Injection molding process. Source. This image is in the public domain.
What’s new?
A 16 March article in Automation World describes a new Stanley Black & Decker device (called the Inj3ctor) for manufacturing products from rubber by combining capabilities of injection molding and 3D printing.
What does it mean?
In the engineering program I used to chair, the course in manufacturing processes uses the well known textbook Introduction to Manufacturing Processes by Mikell P Groover, now in its 12th edition. As shown in the table of contents, the book covers materials and then describes a great number of processes such as casting; extrusion; coating; injection, blow, and rotational molding; pressing and sintering; forming; rolling; forging; drawing; machining; turning; drilling; grinding; annealing; plating; welding; assembly; fastening; and more.
Of course, any product is manufactured from a variety of materials using a variety of processes. Indeed, the crucial engineering knowledge is design, which involves selection of appropriate materials and processes to create a product with the capabilities desired by the customer. Look around you and just about any object you see was manufactured using a variety of processes in various combinations: a pen, a cellphone, a chair, a door.
The idea behind the Inj3ctor is not revolutionary – a mold is 3D printed and a flexible material, such as rubber, is then injected into the mold – but the marketing of the product as combining these manufacturing processes caught my eye.
What does it mean for you?
Right now, additive manufacturing is somewhere between experimental and routine, with new processes being invented and some processes becoming routine. The change in name from “rapid prototyping” to “additive manufacturing” indicated the trend toward making these processes routine. The make-versus-buy decision and distinction between the specialized shop and a general manufacturing plant will affect how much additive manufacturing get integrated into other processes or remains stand-alone, but the Inj3ctor tells me that additive manufacturing is well on its way to becoming routine.
In your manufacturing processes you are probably very much aware of places where additive manufacturing is being used, just as you know where you are using casting, molding, forging, or drilling, but in the future you will think less about the new or different aspects of additive manufacturing and think more about its use simply as another manufacturing processes. Engineers will routinely consider the materials and processes of additive manufacturing as part of their design of products.
Where can you learn more?
The best places to follow developments in additive manufacturing are still magazines and companies particular to those processes, for example, the information from Additive Manufacturing Media or this outlook from the company FormLabs. Another window into additive manufacturing is through applications in specific industries, such as medical devices or sports equipment.
As part of its series on Most Innovative Companies, Fast Company published an article titled “The 10 most innovative manufacturing companies of 2021.” These ten companies were selected for their innovations in manufacturing processes. The icons on this link take you to other specialized lists in the Fast Company series.
What does it mean?
Three of the companies contributed to the rapid response to COVID-19. SiO2 Material Sciences developed a better process to create a glass coating inside plastic vials. Carbon’s new product of improved nasal swabs was designed and launched in three weeks. Ford was cited for moving quickly to turn its designers and manufacturing facilities to producing PPE and ventilator products.
Four of the companies use 3D printing. Gantri was cited for using 3D printing to create custom designed lamps, Arris Composites for using additive manufacturing and molding to create better composites, Carbon for designing and 3D printing a better nasal swab, and Velo3D for innovations in metal additive manufacturing.
Sustainability is improved with several of these companies, often through its choice of materials. Gantri prints its lamps from plant polymers. Okeanos produces packaging with reduced environmental damage.
Lockdowel makes hardware for easy and fast assembly of wood products such as cabinets, closets, and furniture. The company is an example of a provider in a long chain, often invisible to the final consumer, that results, if done well, in superior products and lower costs: in one application, Lockdowel hardware is incorporated into cabinetry kits bought by home builders. The company has a wonderful set of videos on YouTube, showing their manufacturing processes and the use of their products. The company feeds my fascination with fasteners, an often neglected aspect of engineering design.
Instrumental provides in process inspection of products with computerized analysis of the images to detect product defects rapidly. SendCutSend provides fast laser cutting services for various materials, from steel, through carbon fiber, to wood.
What does it mean for you?
Among Fast Company’s many lists about innovative companies, I selected the list about manufacturing companies to emphasize that innovation matters in product design but also in the design of the process for making a product (or delivering a service). Industrial engineering, which is my area of expertise, is all about efficiency, quality, and safety in making products and delivering services.
These companies indicate several trends in industrial engineering, such as additive manufacturing, improved materials, and sophistical use of information technology. They also illustrate long-standing principles of industrial engineering, especially the emphasis on improving efficiency, quality, and safety.
Industrial engineering and sustainability are, I think, increasingly merging, to create a systems view supporting the three pillars of sustainability: people, planet, and profit. Your organization can’t afford to neglect any of these three. How do you find people who can take this broad systems view? Look for industrial engineers.
Where can you learn more?
The professional organization for industrial engineers is the Institute for Industrial and Systems Engineers IISE). Notice the crucial word “systems.” IISE has links to videos, articles, webinars and podcasts about industrial engineering.
Au Coton sweater, purchased by the author about 1990. Photo by the author.
What’s new?
