Plenary Address
Opportunities for Materials Science and Engineering Provided by ModernCommunication
Robert A. Laudise
Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies
Laudise noted that modern communication capabilities rely heavily on materials and process science and engineering. These disciplines have made it possible to create inexpensive, large-bandwidth communications worldwide, wireless communication, and computing networks. But the question arises as to how the materials and processes research community can exploit the advanced communication capabilities which it has done so much to provide.
Although the information highway is here, its bandwidth limits are far from exhausted. Distributed computing, information management, and networking are experiencing exponential growth. Meanwhile, the R&D community faces a prodigious proliferation of technical literature that must be efficiently and intelligently sorted if maximum use of it is to be achieved. There is, in addition, a rapid globalization of R&D participants, both absolutely and within given specialties. In order for these distributed R&D participants to effectively communicate and collaborate, an ubiquitous communication medium will be required with universal connectivity and video bandwidth to provide real-time, high-quality communication. The economic pressures arising from global competition are drastically shortening R&D time horizons and factory product cycles. For multinational companies with development and manufacturing sites worldwide, the need for more effective communications between sites has become paramount. New technology breeds even newer technology, and high-bandwidth multimedia communication links will be necessary to facilitate continuing education of the professional workforce.
Laudise discussed several issues specific to the materials and processes community. One issue is the need for super handbooks with data of known pedigree. One can easily visualize the role that the information highway might play in the effective distribution of such data. Another issue is the cross-disciplinary nature of materials information and expertise. This makes it difficult to define coherent or organizable user groups, unlike, for example, the group assembled for the Human Genome project. Although not unique to M&P research, the field's cross-disciplinary nature presents special problems of access and connectivity. Some M&P researchers desire the capability for remote access and control of leading-edge fabrication and materials characterization tools. As the capability of the information highway grows, so does the likelihood that this capability will become reality. Most of the work product of M&P scientists and engineers is tangible, requiring high-speed transmission of high-quality visual information, such
as high-resolution TEM images. Another issue is that the modeling of real materials and processing systems needs very high computer power.
The bottom line is that hardware and software capability are not limiting the exploitation of the information highway by the M&P community. For example, even though modeling capabilities for properties and processing are improving, the limiting factor is the need for better basic understanding, better sensors, and better application of control theory.
Laudise exhorted the workshop attendees to listen carefully to one another. To improve the odds for involving the diverse M&P community in the information highway, more effort should be spent on identifying best current practices. Nothing is more impressive than seeing things that really work. Therefore, Laudise encouraged more demonstration projects, including online handbooks, electronic symposia, journals, chat rooms, and bulletin boards. He also cited the importance of finding ways to help factories, whose personnel will require easy connectivity and user-friendly tools before they will be willing to travel on the information highway.
Discussion
Baskes said that network managers could be the key to significant improvements in the Internet. Laudise noted that proprietary networks have not been successfully managed, but that the information highway needs better management to reduce chaos, junk mail, slowness, and unreliability. Kerschberg remarked that since the National Science Foundation was responsible for creating the Internet, it might be possible to persuade the Department of Defense to put up the funds for a materials network. Larry Davis pointed out that DOD is funding an internal network within DOD.
Wiederhold said that effective communications will require more than a wide bandwidth. It will also require intelligence in users and servers. It is important to know how to charge for services while keeping charges at reasonable levels.
Knowles commented that as technical societies put handbooks on the Web and conduct conferences over the Internet, they need ways to support these efforts. The technical societies will cater to membership needs. Friday asked what services, other than a good moderator to validate and filter data, the materials community needs. Wiederhold 's answer to that was machine-friendly interfaces and access to information about materials properties that is easy to manipulate and process. Mahin commented that materials researchers use data in different ways and thus need interfaces tailored to the specific application areas that interest them. Kerschberg noted the need to know data quality and metadata attributes, and whether it has received technical society approval.
Laudise said that it was important to be able to overlay one set of data on another to get proper visualization. He also cited the need to determine what the materials community wants and what it will be willing to pay for services. Losleben commented that smart front-ends were needed to put information in the proper
context. Sonwalkar called for better quality control of information, with published information being clearly authenticated. Laudise said that NIST has provided materials and processes information (e.g., phase diagrams) for three generations and should continue to do so as information technology advances.
