Research, Innovation and Technology

A common theme in science fiction is the fully automated, robotized factory that manufactures nothing but robots. We’re not there yet, but the fully automated manufacturing plant has already begun making everyday products, including computer parts, electric shavers and CNC machines.

The promise of AI: Now generative AI is promising to take manufacturing automation manufacturing to a new level.

• At the 2023 Hannover Messe trade fair in Hanover, Germany, Siemens and Microsoft showcased an offering now in use in factories worldwide: a system that uses ChatGPT to generate code for industrial computers known as programmable logic controllers. (For a deeper dive into what this means for manufacturing, read the full version of this article by Tim Hornyak in the Innovation Research Interchange’s Research-Technology Management magazine.)

Why it’s important: The innovation allows users to ask ChatGPT to generate code for specific tasks (i.e., a program to operate the stamping of a part).

• In addition to saving time and reducing the likelihood of errors, it is capable of understanding commands given in natural language, a characteristic that vastly increases the number of potential users.

Efficient designs: Creating more efficient designs is another early use case for generative AI.

• General Motors has used the technology to evaluate better designs for some of the roughly 30,000 parts that go into the average car. For example, a standard seat bracket—an important safety component that binds seatbelt fasteners to seats as well as seats to the floor of the car—consists of eight separate pieces welded together.
• Generative-design software used by GM analyzed the requirements and suggested more than 150 alternative designs, far more than the two or three options a designer can typically offer. GM engineers chose one: a single piece of stainless steel that is 40% lighter and 20% stronger than the conventional part.

Pharma applications: Generative AI looks promising for the pharmaceutical industry, too, given its potential for cutting costs and drug time to market.

• Merck has used generative AI to create synthetic images of complex but rare defects, a group for which training data are limited. The drugmaker’s quality-control sensors use the synthetic images to watch for novel defects.

Other potential use cases: The possible uses for generative AI in other areas is vast and includes the following:

• Reducing time and cost involved in creating physical prototypes
• Automating search and summary of documents related to manufacturing equipment, which would speed repairs and maintenance
• Accelerating supply chain operations by forecasting demand patterns, minimizing production downtime and suggesting better transport routes
• Customizing products or solutions to better suit customer needs
• Forecasting raw materials needs, optimizing production schedules and identifying production inefficiencies

However … Generative AI in manufacturing is not without its challenges. The energy cost to power a single server rack in the U.S. is $30,000 a year.

• Just one training run for an AI engine consumes the power equivalent of 120 U.S. households per year.
• With the reliance on large datasets, manufacturers are concerned about data privacy and security, necessitating robust data-protection measures.
• The integration of AI in manufacturing may require a change in workers’ skillsets and corporate culture.
• As AI plays a more significant role in decision-making, ethical questions about bias and accountability are emerging.
• Manufacturers have to ensure that AI systems operate fairly and transparently.

Find out more: AI in manufacturing is just one of the timely topics covered in depth in Research-Technology Management, the journal of the IRI, the NAM’s innovation division. Learn more.

The Manufacturing Institute—the NAM’s 501(c)(3) workforce development and education affiliate—had ample reason to celebrate last night.

What went on: The MI held the 2024 Women MAKE Awards gala, a night that recognizes outstanding women in manufacturing. Each year, the awards pay special tribute to 100 peer-nominated women leaders (“Honorees”) and 30 rising female stars (“Emerging Leaders,” women under the age of 30) in the industry.

• The event, held this year at The Anthem—a waterfront concert venue in Washington, D.C.—was sponsored by Caterpillar, Toyota, BASF, Trane Technologies, International Paper, Johnson & Johnson, Novelis and others.
• It featured a vocal performance by singer Loren Allred, platinum-selling singer-songwriter of “Never Enough” from “The Greatest Showman” musical, who gained widespread fame after appearing on “Britain’s Got Talent” in 2022.

What was said: Caterpillar Group President of Resource Industries, NAM Executive Committee Member and Women MAKE Awards Chair Denise Johnson told the night’s award winners that she’s been “the only woman in a room, or the only woman on a project” many times in her career.

