SIEMENS

How will products be conceived and manufactured fifty years from now? Will they be born in “crowdsourced” environments in which groups of far-flung human beings compete against each other to produce optimized digital designs? Will they be manufactured in networks of automated, underground factories by machines that use mixtures of specialized powders to 3D-print everything from personalized auto parts to turbine blades? Although some elements of this vision may seem far-fetched, much of the technology described in our Scenario is now being developed, tested, and, in some cases, even launched.

The journey that has taken us from handmade manufacturing, through the Industrial, mass production, and information-technology revolutions, is now propelling us a step further – to a new vision of manufacturing that German government and industry circles have called “Industry 4.0”. Key to this is the integration of software, sensors, and communications in so-called cyber-physical systems. It is here – at the intersection of the virtual and real worlds – that, to an ever increasing extent, the things we manufacture are being conceived, refined, tested, and designed. The ultimate proof of the pudding is NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover, all of which, including its landing, was developed and tested using Siemens design and simulation software.

New Model for Manufactoring. Closer to home, on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona, a startup called Local Motors uses a simpler version of the same software to design cars that some would say are as out of this world as Curiosity’s mission. In a process that Local Motors calls “co-creation,” – also known as “crowdsourcing” – the software allows enthusiasts to post a design for a part that other users in a worldwide community can call up on a browser, see in 3D, take measurements from, and comment on, thus providing a new model and methodology for innovation, and vastly accelerating the process of translating ideas into industrial products.

So potentially powerful is crowdsourcing as a vehicle for accelerating innovation, competitiveness and cost containment that DARPA – the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency – is examining whether it can be used to reverse the spiraling cost of military systems. “The idea is to do what the semiconductor industry did when chip design was decoupled from computer production – standardize and automate elements of the design process through higher levels of abstraction so that a wide range of parties can contribute,” says Dr. Lee Ng, Director of Venture Technology at Siemens’ Technology to Business (TTB) Center, Berkeley, California.

With this in mind, DARPA has funded the development of open source software tools that are now being shared by a vetted design community. “Those tools will democratize design,” adds Ng. “They will allow multiple parties to participate in the design process to meet product requirements, and essentially make it possible to compare apples and oranges in a consistent manner. As this is achieved, a new and crucial concept will come into being: mathematical certification of digital products.” The idea, she explains, is that products must perform in the real world exactly as specified in the virtual world.

Another potentially game-changing trend is the evolution of additive manufactoring, from printing of simple plastics to high-performance metals. One example is three-dimensional laser printing or stereo lithography. Here, the idea is to go directly from digital models to finished parts in a process that involves automated spraying of specialized metallic or ceramic powders onto a substrate while melting the material with a high-power laser, thereby creating a 3D object, layer by layer. “By linking crowdsourcing, digital product certification, and additive manufacturing,” says Ng, “a company could transfer completed digital models to computer numerically-controlled machines around the world whereby a schedule would be produced to determine which factories have the capacity to produce which parts at which times.” Siemens’ TTB is exploring possibilities in this area with a number of researchers, startup companies, and Siemens parties.

Additive manufacturing technology, which produces almost no material waste, could open the door to an entirely new model for manufacturing in which parts and products are produced when and where they are needed, thus reducing the need for mass production, warehousing, and distribution while bringing production closer to the user. So profound is the potential economic significance of this technology that on August 15, 2012, the White House announced the launch of the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII), a consortium of public and private organizations designed to increase domestic manufacturing competitiveness.

In a process that in some ways mimics additive manufacturing, Siemens researchers have developed software that spots and localizes micro cracks and craters on used turbine blades. The information is then used to guide a robotic arm that sprays metallic powder onto damaged areas while a laser melts the powder, thus bonding it to the blade. The technique, which has been tested at Siemens’ turbine manufacturing facility in Berlin, is designed to allow on-site blade repairs. Meanwhile, a related metal joining technology known as “cold spraying” is under development at Siemens. This involves the bombardment of a damaged area with metallic nanoparticles that are sprayed at such high velocity that a virtual weld is created. The technique is designed to avoid the risk of deformations associated with heat-based methods.

Factories from Computers. Naturally, Siemens is not only involved in designing, building and servicing products, but in the planning of production facilities themselves. With a view to accelerating this process, researchers at Siemens Corporate Technology have developed (Intuitive Layout Planning), a technology that creates a bridge between the real and the virtual worlds by producing true-to-scale physical models of production and logistics chains. The technology was recently used to plan the shop floor configuration for the welding of train components at a Siemens factory in Krefeld, Germany. To date, 15 factories around the world have been remodeled or designed from the ground up using IntuPlan technology.

Once a well-planned factory is up and running, automation systems must work flawlessly, workstations and tasks can be personalized, sensor networks and wireless infrastructures need to be protected against hackers, and service personnel need to be able to perform duties as quickly as possible. The latter may, however, require specialized navigational aids.

That’s the idea behind a technology now being developed by Siemens Corporate Technology in Princeton, New Jersey. There, researchers have developed a cloud-based information infrastructure supported by one of the world’s fastest data links. Equipped with data glasses or a tablet computer, service personnel (or robots) see directions superimposed on the real environment (augmented reality), thus providing unmistakable guidance to a target location.

Once there, the same data infrastructure can be used by a technician to see each part within a machine or assembly, access its service history, order and help to install replacement parts, and, if necessary, share images in real-time with an off-site specialist for expert assistance or training purposes.

Although manufacturing’s long-range future can only be hypothesized, the technologies described in this section of our magazine provide an exciting peek at where we are most probably headed.