Introduction Two graduates join the same plant on the same day. Same college, same marks, same degree. Eighteen months later one of them is running improvement projects and being asked for an opinion in the morning meeting. The other is still…

Introduction A design engineer draws a part. A manufacturing engineer answers the harder question: can we actually make this, at the required rate, at the required cost, with the machines and people we have? That question sounds simple and rarely is….

Introduction A modern offshore wind turbine blade can exceed 100 metres in length. That is longer than a football pitch, and it is made in a single piece. Now consider what that single piece has to do. It must be light…

Introduction A solar panel has no moving parts. Nothing rotates, nothing burns, nothing wears out in the mechanical sense. Yet it converts sunlight into electricity for twenty five years or more, sitting outdoors through monsoon, dust storms and 50 degree summers….

Introduction Every year brings a new list of manufacturing trends. Every year the list looks roughly the same, with one or two new words added. The problem is that these lists rarely tell you the one thing you actually need to…

Introduction Picture a factory in 2030. The machines look surprisingly familiar. There are still lathes, presses, moulding machines and assembly lines. Metal is still cut, formed and joined. What has changed is everything around them. Every machine reports its own condition….

Introduction Two supervisors describe the same shift. The first says production was fine, the machines ran well and there were a few small issues. The second says output was 780 against a target of 900, OEE was 62 percent, the biggest…

Introduction Ask a planner how production is going and they will check the ERP. Ask a shop floor supervisor the same question and they will look at a screen above the line. Both are looking at production data. Both are correct….

Introduction A customer calls and asks whether their order will ship on Friday. To answer that honestly, someone needs to know four things. Is the raw material in stock? Is the machine free? Is the previous order finished? Has the supplier…

Introduction Three letters. Three tools. Three questions. CAD asks: what does this part look like? CAE asks: will it survive? CAM asks: how does the machine cut it? That is the whole subject in three lines. Everything else is detail. Yet…