I don't know for sure what advanced manufacturing is today (the day you are reading this), but I do know for sure that it is not the same as it was yesterday and will again be different tomorrow. This is a really exciting time to be alive and to be in this field. For millions of years people have been manufacturing. They've been taking raw materials and transforming them into something someone else wants. Our ancestors incrementally improved manufacturing processes over the ages from banging stones together to casting and forging metals to today automated systems where robots can make robots and people are talking about using DNA as a data storage device. Advanced manufacturing is really about change and adaption of new technologies.
Manufacturing is how we create wealth it has been and will be for millions of years. Today's difference isn't even that we are changing and getting better at doing it we've been doing that for millions of years as well. Today's difference is the rate of change.
Two hundred fifty years ago we couldn't really build a steam engine and now in their spare time college students can design and build rockets that fly above 10,000 feet while sending live telemetry back to an i-phone. The change that changed the rate of manufacturing innovation was in large part our ability to repeatedly cut metal parts with high tolerances. Wilkinson's boring machine (1775) enabled Watt's steam engine which in turn enabled the industrial revolution.
What follows in this blog are some of my thoughts on the fundamentals of advanced manufacturing including some detailed information on what are the most important processes in today's society
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