A 1 March article at Brit describes 15 clothing brands that are moving to be more sustainable. For example, the brand YES AND states its commitment to organic cotton, fair labor, low impact dyes, and lasting quality. Selva Negra “is rooted in the use of ethical practices and is committed to ethically sourced materials, production transparency, zero-waste packaging while picking up new ways to reduce their carbon footprint.” Made Trade sells items that adhere to “one or more of Made Trade’s seven core values: Fair Trade, Heritage, Made in USA, People of Color Owned, Sustainable, Vegan, and Women Owned.”
On 2 February, the government of the United Kingdom released a report commissioned by HM Treasury, The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review, named after Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, the Cambridge University professor who led the work.
What does it mean?
In a previous blog post about fashion, I noted the limits of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” I argued that consumers can’t improve the sustainability of fashion on their own, and I urged manufacturers to consider designing their production processes to support a circular economy.
As an engineer, I believe that technology bears some blame for the ills that beset our society, but I also believe that technology can do much to improve society. Electric vehicles, with batteries charged by renewable energy, may help sustain the personal mobility that many seek. Changing the fashion industry so its production processes are more sustainable is a feasible and worthwhile goal. The companies described in the Brit article are doing good work.
The pink sweater at the top of this post is my favorite piece of clothing. Purchased over three decades ago, it was, I remember, rather expensive, but it has been well worth whatever I paid for it. As implied by the brand name Au Coton, it is 100% cotton; also, it is made in Canada, virtually indestructible, and never out of style (well, I am not very style conscious, so it has also been, I am sure, never highly in style). I rarely feel a connection to Marie Kondo’s injunction that we should retain only those possessions that spark joy, but this sweater does do that for me.
But sometimes I also feel that I have failed in my role as a consumer by not buying new sweaters and thus fueling our economy. That’s a silly feeling perhaps, but so-called advanced societies measure their well-being by their growth. A static economy is bad and a shrinking one is a recession, very bad. Keeping a sweater for 30 years does not fuel economic growth.
The good news for those who want growth is that many other humans are more fashion conscious than I am. I was struck by the recent attention given in social media to a shoe, described in this tweet from Museum Archive as a “2300 years old Scythian woman’s boot preserved in the frozen ground of the Altai Mountains.” The decoration on the sole is designed to be visible when the wearer sat on her knees, socializing around the fire. The shoe is in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. My conclusion is that fashion may have been invented before agriculture, before the wheel, even before homo sapiens.
But the cautionary story of Au Coton raises the issue of whether a company can survive by selling clothing that lasts for 30 years. The Au Coton clothing is no longer made in Canada, but is stated to be sweatshop-free. Making items that last that long may be good for the earth, but not good for the economy, for jobs, and for growth.
The most widely cited definition of sustainability, from the Brundtland Commission in 1987, says “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Note the pairing of “sustainable” with “development,” a phrasing used to balance the concerns of developed and developing countries.
The Dasgupta report offers another economic path. It urges us to recognize nature as an asset, “just as produced capital (roads, buildings and factories) and human capital (health, knowledge and skills) are assets. Like education and health, however, Nature is more than an economic good: many value its very existence and recognise its intrinsic worth too.” The report states next, “Collectively, however, we have failed to manage our global portfolio of assets sustainably.” “Nature’s worth to society … is not reflected in market prices because much of it is open to all at no monetary charge.” Worse, many of our institutions not only fail to manage these externalities they actually pay “people more to exploit Nature than to protect it, and to prioritise unsustainable economic activities.” Our economies must be viewed as embedded in Nature. (The quotes are from the headline version of the report, available here.)
Its three recommendations are: (1) “Humanity must ensure its demands on nature do not exceed its sustainable supply….” (2) “We should adopt different metrics for economic success.…” (3) “We must transform our institutions and systems – particularly finance and education – to enable these changes and sustain them for future generations.…”
With its first recommendation, the report notes: “But if we are to avoid exceeding the limits of what Nature can provide on a sustainable basis while meeting the needs of the human population, we cannot rely on technology alone: consumption and production patterns will need to be fundamentally restructured.”
Concerning the second recommendation, GDP is useful for some analysis, but its failure to account for the depreciation of natural assets, encourages us to pursue unsustainable development. National accounting systems must include natural capital.
Finally, money has to flow to support the maintenance of crucial natural resources. For examples, nations could be paid by other nations to protect the ecosystems on which we all depend. Also, education must reconnect people with nature so they demand these changes.
We need to have an economy in which producing and buying a sweater that lasts for 30 years or longer is common.
Where can you learn more?
A short description of The DasguptaReview is here. The full report and other shorter versions are here. The Royal Society has a video discussion of the report here.
Source: Page 78, NIST Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability. This diagram is useful for identifying places where cybersecurity requirements must be defined.
History shows us that the world has become more interconnected. The future of technology lies in even more networks and systems. Exhibit A is the Internet, which has revolutionized information flow and communication, but, looking further back in history, electrification, the interstate highway system, the telephone system, the railroads, and many more examples demonstrate the powerful effects of interconnection. But each of those networks is littered with the detritus of failed interconnections due to lack of compatible standards: train track width, DC or AC electricity, and so forth.
