That's a timely comment, Tim. We have a Design News Radio show this Wednesday, Dec. 14, and 2pm EST, where we will talk with Siemens about energy efficient motors and drives. You can go here to register.
I agree with the tough challenges coming up in 2012. If 2011 is an example, companies with high involvement in the production of energy efficient machines will be poised for growth in 2012. How they deal with this growth will show what kind of company they are.
Those are all good points Alex, I think our highest priorities are employment and a stable economy. Then producing more efficient and renewable power. Then applying that to electric vehicles.
A breakthrough in stem cell research would also be a very welcome sight... bring it on.
Good points, all. I particulatly agree, Alex, with your point about applauding companies like Siemens, who've gone out of their way to hire U.S. engineers. From the comments I've read over the past six months, I've become convinced that there's a lot of U.S.-based talent that can't find engineering work, and I suspect it's because of immigration acts that enable companies to employ foreign engineers in specialty situations. A lot of other engineering employers out there need to follow Siemens' lead.
As for the digital factory, I think your last two points are the critical ones. High-value vendors are certainly selling upper-end technology, but mostly it's for the purpose of helping manufacturers increase productivity from the prototype to the customers dock. These are times when manufacturers can't spend money that doesn't translate almost immediately into some type of ROI. So there isn’t going to be much technology for the sake of technology like the late 1990s. I guess that makes your third point the strongest -- method of helping manufacturers speed up the prototyping through production processes.
I have to echo Alex's enthusiam surrounding the employment issue he talks about here. It is definitely encouraging to see companies hiring "older" workers. While younger engineers may work for less money (and I can see where that may be more attractive to some employers), it has been my experience in every job I've ever had, that you learn by doing and by taking after the more seasoned employees. These "older" engineers are clearly assets and should be treated as such.
Thanks for a funny column full of good points. Having just written four "top such and such" articles for the first time, I can see how tough it is to pick the top 5 this or the most important 10 that. I think the macro-level takeaway I got here was that products, systems and jobs are all getting more integrated and more multi-disciplinary and we all have to know more about more stuff. Tiring, indeed. But also exciting.
Thanks, Beth. I think what we see clearly here is that technologies with the biggest economic impetus behind them are the ones which catch fire most quickly. So 3D printing, which as you mention is not so much a challenge as a reality, is almost mainstream at this point, because it's gotten so cheap and accessible. Energy harvesting is sparking interest because of the obvious savings on electricity costs, which are rising rapidly, as well as because harvesting is one way to ensure access to power.
Like your list of the toughest challenges, Alex. In particular, I think energy efficiency and the digital factory ones present the greatest opportunity, if engineering organizations can work through the host of process problems and technical kinks that will likely erect barriers to adoption. I'm not sure I'd agree that the trend around lower cost 3D printing presents a challenge--I would position that more as a great opportunity that burst out of the gates this last year.
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For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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