• But “[l]ooking around this theater and seeing the faces of the Honorees and Emerging Leaders tells me that times are changing.”
• She then addressed the honorees directly, saying, “Your success, your work ethic and your stories will inspire the next generation of manufacturing leaders. … You are moving us along toward a future when women are not underrepresented in our industry.”

From Honoree to Vice Chair: Toyota Motor North America Senior Vice President, Electric Vehicle Supply Susan Elkington—a 2014 Honoree of the awards, formerly called the STEP Ahead Awards—was this year’s awards vice chair. She attested to the power of the awards to help women advance in their careers.

• “[T]he Women MAKE network … helped me realize the many qualities and experiences uniting all the women who have been inducted into this amazing network.”
• She noted the cruciality of the MI’s Women MAKE initiative, which “provides a platform for role models and mentors to encourage women to enter the field and succeed in it.”

No limits: NAM President and CEO and MI Chairman of the Board Jay Timmons also discussed the importance of role models, a label aptly applied to all the award nominees.

• Timmons, a parent of three, told the audience that he and his children recently learned the story of 30-year-old Cole Brauer, who last month made history as the first American woman to sail solo nonstop around the world.
• Brauer’s story “sends a message to those—frankly, women or men—who might have been led to believe there were limits to what they could achieve or that their careers might be confined within guardrails,” he said. “Your examples are inspiring people in a similar way. You are powerhouses—your dynamism, your drive, your enthusiasm—all these qualities supercharge modern manufacturing, making our industry an even more powerful force for good.” 

“Amazing things”: MI President and Executive Director Carolyn Lee called the nominated women “powerhouses who have accomplished amazing things.”

• “You deserve this recognition for your excellence and for everything you do to uplift others,” Lee told the award nominees. “But we’re not just celebrating. Being here to recognize these winners is shining a light and fueling the work to close the gender and talent gap in manufacturing.”
• Women account for less than one-third of the American manufacturing workforce, she went on, but endeavors such as the MI’s Women MAKE America initiative—the nation’s premier program dedicated to closing the gender gap in the sector—“and companies like yours are committed to closing that gap.”

Learn more: For a full list of this year’s award winners, click here.

A common theme in science fiction is the fully automated, robotized factory that manufactures nothing but robots. We’re not there yet, but the fully automated manufacturing plant has already begun making everyday products, including computer parts, electric shavers and CNC machines.

The promise of AI: Now generative AI is promising to take manufacturing automation manufacturing to a new level.

• At the 2023 Hannover Messe trade fair in Hanover, Germany, Siemens and Microsoft showcased an offering now in use in factories worldwide: a system that uses ChatGPT to generate code for industrial computers known as programmable logic controllers. (For a deeper dive into what this means for manufacturing, read the full version of this article by Tim Hornyak in the Innovation Research Interchange’s Research-Technology Management magazine.)

Why it’s important: The innovation allows users to ask ChatGPT to generate code for specific tasks (i.e., a program to operate the stamping of a part).

• In addition to saving time and reducing the likelihood of errors, it is capable of understanding commands given in natural language, a characteristic that vastly increases the number of potential users.

Efficient designs: Creating more efficient designs is another early use case for generative AI.

• General Motors has used the technology to evaluate better designs for some of the roughly 30,000 parts that go into the average car. For example, a standard seat bracket—an important safety component that binds seatbelt fasteners to seats as well as seats to the floor of the car—consists of eight separate pieces welded together.
• Generative-design software used by GM analyzed the requirements and suggested more than 150 alternative designs, far more than the two or three options a designer can typically offer. GM engineers chose one: a single piece of stainless steel that is 40% lighter and 20% stronger than the conventional part.

Read the full story here.

To hear Aaliyah Brown tell it, the start of her career in manufacturing was the result of a happy accident.

“My interest in manufacturing actually started accidentally,” the Rockwell Automation quality engineering team lead said with a laugh. “I was hired as a high school intern [at age 16]. I had a lot of different positions within my role, from [learning] how our different products are utilized in the field, to project management, to printed circuit board design. That’s when I really started to dip my toe into manufacturing.”

