Visionary Manufacturing Challenges for 2020 (1998)

Questionnaire #1

Instructions

The objective of this survey is to provide a vision of the future manufacturing enterprise with its challenges and needs. Original thought and insight is required to produce a vision that is more than a rehash of what has already been said. We know what the experts are saying about the trends in manufacturing today as they look to the future. What we want to know in this survey is what the experts will be saying as they look ahead to the year 2020 and beyond. . Please extend your thinking beyond today's conventional wisdom. Remember that the ground rules for manufacturing in 2020 will be much different than they are today.

The intent is to define the profound changes which will occur in manufacturing and not the next incremental steps.

Project yourself into the world of 2020 and beyond and define what it will be and what the consequences will be for the manufacturing enterprise. You are not limited to predicting what will happen but also include what you think we should try to make happen.

Try to spend approximately equal time on each question. Trial results for this survey indicated more extensive and thoughtful input on the first two questions. Insight and creative ideas are required on all four questions.

Your thinking should be expansive. However, for each question limit your input to the 3 to 5 most important ideas. Use as many sentences as you need to describe each idea.

For e-mail reply, please enter reply, then scroll down to the space after each question where you can insert your reply.

Questions

1. COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT

The COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT for manufacturing will be dramatically different in the year 2020 and beyond. Major changes will occur in a number of different areas such as economics (national and global), education, competition, customers, geopolitics, ecological considerations, technology breakthroughs, relationships and agreements among nations, social conditions, and the workforce. For example, future cities look radically different, and all products are made from recyclable materials.

Describe your vision of what this environment will be for the manufacturing enterprise in the year 2020 and beyond, by describing the dramatic and significant changes and events that will have occurred by then. Please be specific. Please do not just extrapolate from current trends.

2. ENTERPRISE

Describe your vision of what the manufacturing ENTERPRISE will look like in the year 2020 and beyond.

3. CHALLENGES

For the vision of the manufacturing enterprise that you provided for the year 2020 and beyond, what are the CHALLENGES that must be met?

4. TECHNOLOGY

In order to meet these challenges, what are the major TECHNOLOGY developments that are needed? Technology is defined broadly to include resources, hardware, software, people finances, products, processing equipment, work processes, work designs, and business processes, etc.

(End of Survey)

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

COMMISSION ON ENGINEERING AND TECHNICAL SYSTEMS

BOARD ON MANUFACTURING AND ENGINEERING DESIGN

COMMITTEE ON VISIONARY

MANUFACTURING CHALLENGES

DELPHI SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE #2

MANUFACTURING GRAND CHALLENGES IN THE YEAR 2020

Please return via email or fax by May 30, 1997 to:

Attn: Bonnie Scarborough

Board on Manufacturing and Engineering Design

Harris Building, Room 262

2001 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W.

Washington, DC 20007 USA

Phone: (202) 334-3562

Fax: (202) 334-3718

Email: bscarbor@nas.edu

Delphi Questionnaire #2

QUESTION 1: In the first round of the survey, respondents identified the following as major challenges for the manufacturing enterprise in 2020. Which of these challenges do you think are the most important? Place an ''x" next to the three challenges that you consider most important for the manufacturing enterprise to succeed in 2020.

A. ___ Enhancement of workforce performance and satisfaction to address rapidly changing and complex operational requirements, and diverse culture-based issues

B. ___ Constant and concurrent development of innovative products, processes, and systems to meet shorter product life cycles, enhance value added, and advance manufacturing capabilities

C. ___ Ability to rapidly develop and execute complex and dynamic alliances and collaborations

D. ___ Response to severe environmental impact constraints and increasing material and energy scarcity

E. ___ Achievement of the speed and flexibility to cost-effectively meet the ever-increasing customer demands for instant satisfaction with customized products

F. ___ Adoption of rapidly developing technologies to increase and/or adapt the core strength of the enterprise to the marketplace

G. ___ Development of an effective global infrastructure to support new optimal scale manufacturing configurations

H. ___ Much more effective conversion of information to useful knowledge in an atmosphere of exploding availability of information

QUESTION 2: The following technologies were identified in round 1 of the survey as enablers for success of the manufacturing enterprise in 2020. Which technologies do you think are most important for enabling the manufacturing enterprise to meet its future challenges? Place an "x" next to the five technologies that you consider most important. For each of the technologies listed, descriptive information is enclosed in parentheses to further explain the technology; these descriptions are not meant to be inclusive or limiting.