Beneficial electrification has great potential for reducing climate effects of electricity generation if the electricity can be generated from renewable energy. While the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow in one location, renewable energy (including hydropower and geothermal sources) is reliably available somewhere not far from where you need that electricity. Thus, interconnection, along with the many types of storage of energy being developed, hold promise for reliable electricity generation that may help us save the planet. But such interconnection relies on compatible standards for electricity flow, for communication about needs and availability of electricity, and for control of the devices that consume and produce electricity.
Interoperability focuses on the communication part of those interconnections. From page i of the NIST report, “Interoperability — the ability to exchange information in a timely, actionable manner — is a critical yet underdeveloped capability of the power system. Significant grid modernization has occurred in recent years, but the proliferation of technology and associated standards has only modestly improved interoperability.”
Also, from the same page, “The benefits of interoperability are broad and reach all stakeholders at all scales. … by allowing coordinated small actions across diverse stakeholders and devices to have grand impacts.”
We’ve been through this before, many, many times. We know how to have the many stakeholders work together to set standards and create regulations that ensure interoperability, while still allowing, in fact encouraging innovation to flourish. We also know how to break the standards apart so that an engineer designing, say, an inverter, can refer to standards that cover the interoperability issues for inverters and not need worry about interoperability issues that affect only high voltage transmission lines or electric vehicles.
The increasing variety of generation sources and locations means that the grid needs to have more communication among these devices. Also, consumer devices (refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, etc.) increasingly come with sensing and communication capabilities that allow the owner – or the utility – to control when and how that device operates. While the electric utility industry refers to these devices as being “behind the meter,” that is, on the user’s side of the electric meter, they really are part of the grid because their communication capabilities offer huge potential to dynamically balance the supply and demand for electricity. Again, the grid needs more communication interoperability.
What does it mean for you?
Interoperability is an issue for all information technology. You can use any mouse with any computer (well, not quite, make sure the plug is compatible, and you may need an adapter) because there are standards for how the devices communicate. You, as the consumer, just shouldn’t have to worry about interoperability.
Your relationship as a consumer, as a manufacturer, or as an operator of any organization, with your electric provider is changing. If, for example, you have solar panels on your home, you may buy electric power but also sell it to your utility. If your organization has equipment that uses large amounts of power, you should already be working closely with your electric provider and you will be working even more closely with them in the future. For example, you might implement a soft start for your machines after down time in order to avoid adverse impacts on the grid. These interrelationships will increase with increasing abilities of new devices to sense, communicate, and be controlled.
Just as we have become providers of information used by others through our activities on social media, our devices will be wired to provide information, raising the same issues as those raised by our use of social media, most notably, who owns, benefits, and controls the information generated by the devices in our homes and factories. The NIST report states (page 6) “An empowered energy consumer has many opportunities to obtain value and can optimize their interactions with the broader energy system to maximize their preferred benefit,” but I fear that the consumer may not be the one defining this new relationship. The NIST report notes on page 58, “Absent an environment that allows universal access to the full range of opportunities, customers may be required to select devices and systems for feasibility of integration rather than the operational or economic value propositions they offer.”
Interoperability is necessary for this improved communication in all parts of the electrical grid, but it comes with its evil twin, a possible lack of security. Thus, this report also covers the need for security aspects in this new interoperability.
Where can you learn more?
The NIST statement concerning the new report has helpful information on interoperability. The report itself has a summary called Key Messages, which I have quoted from. The US Office of Electricity (part of the US Department of Energy) has a helpful page on grid modernization.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF, “The leading nonprofit defending digital privacy, free speech, and innovation for 30 years and counting!”) has noted the privacy threats of the smart grid, but with a focus on households. I cannot find that any business or manufacturing group (for example, the National Association of Manufacturers) is watching the developments in interoperability of the electrical grid.
An article on the McKinsey website argues that utility companies have not described clear benefits for consumers from grid modernization.
The meeting focused on the topic of teaching online classes and creating videos. At our January meeting we identified this topic as one we want to work on. As Karen said then, “consider offering short courses; while others may already be teaching such a course, your voice might reach someone. “
Pat Montoya (see Before You Forget: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkCJj6xiMvi3jsf33hnCOjA) uses his channel as his outlet for creativity, including episodes in a father/son adventure blog. The YouTube collection of videos and its user base are huge; YouTube is the second largest search engine after google. He urged us to stay as genuine as possible, to start with an idea and then make videos. Get the first few videos up, get off the ground, and then gather momentum. Many people have anxiety about starting. Get the foundation right and then you can pivot to different topics later. You can also have two or more channels for different topics. He said that a lot of people reuse content but he advocated for making organic content. You can also use YouTube to draw people’s interest to other platforms, but be sure to be honest and genuine with everything. People want lifestyle stories, for example, healthy practices. Videos can be made from your phone, your tablet, your laptop, or with a simple camera; Pat uses a GoPro Hero8, but started with his iPhone. If you use audio content from someone else, make sure it is not copyrighted. You can subscribe (follow) other people and that list shows up on the left side of your YouTube page.
YouTube videos are available for free, although they can be restricted to be available only to people who have the link. Various platforms are available to sell your short course: Activingo, Teachable, Patreon.