A quick ascent: After obtaining her bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering technology from Cleveland State University in 2019, Brown—who works at Rockwell Automation’s Twinsburg, Ohio, location—was hired full time by the automation and digital transformation technologies company as a process engineer.

• Three years later, she was made a quality engineer. Just a year after that, she was promoted to quality team lead.
• Her meteoric rise is one of the reasons her colleagues nominated her for this year’s Women MAKE Awards, honors given annually by the Manufacturing Institute, the NAM’s 501(c)(3) workforce development and education affiliate, to women in manufacturing who have accomplished remarkable successes at their companies.

The elevator speech: Her day-to-day job may be complex, but for the layperson, Brown can break down her duties in just a few sentences.

• “Manufacturing quality can be explained as anything that goes wrong within a manufacturing facility,” she said. “My team has to figure out why it happened and how to fix it to make sure it does not happen again.”

Paying it forward: Brown credits a great deal of her early professional success to mentor and colleague Marzell Brown (“no relation whatsoever”), a talent management lead at Rockwell Automation.

• Like Brown, Marzell Brown is a graduate of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. Years ago, seeing a lack of programs in the greater Cleveland area designed to expose youth from traditionally underrepresented communities to science, technology, engineering and math careers, he helped found Brown’s alma mater, Cleveland’s MC2 STEM High School. Later, he spearheaded the internship program at Rockwell Automation’s business engineering unit that Brown completed.
• “Before I started going to summer camp at a private school, I had no idea what an engineer was,” Brown continued. “No engineers were in my family at the time. I was in the second graduating class of MC2 and about, I think, the seventh cohort of students Marzell brought in.”
• Inspired by her own experiences, in 2017—while still in college—Brown founded the nonprofit Build Sessions CLE, a mentorship initiative for college-bound STEM students from underrepresented communities.
• “All of the wonderful things that Marzell did for me and others like me, all of those best practices, those are what I brought over” to my job and to Build Sessions CLE, she said.

Changing perceptions: Brown—who helps lead Rockwell Automation’s annual Manufacturing Day events—believes that if more young people knew what modern manufacturing was really like, they would be much more inclined to enter the field.

• “I want to reach back … into these high schools, to provide these students with the great opportunities [I had] and show them that, yes, you can be successful here, and manufacturing facilities aren’t dirty and dingy,” she said.

Calling all women: She knows, too, the importance of shoring up the percentage of women in manufacturing in the U.S., which is around 30%.

• And there’s encouraging news on that front from the Rockwell Automation internship program that launched Brown’s career: If current trends continue, the number of women coming into the company from that program is going to rise, she told us.
• “[To all the] young ladies who don’t know exactly what they want to do, but have interests—say, sewing or project management or just wanting to help people— there are ways to be able to use all of those” talents in manufacturing, Brown said. “And you can have a very lucrative career here.”

Should manufacturers strive to be “cutting edge”?

That’s the question explored in “Is ‘Cutting-Edge’ Good? Assessing Product Newness Factors in Technologically Turbulent Environments,” the paper that won the Innovation Research Interchange’s 2023 Maurice Holland Award.

• The honor, named for the IRI’s founder, has been bestowed annually since 1982 by the IRI, the NAM’s innovation division. It goes to the best article published in the IRI’s flagship publication, Research-Technology Management.
• Winning papers exemplify a commitment to significant work in research and development and innovation management, originality of new management concepts and excellence in presentation.
• This year’s paper, by Michael Obal, Todd Morgan and Wesley Friske, does all three, according to the IRI. 

Providing value: “In innovation, novelty generates the most attention but does not always translate into better value for the company and customers,” said Research-Technology Management Editor-in-Chief Yat Ming Ooi.

• “This article tells readers when and to whom novel new products matter and why companies need to strike the right balance to ensure better new product performance.”

