I spent a good portion of my career as a manufacturing engineer, so I just wanted to chime in with a few thoughts on the article and the comments I've read here:
- Broadly speaking manufacturing can be lumped into to production models: high-volume, low product mix, and low-volume high product mix. Most of the manufacturers that you will recognize from a consumer standpoint are the former, but most of the ones that I've worked for and toured in the local area are the latter. Many automation systems are not cost effective for high product mix mfgrs.
- There is a ton of software used in manufacturing - not just at the ERP/MRP level, but all the way down to the production floor. Some of it is COTS, but much of it is custom.
- 3D Printing may be buzz worthy, but I don't think it's applicable to most manufacturing operations. Wherever you are while reading this, look around you and count the number of things that could have been made with a 3D printer, and then ask yourself whether 3D printing cycle times (and therefore cost) would scale to large operations.
- "API's for Manufacturing" sounds a bit nebulous. When you run a manufacturing operation, there are 4 main drivers for improvement: quality, cost, delivery, and inventory. If you have a single factory producing good on demand via an API, it sounds like a job shop, and would have a limited range of capabilities. If the API interfaced with a network of manufacturing operations, each with its own specialty, then those 4 drivers become significant hurdles.
This is great comment - the "automation systems are not cost effective for high product mix mfgrs" seems like the crux of the matter to me. Can we create more flexible/universal systems?
3D Printing claims to do this, but as mentioned it's limited in what you can do - so that's going to take quite some time to get right (20years).
It'll be interesting to see the ReThink Robotics launch coming up to see if their system can help alleviate some of these problems.
- Broadly speaking manufacturing can be lumped into to production models: high-volume, low product mix, and low-volume high product mix. Most of the manufacturers that you will recognize from a consumer standpoint are the former, but most of the ones that I've worked for and toured in the local area are the latter. Many automation systems are not cost effective for high product mix mfgrs.
- There is a ton of software used in manufacturing - not just at the ERP/MRP level, but all the way down to the production floor. Some of it is COTS, but much of it is custom.
- 3D Printing may be buzz worthy, but I don't think it's applicable to most manufacturing operations. Wherever you are while reading this, look around you and count the number of things that could have been made with a 3D printer, and then ask yourself whether 3D printing cycle times (and therefore cost) would scale to large operations.
- "API's for Manufacturing" sounds a bit nebulous. When you run a manufacturing operation, there are 4 main drivers for improvement: quality, cost, delivery, and inventory. If you have a single factory producing good on demand via an API, it sounds like a job shop, and would have a limited range of capabilities. If the API interfaced with a network of manufacturing operations, each with its own specialty, then those 4 drivers become significant hurdles.