LaDoris announced that her business Designs by LaDoris will have a grand reopening with the Pueblo West Chamber of Commerce at Project Inspire, 19 March, 5 PM. Gregory is working with Ladoris through Project Inspire to create master classes, starting with three on how to sew a hem, how to sew a button, and how to put in a zipper. Gregory said that classes can be a source of revenue. You can charge a fee per class. You can put short videos on YouTube as a teaser and then in the information section on YouTube for that video, you can have a link to take people to register for the class. There are appropriate places for a tutorial and for paid content. He mentioned Vimeo and said Project Inspire is using Squarespace as a platform. He said that 1 March he will have an announcement concerning Masterclasses. Other useful platforms are Activingo and Teachable. Each has nuances for how they can be used and they differ in costs. Gregory recommended that the Pueblo Makes web page could have a section on these resources.
We discussed the role of the library and possible studios for making videos. Karen is working on one to be located at the Arts Alliance. There is also equipment available at the library, which is not reopened yet, but should be soon. Contact Sharon Rice for information.
Gregory discussed embedding story tellers in Pueblo’s organizations as a guerrilla operation. For example, Pat is doing that at Evraz and Gregory asked us to let him know of other organizations that need story tellers. “Someone has to tell that story.” Pueblo doesn’t tell its own story well and we need to do that.
Caroline, CSU-Pueblo art professor, demonstrated techniques she is doing to teach studio classes during COVID. She said everyone is stressed, but she was excited and “I love disruption” because opportunities will emerge. The Arts have become prominent with lockdown. People want to watch ballet online, read books, see art. Since General Education courses require including seven topics, including wellness, she recognizes the anxiety, stress, and illness of students but also the opportunity. To create you have to be well. Everyone is in a different situation but coming together via zoom. She teaches drafting, drawing. perspective, shade, creativity. Don’t expect online to be like studio, but in some ways it is better. Since students are used to getting information from the computer anyway, she builds on that. As a student she looked at art in books or had to pay a lot to visit the Art Institute in Chicago, but now students have art works at their fingertips.
For figure drawing, she doesn’t use a live model, but she uses YouTube to show, for example, a sumo wrestling match. She then stops the video and everyone draws the same view. Then everyone shows their work and gives suggestions. On the screen she can show students postures, angles of body parts, and measurements.
She uses the street view on Google maps to teach when and how to use one-point and two-point perspective. Usually in such a class everyone has a different perspective of the view of an artificial object such as a cube, but with Google street view everyone has the same view of a real object such as a building. Everyone can stand at the same point in the road.
Since not everyone has access to the same materials (such as painting tools) she wants to promote wellness and creativity by enabling everyone to participate and feel good. She showed a color wheel created with home objects and a portrait created from found objects, which takes imagination. For her art appreciation class, she had students go outside and draw a map of sounds you hear and where they are coming from. Show us your perception from your location. She praised Zoom for helping us lose sense of place and for it as a way to connect to one another.
Pat echoed the role of creativity in creating happiness. LaDoris said she has her granddaughters draw something in nature. Caroline talked about being energetic with what you are doing, getting a sense of place back while crazy things are happening. She showed artist James Ensor’s painting self-portrait with mask and then asked the students to make masks.
She has experimented with what she looks like using a green screen without a green screen. She showed a video of moving with a tree background, which could then be made into a drawing. She used a mushroom background video to be part human and part mushroom and another from a moving car to eat the road. (Karen called these examples “the best use of zoom I’ve ever seen.”) Caroline urged us to work with you have, with what you can do.
Caroline challenged her students to devise the best way to convey a drawing. In person, a student would just show a charcoal drawing to classmates but in digital format, features like texture are missing. Some made drawings into videos. Others turned poems into animation with drawings. All students read the same story, then drew their impressions.
Caroline uses the game exquisite corpse. In person, each draws a part of a body on a folded up piece of paper, which is then opened up to reveal the whole drawing. Online, students put sections in chat, then put them together. Then students redraw the drawing as a whole
Caroline doesn’t spend the whole class on zoom. There can be time to work on your own and come back with questions. Don’t take up all their time. If they have questions, they will come to you.
Elliott, who does online coaching, said that not having face-to-face contact means he has to rely on other mental faculties including intuition. Caroline said she feels a little closer to the students because they’re not distracted, they are right here. We talk about the pandemic, my neck is killing me, we trade stretches. Standing in front of classroom, I’m the expert. How do you believe what I say? Working via zoom is more equal; the person who is talking is the expert. It is very freeing because we can focus on the matter at hand and make the best artwork possible. I don’t like what it does to the body. I miss people. But there are benefits.
Drew thanked the members of Pueblo Makes who served as judges for the remote STEM fair., this year all in individual, not team, projects. 24 students are moving on to regionals.
Next month at our meeting on 16 March, Paula Robben will lead us in a Vision Lab using the Dream Builder program in which we consult our hearts and minds to create a vision for makers and making in Pueblo.