A. ___ Adaptable and reconfigurable manufacturing processes and systems (e.g., intelligent, mass customization, rapid creation of new production facilities, ability to accommodate wide range of product characteristics)

B. ___ Systems model for all manufacturing enterprise operations (e.g., real time synthesis of planning, market demand, product development, distribution, social systems, wealth creation into manufacturing system planning, effective modeling of supply chains)

C. ___ Micro and nano technology for fabrication processes (e.g., atom by atom fabrication of assemblies, development of microscale machines)

D. ___ Processes to customize totally new materials with order of magnitude property improvements designed on the atomic scale (e.g., 10x strength improvement, defect-free materials, smart materials that can change properties in service in response to changing conditions, materials designed to be reprocessed or reconstructed)

E. ___ Direct machine/user interfaces that enhance human performance and promote intelligent input (e.g., skill-leveraging, human commands transmitted directly to machine, human access to data via "bionic ears")

F. ___ Net-shape, programmable, flexible forming processes that require no hard tooling (e.g., pulsed power autoshaping, forming finished assemblies from the melt)

G. ___ Design methods and manufacturing processes for products that can easily be reconfigured with software or hardware (e.g., products easily upgradable in the field for long life, products that can be customized by the customer)

H. ___ Desk-top manufacturing processes (e.g., manufacturing in the home by customer, neighborhood manufacturing service centers, highly distributed manufacturing capacity according to market location, portable manufacturing)

I. ___ Biotechnology processes for manufacturing (e.g., use of biological structures in engineering design, fabrication of parts and assemblies with biological processes, "designer" proteins, enzymes, and tissues, biocatalysts, bioassembly of new foods, biodevices for computer memories)

J. ___ Scientific bases for manufacturing processes (e.g., enables rapid development of models for simulation)

K. ___ Application for chaos theory to manufacturing (e.g., software to capture emergent behavior, developing basic rules of behavior in manufacturing systems, embedded intelligence software, negotiating and bargaining algorithms)

L. ___ Waste-free manufacturing (e.g., processes designed with no by-products in manufacture, integrated multiple product lines to consume by-products of one line in another)

M. ___ New transportation concepts for rapid movement of materials and products (e.g., friction reduction, antigravity, superfast)

N. ___ Synthesis and architecture technologies for converting information into desired knowledge (human memory relational structures; capturing, synthesizing, relating, integrating, and systematizing new knowledge into applications-oriented uses)

O. ___ Design methodologies that process orders of magnitude broader range of product requirements (e.g., include life-cycle design, producibility, societal requirements, workforce needs)

P. ___ Unified communication methods and protocols for exchange of all manufacturing enterprise information

Q. ___ Processes for rapid and cost-effective development, transfer, and utilization of technology (e.g., innovation processes, new paradigms for technology development, analysis and synthesis of new technologies)

R. ___ Methodology for quantum jump in product and process reliability (e.g., variability reduction, new methods for robust design)

S. ___ Low energy consumption processes (e.g., low-inertia machines, catalyst, alternate energy sources, high energy-density batteries)

T. ___ New sensor technology for precision process control (real-time sensors for machine self-calibration, self-verification, self-correction, self-improvement)

U. ___ 360 degree collaboration software (e.g., translate neural knowledge base to language that is personalized to different thinking styles; enable workforce participation in technology design and development; interactive visualization)

V. ___ Low gravity, high vacuum manufacturing (practical manufacturing in space; earth-bound manufacturing facilities with space environment)

W. ___ New educational methods (in-home facilities; smart and knowledge pills)

X. ___ New concept manufacturing processes (e.g., ion beam, three dimensional chemical etching)

Y. ___ New software design methods (e.g., robust, seamless, adaptive, inter-operable, highly reliable)

QUESTION 3: What research topics must be addressed to develop these technologies? For each of the five technologies that you identified as most important in Question 2, identify one or more specific research topics that must be addressed to develop that technology.

A major result of this survey is the research topics that you identify below. Please be as specific as you can so that there is sufficient definition to set research agendas. Your inputs should be phrased as topical statements with explanations in parentheses if needed. Explanations are encouraged where appropriate. Examples of research topics include: unifying theories leading to models for product producibility; new concepts and models for partitioning manufacturing systems; theories and defining experiments for human and machine or manufacturing systems interactions; processes for synthesizing biological structures; material design from first principles; concepts for nanofabrication machines.

QUESTION 4: Which of the challenges facing manufacturing will be met by these technologies? For each of the five technologies that you identified as most important in Question 2, please indicate the challenges listed in Question 1 that will be met through the use of the technology. The challenges that you list here can be different from the top three challenges that you identified in Question 1.

END OF SURVEY

Thank you for your participation.

Please return via email or fax by May 30, 1997 to:

Attn: Bonnie Scarborough

Board on Manufacturing and Engineering Design

Harris Building, Room 262

2001 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W.

Washington, DC 20007 USA

Phone: (202) 334-3562

Fax: (202) 334-3718

Email: bscarbor@nas.edu