In the world of advanced manufacturing,
one small step can become a giant leap indeed.

F

ar from the virtuality of the recent dot-com blip, the realm of advanced manufacturing (AM) has served to make the fantastic quite real -- through technologically advanced end products, and through a whole universe of techniques, equipment and processes that can make even the oldest of factory lines advance into new and profitable territory.

      Said IBM CEO Louis Gerstner in a recent speech to investors, "Despite the hand wringing and the 'sky is falling' mentality, the fact is that in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2001, business investment in hardware and software grew a very healthy 11.3 percent ... Despite the dot-com collapse, institutions of all sizes and types will make massive investments in networked technologies."
      The numbers back him up. In 2000, even though high-tech industry grew at its slowest pace since 1995, U.S. high-tech exports doubled, and jobs continued to grow at a healthy rate in the sector. IBM itself has recently benefited from mega-deals outsourcing entire IT infrastructures to Big Blue, including one with global pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca in February. The deal valued at US$857 million required the transfer of 1,200 staff.
      Literally hundreds of firms and institutions are finding R&D for advanced manufacturing through the Intelligent Manufacturing Systems program, an international effort founded by a Japanese government think tank in 1989. A group of 18 different consortia self-funded by $250 million collaborate across boundaries both political and industrial to develop best practices for even the most minute and vexing processes. One consortium, the Next Generation Manufacturing Systems group, is heavily tilted toward the automotive business, last year producing a theoretical study of an auto factory with no actual assembly lines. Others include work with genetic algorithms in order to develop "well-bred" solutions; digital die design; "intelligent agent" software that will seek out and execute tasks; and holonic manufacturing, which is focused on manufacturing processes as ecosystems that can be adapted to one another.