In May 2020, Lori Beckman wrote at Production Machining about the company MachineMetrics. She quotes Eric Fogg, co-founder and COO of the company: “MachineMetrics can collect any data that is useful to a customer,” he says. “That data can be whether the machine is running, how many parts it has made, and its alarm history, for example. We take all the data, encrypt it and forward it to our cloud service where we perform analytics and create dashboards for our customers to use.”
What does it mean?
Most machines on manufacturing floors are ready to be part of the IoT, Internet of Things, that is, a network of devices that share information; they include sensors and data collection. MachineMetrics can easily connect its device (MachineMetrics Edge) to almost any machine (through the machine’s ethernet port). The device reads the data from the machine and sends it wirelessly to software that will store, analyze, and display the data, combined with data from other machines. Data as simple as status of the machine can be used for asset management, machine utilization monitoring, and real time alerts when repairs or adjustments are needed.
What does it mean for you?
Collecting and analyzing data is done for two major reasons. The first is to make better decisions. One of my areas of expertise, decision analysis, stresses this purpose for data. Decision analysis even has methods for determining the expected value of information, and for determining if collecting data is likely to be worth the cost of doing so.
The second major reason for collecting data, somewhat in contradiction with the points I just made, is to achieve understanding, often for long run purposes and not for any immediate improvement in decision making. One of my first professional jobs, while I was in graduate school, was for the corporate planner for a large medical group. One of his overall goals was to use data to reach a solid understanding of the organization as a system and of the organization as part of the larger medical system. For example, in one study I analyzed employment records to seek to understand the plausibility of some commonly held beliefs about physicians using the organization to establish themselves in a new geographical region before setting up their own practice. We found only weak evidence to support the belief, not enough to worry about the impact of this behavior on the organization. This study was just one small piece adding to the understanding of the system.
Collecting data to make better decisions gives a focus and structure to thinking about data. What decisions do you or others in your organization make? They range of course from strategic (should we acquire that company?) through major (should we purchase a new piece of equipment?) to daily (which job should be done next on which machine?). Decision analysis focuses your thinking by requiring you to explicitly state the alternatives, the uncertainties concerning what occurrences will follow, and then ensuing decisions and occurrences. A decision tree (see the small one at the top of this article) is a visual representation of that sequence of decisions and occurrences. With such a visual representation, you can then ask what type of data would reduce uncertainty about future events and enable better decisions to be made now.
Collecting data to achieve understanding can also be valuable, but it is sometimes a way to bury oneself in data and confusion. In my job with a medical group, I learned a lot about data analysis, but I also learned a lot about system modeling. The tools for data analysis 50 years ago did not allow the powerful search for patterns in large databases, so we rarely (probably never) simply looked for patterns, nor did we often collect new data. Instead I learned a lot about how to formulate a good question about how a system works and then to use existing data bases to explore answers to that question.
Data collection tools like those offered by MachineMetrics can help your decision making and can help your understanding of your organization as a system, but data can also bury and confuse you. For example, what is measured and monitored may become a goal that distracts from what cannot be measured or monitored. If you are measuring and focusing on productivity but not on job satisfaction, you may have good short term and poor long term results. Monitoring of machine utilization might lead to an incorrect focus on increasing machine utilization to the detriment of other organizational goals.
The first example in the MachineMetrics article at Production Machining can, in fact, be read as a cautionary tale in which the newly collected data made the shop’s managers finally listen to the machine operators’ insistence that machine break downs were slowing productivity. Isn’t this story really about communication between people, not between machines?
Always ask yourself about any data collection: will it help me make better decisions? If not, will it help me understand my organization as a system? Don’t just collect data because you can. Don’t be misled into thinking that gathering more data is always good.
Where can you learn more?
An Internet search on “decision tree” or “decision tree analysis” will lead you to many useful pages with an introduction to this technique, such as here (a 1964 Harvard Business Review classic), here, and here. Decision tree analysis relies on the question “What happens next?” Many business degree programs and probably all MBA programs include decision analysis. I still think the best introductory book is the 1968 Decision Analysis: Introductory Lectures on Choices under Uncertainty, by Howard Raiffa. When I wrote this blog posting, Better World Books had used copies for $5. Software exists to help you create and analyze decision trees. My favorite is TreeAge.
The IoT, Internet of Things, doesn’t necessarily mean connecting everything to the Internet. The “Things” in the Internet of Things are devices that have built-in sensors, communication capabilities, and controls. These are connected with each other to collect data and to enable control of this network of devices. A simple example is when your mobile phone connects to your car so you can take a call hands free. The IoT relies heavily on shared protocols for data format, so interconnectivity is a crucial capability of any device your organization acquires; interconnectivity’s evil twin is computer security, also a crucial capability.
“Cover illustration shows mine worker firing a gun after his wife and children were killed in a massacre at their tent camp by the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel & Iron Company camp guards.” Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, https://www.loc.gov/item/2016652761/,. “No known restrictions on publication.”
What’s new?
This week I read three articles on materials and thought about justice.
