Epilogue
Influence of Information Technologies
Looking at just
one of these contributing disciplines, we can see that information technology
has been a powerful driver of innovation in manufacturing. Design and
manufacture of new products requires processing of huge amounts of information
to ensure quality, satisfy customer needs, and meet environmental standards.
Increasingly, manufacturers are using information technology for modeling and
simulation to construct “virtual” tools and factories, allowing
factory design to proceed in parallel with product design. Similarly, computer
networking helps manufacturers integrate all aspects of their operations, from
design and processing to the assembly line, shipping, and marketing. These
applications of information technology reduce the time and cost of developing
and testing new products and allow them to reach their markets faster and more
efficiently.
Manufacturers are increasingly incorporating computers and other
forms of technology into the workplace, both on the factory floor and on the
office desktop. This has increased productivity, which in turn, has boosted
worker compensation. Since the fourth quarter of 1995, nonfarm business
productivity growth has averaged 2.1 percent. Nowadays it is difficult to
identify a “low-tech” manufacturer: 84 percent of manufacturers use
computer-aided design (CAD); 63 percent have incorporated local area networks
(LANs) into their operations; and 62 percent have adopted
“just-in-time” inventory techniques.
Before a company starts full-scale manufacturing of a product,
it builds prototypes with the same specifications as those of the planned
product. The prototypes are used for testing and verification of the design and
error-proofing manufacturing assembly. Older methods for constructing
individual prototypes were expensive and time-consuming, adding substantially
to the time between product concept and delivery. Today, rapid prototyping
reduces prototype development time from months to days, greatly shortening the
time to market of new products.
In addition, increasing productivity and capturing a world
market depend on “agility” in manufacturing —
setting up
manufacturing enterprises to adapt products rapidly to changing marketing
opportunities in the most efficient way. Companies are finding ways to perfect
“just-in-time” procedures in assembly, inventory, and delivery, so
that resources — including human effort — are applied when they are
needed, but not until then. This approach requires rapid flow and application
of information roughout the supply chain. The end result is substantial
increases in productivity, as reflected in savings of money and manpower
throughout the manufacturing sector.
Federal Support for R&D
For several decades, the
Federal government has supported research relevant to various manufacturing
sectors. The government also provides economic and technical information to
manufacturers, and it establishes and nurtures partnerships and consortiums
involving universities, private manufacturers, and broader industry groups. For
example, the Commerce Department's National Institute of Stan-dards and
Technology (NIST) is a key supplier of technologies and services integral to
manufacturing capabilities. Results of NIST research lead to industry-accepted
test and measurement methods, process models, interface standards, and other
useful tools that contribute to effective operations and quality products
across a wide range of manufacturing industries. The capabilities that they
support often set the technical limits on what can be accomplished on the
factory floor, in the research and development laboratory, or with suppliers
and customers. American companies depend on NIST tools and services for
hundreds of millions of measurements each day.
Nanotechnology and Beyond
Today's research
provides a glimpse of the future of manufacturing. Scientists are now able to
see things at the molecular level, and are rapidly gaining the ability to
manipulate materials and processes at the nano-level. (A nanometer is
one-billionth of a meter, tens of thousands of times smaller than the width of
a human hair.) In the emerging field of nanotechnology, researchers are working
to find ways to change the very composition of materials to emphasize desired
characteristics such as strength or flexibility. Nanotechnology holds
tremendous promise for the future of manufacturing, signaling a new ability to
custom-design materials that manufacturers might need for specific purposes.
Within an estimated one to three decades, nanofabrication processes will move
from the laboratory to the assembly line, and new nano-materials will find
countless new applications in products and processes that will achieve even
greater efficiencies and quality levels.
We can even expect to see molecular-size switches for computer
circuits; “machines” no bigger than a few atoms; surgical tools that
can operate on an individual cell in the human body; and molecular robots that
doctors can inject into the bloodstream, where they will seek out and destroy
cancer cells. Nano-engineers are already envisioning
“self-assembling” devices that will rebuild copies of themselves,
molecule by molecule, following programmed instructions.
Today, U.S.-based manufacturing extends its global market share
leadership mostly through high-tech exports such as computers, semiconductors,
software, aircraft, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, on-line services,
telecommunications, and precision instruments. We are beginning to transform
manufacturing processes and equipment by intelligent sensors and control
systems, rapid prototyping capabilities, and pollution avoidance technologies.
America's leadership in manufacturing has not been without global
challenges, but we are witnessing a surge of innovation that will enhance our
nation's global economic manufacturing capability.
As newly developing fields such as nanotechnology, fiber optics,
robotics, and computer modeling continue to yield breakthroughs in products and
processes, we will undoubtedly see even more dramatic changes in the coming
century. Even if what is being manufactured is the same 30 years from now,
it's a safe bet that how it's manufactured will be cleaner, more
efficient, and more productive.
Wherever we turn in our daily lives, we constantly encounter
reminders of the contributions of science and technology. From the familiar
(for example, a phone call via optical fiber cable) to the astonishing (the
successful cloning of Dolly the sheep), examples abound of technology's
pervasiveness. As a society, we will wrestle with moral and ethical questions
raised by some of the newest capabilities we have developed, such as stem cell
research or genetically modified foods. But we should remember that much of
what we now take for granted as gifts from science and technology could not
have been foreseen decades earlier, and would not have been available without
vigilance in research and development funding.
If we are to continue to enjoy beneficial breakthroughs from
scientists and researchers, we must make sure that we continue to fund
essential research and development activities across a broad spectrum of
scientific disciplines. Only by supporting research where the returns are not
guaranteed can we ensure the steady, gradual progress that underpins the
front-page news stories that accompany each new success. It is ironic that such
open-ended research, whose cost-effectiveness is often difficult to guarantee,
sometimes generates the greatest economic returns. Federal Reserve Chairman
Alan Greenspan expressed this very point in the summer of 1999 when he said,
“The evidence…for a technology-driven rise in the prospective rate of
return on new capital, and an associated acceleration in labor productivity, is
compelling, if not conclusive.” The President's Committee of Advisors
on Science and Technology, in issuing this report, urges all Americans —
from Capitol Hill to Main Street — to do all they can to support continued
Federal funding for science and technology, so that our grandchildren can
continue to benefit from the same wellspring of prosperity. |