Authors respond: Research-Technology Management “is a leading academic journal for innovation-related research, and thus having an opportunity to publish an article in RTM is a significant accomplishment in its own right,” said co-author Friske, an associate professor at Missouri State University’s marketing department. “I am also grateful for the opportunity to share this award with my friends and co-authors, and it is particularly important to me now that Todd is no longer with us.”

• Co-author Morgan, an assistant professor at Cleveland State University’s Monte Ahuja College of Business, passed away in 2023.
• “I’m honored to receive the Holland Award from Research-Technology Management alongside Todd and Wes,” said co-author Obal, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Manning School of Business. “All three of us have aimed to publish academic work that impacts practitioners throughout our careers, [so] receiving an award from a journal that specifically focuses on bridging the gap between academia and practice is especially gratifying.”
• “This paper and award are bittersweet as Todd is no longer with us,” Obal continued. “[But] I am encouraged that his work will continue to have an impact.” 

About the IRI: The IRI offers insights, case studies, research, benchmarks and strategic connections—all built around a set of innovation growth drivers as determined by members annually. Click here to learn more about the IRI.

Should manufacturers strive to be “cutting edge”?

That’s the question explored in “Is ‘Cutting-Edge’ Good? Assessing Product Newness Factors in Technologically Turbulent Environments,” the paper that won the Innovation Research Interchange’s 2023 Maurice Holland Award.

• The honor, named for the IRI’s founder, has been bestowed annually since 1982 by the IRI, the NAM’s innovation division. It goes to the best article published in the IRI’s flagship publication, Research-Technology Management.
• Winning papers exemplify a commitment to significant work in research and development and innovation management, originality of new management concepts and excellence in presentation.
• The 2023 award-winning paper, by Michael Obal, Todd Morgan and Wesley Friske, does all three, according to the IRI.

Providing value: “In innovation, novelty generates the most attention but does not always translate into better value for the company and customers,” said Research-Technology Management Editor-in-Chief Yat Ming Ooi.

• “This article tells readers when and to whom novel new products matter and why companies need to strike the right balance to ensure better new product performance.”

Authors respond: Research-Technology Management “is a leading academic journal for innovation-related research, and thus having an opportunity to publish an article in RTM is a significant accomplishment in its own right,” said co-author Friske, an associate professor at Missouri State University’s marketing department. “I am also grateful for the opportunity to share this award with my friends and co-authors, and it is particularly important to me now that Todd is no longer with us.”

• Co-author Morgan, an assistant professor at Cleveland State University’s Monte Ahuja College of Business, passed away in 2023.
• “I’m honored to receive the Holland Award from Research-Technology Management alongside Todd and Wes,” said co-author Obal, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Manning School of Business.

About the IRI: The IRI offers insights, case studies, research, benchmarks and strategic connections—all built around a set of innovation growth drivers as determined by members annually. Click here to learn more about the IRI.

Read the full story here. 

The sixth ministerial of the United States–European Union Trade and Technology Council, held in Leuven, Belgium, emphasized the deepening cooperation between the U.S. and the EU in navigating global economic pressures and technological advancements.

What’s going on: Secretary of State Antony Blinken, joined by Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, joined European Commission leaders in a discussion that centered on fostering economic security, the importance of AI governance, cooperation on secure supply chains and a transatlantic commitment to reducing reliance on high-risk suppliers.

• This collaboration, Secretary Blinken said in remarks to the press at the council’s outset, proved that there has been “increasing alignment” between the United States and the European Union on these and other issues in recent years.
• “Together, we represent almost half of world GDP, and that means that there’s a certain weight that comes with having a shared position on something,” Secretary Blinken said. “And whether that’s dealing with China or any other challenge, it makes a big difference.”

Growing collaboration in AI: The meeting additionally underscored unwavering support for Ukraine from the U.S. and the EU amid geopolitical challenges, as well as a commitment to driving innovation and security in technology and trade.

• One tangible outcome of the TTC was an update of the “Terminology and Taxonomy for Artificial Intelligence” (i.e., of the definitions of key terms used by the EU and U.S. when discussing AI). This underpins the workstream of the TTC to “ensure the safe, secure and trustworthy development and use of AI,” according to the U.S.–EU joint statement.

