are ironed out and the new product is ready for production. The finer details of how all this was achieved, however, are likely to remain locked up in the minds of the workers assembling the prototypes. Humans are, after all, incredibly flexible and often come up with workarounds.
“When I became familiar with what VulcanForms was doing, I could see predictable patterns that mirrored some of the learning with semiconductors,” says Ray Stata, the founder of Analog Devices, an American chipmaker, and a member of the foundry’s board. In chipmaking, he says, the software linking designer and manufacturer has produced huge gains in efficiency and economies of scale.
There will be implications for manufacturing jobs. Although automation usually means a reduction in the number of people assembling things on the shop floor, it also creates some jobs. Technicians are required to program and maintain production systems, and in offices successful companies are likely to boost the numbers working in design, marketing and sales. These jobs, though, require different skills so retraining will be necessary.
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