The website Interesting Engineering reported on a new method to make transparent wood. The previous method, which removes the lignin from the wood, requires excessive time and high temperatures, produces excessive liquid waste, and weakens the wood. The new method uses hydrogen peroxide and light to change, rather than remove the lignin molecules. Transparent wood has potential application in stronger windows and roofs with better insulation properties.
NIST (the US National Institute of Standards and Technology) reported on a new method using nanoparticles of silicon dioxide (quartz) to create a gel of oil and water, two liquids notorious for being difficult to mix. The resulting gel has many potential applications, for example in filtration, in smart windows, in battery technology, and as scaffolds for cell growth. The new method can potentially be used with other nanoparticles to create other useful gels.
The 30 January 2021 issue of the science news magazine New Scientist contains a review by Simon Ings of a new book The Rare Metals War, by French journalist Guillaume Pitron, about the environmental, social, and political consequences of human success in creating and using materials. The review contains these intriguing sentences: “Before the Renaissance, humans had found uses for seven metals. During the industrial revolution, this increased to a mere dozen. Today, we have found uses for all 90-odd of them.”
What does it mean?
Transparent wood? Mixing oil and water? Those two stories sound, at first, like science fiction or a joke. What is next, liquid dirt? Or solid air? The existence of new processes for making transparent wood and for mixing oil and water amazed me, but I was amazed even more to learn that other processes to create those products already existed. The inventions described in the first two articles are new processes, not new materials.
Two points are relevant to almost any discuss of materials. First is that the history and future of science, technology, and engineering involves new uses of old materials and the creation of new materials from the limited number of elements that exist in nature. Second is that the creation of new materials requires also the invention and improvement of methods to manufacture the new materials. Note that those two points meet where scientists manufacture new elements, extending the periodic table.
I am excited by these developments about new materials and their importance in so many fields, including battery technology, renewable energy, medicine, building construction, and communication and computing technology. With the removal of hemp (cannabis with less than 0.3% THC) as a Schedule 1 controlled substance in the US farm bill at the end of 2018, I think that new uses of hemp will explode. Scientists and engineers are creating amazing new materials and amazing new process for making those materials.
Returning to Pitron’s emphasis on metals, rare or otherwise, prehistoric human use of gold, copper, silver, lead, tin, and iron was accelerated by an explosion of discoveries of other metals and a parallel explosion of inventions that often relied on creating new combinations and thus new materials. The development of the first metallic alloy, bronze, from copper and tin, is so important it has an age of human development named for it. The Bronze Age was named for an alloy and was succeeded in human history by the Iron Age, named for an element, but really only taking off when humans developed alloys of iron, notably steel, an alloy of iron and carbon. The timeline in this history of metals is fascinating.
The word for each of those metals (gold, copper, silver, lead, tin, and iron) can be and is almost naturally followed by the word “mining,” and human history can be described, with perhaps only some exaggeration, as digging stuff out of the ground, creating an object that to use for a while, and then throwing it back into the ground. Our knowledge of early humans to a large part relies on the fact that we seem to be continually shedding objects.
The review of Pitron’s book makes clear the costs to humans and the environment of this obsession with making new stuff and also makes clear that the geographical dispersion of those effects has political impacts. But even more, the review summarizes Pitron’s argument that our worthwhile efforts to be more responsible through the new of renewable energy may exacerbate these impacts. Many of the new technologies, especially for batteries, rely on the mining and refining of the so called rare earths (actually metals) and other elements such as tellurium, cobalt, and lithium. Those processes have been dominated by China, fueling both its economic success and its horrible air pollution. In his review, Ings writes that these effects on China “wouldn’t have been possible had the Western world not outsourced its own industrial activities, creating a planet divided, as Pitron memorably describes it, `between the dirty and those who pretend to be clean.’”
Ouch.
The historic steel mill in my hometown of Pueblo already uses only recycled steel and, with a solar field under construction, will be powered only by renewable energy by the end of this year. Our newly elected Congressperson recently objected to the US rejoining the Paris Accord with the tweet “I work for the people of Pueblo, not the people of Paris,” a laughably ignorant remark which resulted in predictable push back from a city that can be plausibly described as a renewable energy hub and “as a place that is leading the way in the transition to a clean energy economy.” We already host a factory manufacturing towers for wind turbines.
But Pueblo also hosts the Comanche power plant which burns coal to power Denver, 100 miles to the north. The electricity powering the computer on which I am writing this blog comes from my rural electric cooperative, but almost all of that energy comes from a cooperative of cooperatives, Tri-State, which is frantically trying to meet demands to move from coal to renewable energy. The State of Colorado is also struggling with how to help coal-dependent communities make a just transition. About 70 miles to the south of Pueblo is the site of the Ludlow Massacre, commemorating the deaths of 25 people in 1914 in the Great Coalfield War, described by George McGovern in his 1972 book with that title.
What does it mean for you?
At this point I want to energetically wave the word “system” and throw up my hands in frustration. Even if all actors are genuinely honest and caring and want to save our planet, the path for these necessary transitions is sometimes hard to discern because of effects both near and distant – in time and geography – of any action we take. I am, however, increasingly convinced that “justice” is a key word in that path. To state the obvious: different paths forward affect different people around the globe in different ways.