Shared concerns about Chinese semiconductors: Competition from heavily subsidized chips produced in China was a key focus at the ministerial, particularly in light of the anticipated ramping up of “legacy chips” manufactured in China over the next few years. The Chinese government’s significant financial subsidization of the chip-producing sector, Secretary Raimondo warned, could lead to considerable market imbalances between China and the U.S. and EU.

• Both the U.S. and EU pledged to continue working together to address destabilizing Chinese exports of semiconductors in the coming years, including to collect and share nonconfidential information and market intelligence about nonmarket policies and practices, to consult each other on planned actions and to potentially develop joint or cooperative measures to address distortionary effects on the global supply chain for legacy semiconductors.

The Biden administration on Monday announced that TSMC’s Arizona subsidiary will receive up to $6.6 billion in grants from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, The New York Times reports. The announcement is the latest move by the Biden administration to make the United States a leading producer of cutting-edge semiconductor technology.

What’s going on: The funding “will help support the construction of TSMC’s first major U.S. hub, in Phoenix. The company has already committed to building two plants at the site and will use some of the grant money to build a third factory in Phoenix, U.S. officials said on Sunday.”

• The company will “increase its total investments in the United States to more than $65 billion, up from $40 billion.”
• “TSMC’s investment is expected to create about 6,000 direct manufacturing jobs and more than 20,000 construction jobs, federal officials said.”
• In addition to the grants, the federal government is also offering TSMC up to $5 billion in loans.

Impact on U.S. chip production: “With projects such as TSMC’s, the U.S. is on track to make about 20% of the world’s cutting-edge chips by 2030, the Commerce Department said. It called the project the largest foreign direct investment in a new project in U.S. history,” reports The Wall Street Journal (subscription).

• Earlier this year, the Biden administration announced major chips funding awards for Intel and GlobalFoundries.

The NAM’s reaction: “Today’s announcement from TSMC and @CommerceGov makes America stronger,” the NAM wrote in a social post Monday. “The NAM-championed CHIPS and Science Act continues to spur new investments in cutting-edge semiconductor technology that is essential to advancing U.S. economic competitiveness.”

The Manufacturing Leadership Council, the NAM’s digital transformation division, has announced the 2024 Manufacturing Leadership Awards finalists.

About the awards: Now in their 20th season, the Manufacturing Leadership Awards

honor the most outstanding manufacturing companies and their leaders for groundbreaking use of advanced manufacturing technology.

• This year’s program features nine project categories, including Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Digital Supply Chains and Sustainability and the Circular Economy.
• It also includes two categories for individuals: Digital Transformation Leadership for executive-level manufacturing leaders and Next-Generation Leadership for up-and-coming leaders age 30 and under.

How we decide: Nominations are judged by an outside panel of digital manufacturing experts with deep industry knowledge and experience.

• For project entries, judges assess an initiative’s effect on improving manufacturing processes, furthering business goals and advancing company strategy, as well as how much digital technology the project used.
• For individual nominations, judges look at each person’s impact both inside and outside their organization, and whether they meet the criteria as a role model for other manufacturing leaders.

Celebration and ceremony: Winners for both of these categories will be announced at the Manufacturing Leadership Awards Gala on June 5 at the JW Marriott Marco Island Beach Resort.

• Award finalists will also be recognized, as will winners of the Manufacturing in 2030 Award, the Manufacturing Leader of the Year, the Small/Medium Enterprise Manufacturer of the Year and the Large Enterprise Manufacturer of the Year.
• The gala caps off Rethink, the industry’s leading event for accelerating digital transformation. (Rethink also takes place in Marco Island, June 2–5.) 

The last word: “More than ever, manufacturers are finding that digital technology investment is good for business as they achieve new levels of performance in efficiency, productivity and innovation,” said MLC Founder, Vice President and Executive Director David R. Brousell.