I joke that unless we do better, the pitchforks and torches will come out. I urge you to study the picture at the top of this article.
The 2 Feb issue of the newsletter The Hustle contained a link to the 26 January report “Big Ideas 2021” from ARK Investment Management LLC. You can register with ARK to get a copy here or download from The Hustle here. The Hustle newsletter describes the top idea of the 15 ideas in that report: deep learning.
What does it mean?
Besides deep learning, the other 14 ideas are: the re-invention of the data center, virtual worlds, digital wallets, Bitcoin’s fundamentals, Bitcoin, electric vehicles, automation, autonomous ride-hailing, delivery drones, orbital aerospace, 3D printing, long read sequencing, multi-cancer screening, and cell and gene therapy.
For each Big Idea, the report explains what it is, assesses the potential for investors, and discusses related trends and effects. For example, deep learning, a type of artificial intelligence (AI), “uses data to write software,” and is aiding in the creation of conversational computers, self-driving cars, and consumer apps. It requires “boundless computational power,” “is creating a boom in AI chips,” and is “expanding from vision to language.”
The report goes into depth on the development of new computer chips to challenge Intel’s dominance, the effects of virtual reality and augmented reality on gaming, trends in financial services (digital wallets such as Venmo, and digital currencies such as Bitcoin), two technologies I have written about frequently (electric vehicles and 3D printing), the movement from automation from its success in manufacturing to other parts of the US economy, trends related to moving people and consumer goods (autonomous ride-sharing and delivery drones), and the growth in satellites to provide ubiquitous Internet connectivity.
The last three trends focus on biology and medicine. I learned that I need to read more about those areas. I need to learn more about what improvements will be enabled by long-read sequencing of genomes and about the technology of gene editing.
Their summary of EV trends (battery prices, range, performance, and sales) is succinct and persuasive that a roughly 20-fold growth can happen in the next five years. They connect 3D printing with improved drone technology and with the use of AI to optimize design.
I am surprised by some of their conclusions. The report has two trends related to Bitcoin, but a friend who invested early in Bitcoin tells me investors have moved onto other digital currencies. I find the potential applications of virtual reality in training to be more interesting than the report’s emphasis on gaming. I remain skeptical about autonomous vehicles without changes in the transportation system. Multi-cancer screening of asymptomatic populations faces, I think, the reality of signaling many false negatives (as driven by Bayes’s theorem). However, ARK is focused on where the money is and certainly has more knowledge than I do concerning that focus.
The report has no mention of climate change.
What does it mean for you?
What is ARK? Page 2 of the report states that ARK is an investment firm that “specializes in thematic investing in disruptive innovation and strives to invest at the pace of innovation.” What is a Big Idea for ARK? Page 4 states: “ARK requires a big idea to be investable and long-term.” My goal is not to give investment advice, but rather to help you be aware of and benefit from technological developments that may affect your organization in the future. The report focuses on how an investor can make money from these trends, but the report is still very helpful in pointing out trends for you to watch.
I have an engineer’s instinctual attraction to things that actually make better the lives of people and thus I find the report’s emphasis on making rich people richer (such as applauding the decline of labor’s share in the rewards of productivity) and its emphasis on the benefits of monetization of human activities not to my taste, but I recommend you read this report for some well written and researched information on trends. Perhaps you should view my engineering sensibility as merely resentment that the financial folks get much richer than engineers do from their own work.
Where can you learn more?
You can subscribe to The Hustle daily newsletterhere. I find its over-the-top, well, hustle, wearying, but it is an interesting read for trends.
Regarding the 15 trends, I plan to spend some time doing Internet searches to learn more.
On 27 January I attended an online webinar presented by Daniel Lazier, a mechanical engineer with the additive manufacturing company MarkForged, titled “Environmental Impact – Supply Chains.” Mr. Lazier discussed climate change, the impact of personal decisions as compared to the much larger impact of what he called “group choices,” the need to reduce the carbon footprint of supply chains, and the way in which additive manufacturing can have positive environmental effects.
What does it mean?
Mr. Lazier used an example of a MarkForged client who needed to manufacture and send a redesigned emergency part to various locations around the world. Because of the time pressure, the items were sent by air, which creates a large amount of carbon emissions. The alternate solution of sending a digital file to be printed closer to the places where the part was needed dramatically decreased the environmental impact and also made more economic sense.
Additive manufacturing can reduce carbon emissions by using material more efficiently (adding rather than subtracting material and the internal design of additive manufactured parts both reduce the waste of material), by requiring less electricity as compared to conventional machining, and by allowing slower and more efficient transportation (that is, by ship) of spools of feedstock. That feedstock can be used to create many products.
The ability to print at locations near the demand will be enabled by local companies but also by networks of printers. For example, MarkForged equipment is behind Project DIAMOnD, a State of Michigan initiative to create a distributed network of 3D printers able to print critical parts (for example, Personal Protective Equipment) quickly. The Jabil Additive Manufacturing Network is just one company offering to print your products in different locations around the world.