• “The finalists we are recognizing for this year’s awards have demonstrated not just the business benefit of Manufacturing 4.0 technology, but also a fresh and imaginative approach to applying it in a transformative way.”

If the Honda Automotive Labs of Ohio facility is a marvel of technology and design, it is also a $124 million testament to the role of cutting-edge engineering in automobile manufacturing.

• “When I started 30 years ago, few really cared about aerodynamics,” said Honda Development & Manufacturing of America Full-Scale Wind Tunnel Lead Mike Unger with a wink. “Now everybody wants to talk to me.”

New interest: Though wind tunnel testing dates back many years, the increasing emphasis in recent years on greater fuel efficiency has brought a new wave of interest in the field.

• Honda owns three full-sized wind tunnels near its global headquarters, as well as several smaller test facilities around the world for examining scale models.
• But in 2015, Honda—which for decades had been sending its U.S.-based people, cars and tools all over the world for wind tunnel testing or else booking time at third party-owned facilities in America—began mulling constructing a North American wind tunnel, too.

Behold, HALO: The result was HALO, unveiled in 2022 in a 110,000-square-foot facility in East Liberty, Ohio.

• To make it, the company had gathered its “wind tunnel road warriors”—Honda team members who boasted decades of combined experience in the world’s most advanced research facilities—and asked them how they’d do it better.
• Among their top requests was the need for better, faster communications with the designers and builders of the cars they were testing. To facilitate this, HALO was strategically located just across from a Honda development center and a mere 10-minute drive from two manufacturing plants (including the Marysville, Ohio, facility where Honda has been building automobiles since 1982).

Wind-tested, Honda approved: Every new Honda passenger vehicle model undergoes extensive aerodynamic and acoustic testing during its design phase, and further changes are often made during the manufacturing process. Race cars, meanwhile, are tested primarily with an eye to managing the downforce caused by passing air.

The new digs: Now, instead of hashing out design challenges across oceans, everyone sits side-by-side in the same control room.

The state-of-the-art site also boasts a fully outfitted machine shop, custom loading bays and a car wash (the last a recommendation of Honda engineers who had more than once found themselves outside a wind tunnel with a dusty test car and a bucket of soapy water).

• “Absolutely everything was designed with intention,” said HALO Business Strategy Lead Chris Combs.

The details: The tunnel itself is an elaborately engineered circuit. It comprises a settling chamber, a heat exchanger the size of a movie screen and a safety grill to catch any debris that might come loose and threaten HALO’s pulmonary system: a colossal, 6,700-horsepower fan with 12 hollow carbon fiber blades that are 26 feet long each.

• Turning at 250 rotations per minute, the fan drives air through the tunnel and into an anechoic chamber.
• On a recent day, that chamber held both a race car (for downforce testing) and an SUV from the plant across the field (for acoustic work).

Saving time: At most wind tunnels, switching from aerodynamic work to acoustic testing takes nearly two hours. At the HALO wind tunnel, however, technicians swapped the Indy car for the SUV and reconfigured the test chamber in about 20 minutes.

• When it designed the facility, Honda focused on “simple things like that—things that really promote efficiency,” said HALO Operations Manager Jimmy Przeklasa.

Quiet and furry: HALO’s test chamber is lined with acoustic tiles and “teddy bear fur,” a soft, sound-absorbing material.

• Even with the wind blowing, the room is so quiet that technicians working inside must don harnesses to prevent them from stepping into a gale they can neither see nor hear.
• A software system translates the wind noises into visuals, similar to the way a weather radar displays a moving storm.

Complex but simple: Technologically and visually dazzling, the HALO wind tunnel can seem like a futuristic fever dream: color-coded maps of the whistling wind, a two-story fan more finely tuned than a jet engine and a scale capable of sensing a breeze.

• In fact, from its inception, the goal of creating the HALO wind tunnel was simple: make cutting-edge aerodynamic and acoustic research as easy, intuitive and cost-effective as possible. And Honda’s done it.

The last word: “This is the latest and the greatest,” Unger said. “This place is unmatched.”