Even the supply chain of feedstock can be reduced by using local recycling to gather waste material, shred it, and extrude into filament for additive manufacturing, as described in this article “How to turn plastic waste in your recycle bin into profit.” See yeggi, thingiverse, pinshape, NASA, and many other sites for free or paid STL files for items to print.
What does it mean for you?
In response to a question during the webinar, Mr. Lazier was quick to acknowledge that additive manufacturing makes economic (and environmental sense) for only some applications. If, for example, you are making millions of smartphone connectors a month, conventional manufacturing is better.
Additive manufacturing near to the place of use means that many products may be able to be printed on demand, with customization, creating a pull manufacturing process, rather than push. A 28 January 2021 article in Total Retail describes this on-demand economy, which reduces the need to forecast demand, reduces the need to store products until needed, and reduces the waste of products that were never sold. Even if your products are not ones that can be produced using additive manufacturing, you may find that some of your suppliers are using these processes.
With the announcement this week that GM will be carbon neutral by 2040 (driven by trends such as the amazing drop in batteries for vehicles) with the continued trend making renewable energy the cheapest source of electricity for utilities, and with the accelerating trend toward electrification in residential, commercial, and industrial sectors, our world seems poised to look very different – and much greener – in the future. Add supply chains to the list of business functions that are going to be redesigned in the not-that-distant future.
Where can you learn more?
These changes to supply chains are so new that no standard term has yet emerged, but “distributed manufacturing” or “distributed production” is the best I have found. See, for example, this article from the 3D printing company EOS, or this article from 3Dprint.com.
In a 15 Jan 2021 article in EE Times (Electronic Engineering Times), automotive technology expert Egil Juliussen analyzed the 9 November 2020 advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) concerning autonomous vehicles.
What does it mean?
As stated on the NHTSA website, “Our mission is to save lives, prevent injuries, and reduce economic costs due to road traffic crashes, through education, research, safety standards, and enforcement.” Also, “NHTSA issues Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) to implement laws from Congress. These regulations allow us to fulfill our mission to prevent and reduce vehicle crashes.” Thus, the purpose of this advance notice is to seek input on the development of FMVSS to regulate autonomous vehicles in a way that promotes safety.
The legal website Lexology provides a helpful summary of the ANPRM, noting that the NHTSA proposes to focus on the capabilities of the automated systems in four functions: sensing (receiving information), perception (analyzing that information to reach conclusions about what it sees), planning (making decisions), and control (actually driving).
What does it mean for you?
The most important statement in the EE Times article is this seemingly innocuous explanation of terms: “To describe autonomous vehicle hardware and software, NHTSA is using the terminology, `Automated Driving System (ADS).’ I will also use `ADS’ instead of autonomous vehicle (AV) in the rest of this column.”
If an engineer is designing an autonomous vehicle (AV), the assumption is that the vehicle will function within the existing driving infrastructure. The phrase Advanced Driving System (ADS) contains that wonderful word “system” suggesting a new approach in which the entire transportation system is changed to support autonomous driving.
As early as 2005, Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) were introduced into factories by laying down magnetic tape they can follow. While current versions do not require such support, they still function within a limited environment and their use is accompanied by five key rules: keep travel routes clear, never walk directly in front of an AGV, always allow them the right of way, stay out of the danger zone, and raised objects may not be recognized. Despite ambitious claims, the environment must still adapt to the AGV and it does not operate in the same environment as a human driven vehicle.
Thus, driving long distances could be more easily automated though designing lanes to be used by automated vehicles, as is being explored in Michigan (certainly an automobile friendly location) and other places.
One of the difficult parts of autonomous driving is to predict what other vehicles will do, especially ones being driven by humans. Limiting the environment to only automated vehicles provides an easier problem to solve. The word “system” also suggests coordination among automated vehicles, in which they share navigation information, but also share information about their intentions.
The NHTSA’s announcement of the ANPRM does not give any indication that NHTSA is thinking about the larger transportation system in their use of the phrase “Advanced Driving System,” since the announcement uses phrases like “ADS-equipped vehicle” implying that the system lies totally within the vehicle. Also, its definition of ADS (“the hardware and software that are, collectively, capable of performing the entire dynamic driving task on a sustained basis, regardless of whether it is limited to a specific operational design domain”) does not support the interpretation of “system” that I am using.
However, I confidently predict that automated driving will be successful – and safe – only to the degree that changes to the transportation system are made to support this new technology and to the degree that such vehicles are operated in autonomous mode only in environments that have been adapted to them.
Interestingly, the National Society for Professional Engineers (NSPE) issued a statement and several policy guides on autonomous vehicles which emphasizes the systems aspects embodied in the transportation infrastructure: professional engineers must have “a leading voice in ensuring that the same attention to safety and reliability that went into the built transportation infrastructure is incorporated into autonomous vehicles and smart transportation systems.”
The lesson is that every new technology requires changes to a larger system to be successful. Any decision maker contemplating the introduction of a new technology into an organization should always be asking questions about how that system – especially the humans in the system – will have to adapt to the technology.
The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems (ah, there is that word again) is a professional organization supporting professionals in the field and publishes a magazine called Unmanned Systems.
