A New Class of Polymer that Defies the Laws of Physics

By Frank Rovella

If you find yourself going straight for the technology section every time you get online or open a paper, then you’re not alone. There are a lot of us just waiting for the next big thing, seeking to be awed by some new technological development. The Industrial Space is fertile ground for this enterprise; just take a look at emerging materials technology.  

Unlike automation that has a level of predictability akin to a train that always runs on time; we can see it downrange, hear the tracks rumble, and watch it flash by.  However, materials technology is more like a seismic event, we know it’s coming but no one is sure when or how big it’s going to be.

An example is a recent discovery by the French physicist Ludwik Leibler, who is this year’s winner of the European Inventor Award in the category research.  Leibler along with his team at the Laboratoire Matière Molle et Chimie at ESPCI ParisTech, have developed a whole new class of plastics called Vitrimers. 

"Classified as supramolecular substances, Vitrimers are a derivative of thermoset plastics and exhibit self-repairing characteristics."

What’s really intriguing about Vitrimers is how they do what they do. To understand this, we’ll have to look at the mechanics of their most basic elements.  At the molecular level, the atoms that comprise standard thermosets maintain their crystalline structure through permanent or rigid chemical bonds, the strength of these bonds ultimately determines the characteristics of the material. Flex, friction, and thermal cycles break down these bonds resulting in weakening that leads to cracks and fractures. Once these bonds are broken, they cannot be repaired  However, the molecular bonds that makeup Vitrimers are neither permanent nor rigid; their state is more akin to a dynamic equilibrium. This means that molecular bonds are forming and breaking simultaneously. Regardless of the molecular structure, the number of bonds remains the same. This reaction is thermally activated allowing VItrimers to go from solid to liquid and back with no change in crystalline structure; this is known as a glass transition. These characteristics, in essence, are what make Vitrimers a self-repairing plastic. Testing conducted at the University of Minnesota concluded that fractured samples that were healed recovered 102% of tensile strength, 133% of the original tensile modulus value, and 67% of ultimate elongation. Vitrimers glass-like qualities, allow it to be welded like glass, meaning that if two surfaces are brought to a molten state and welded, when they solidify the molecules are aligned like a solid section, with no seam. This is similar to friction stir welding, but far more complete.

The self-repairing qualities of Vitrimers are paving the way for a number of impressive innovations, and will surely lead to many more.  One of these is in the medical industry, where Vitrimers are being used in what is being called “Organ Glue.” This is a self-healing polymer hydrogel that acts as an anti-hemorrhaging, wound-healing aqueous solution. Vitrimers have the ability to form “nanobridging”, that is a molecular bridging of tissue; it can be used in situations where stitches are impractical.

For the more mundane, however, these same self-healing properties can make a significant impact on manufactured goods. Self-repairing plastics means that products made from it will have a far longer service life. Simply put less material is required because fewer parts are needed to accommodate for wear.

Then there are the effects on recycling, Vitrimers by nature are ideal for recycling because they can be liquefied and solidified over and over. Think about all the plastic that can’t be recycled, they end up in landfills, and some of these plastics can take hundreds of years to decompose fully. Vitrimers could make plastics as recyclable as aluminum.

The concept of materials that self-repair, or do things that seem physically impossible certainly has an awe factor, but Vitrimers are just one example. NASA is currently developing materials that can self-heal after a meteor strike and even self-repairing alloys. As we move forward keep your eyes open, because there is a lot more from this came from.

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A 3D Printing Industry Game Changer… This Time for Sure

By Frank Rovella

If you’ve been holding your breath waiting for 3D printing to change manufacturing as we know it then your face is probably blue, or you’ve already passed out.  For years a succession of technological breakthroughs has emerged but, each time falling short of the ultimate goal. I’ve even heard proponents say that someday we’ll all have 3D printers in the home so we can manufacture our own products on demand. Manufacture what, plastic

silverware, Legos?

The plain truth is that for 3D printing to make any kind of an impact, it will have to displace existing technology and do it economically.

For the most part, 3D printing has been relegated to the world of prototypes, short runs, and hobbyists. These days when I hear about the latest in 3D printing technology I get a little skeptical. However, this time around it includes some big names such as HP and Voxeljet, using phrases like “high-speed, low-cost manufacturing” and the Holy Grail “cheaper than injection molding”.

Today the new savior of manufacturing futurists is called “High-Speed Sintering” which has been in development for over a decade. One of the people behind high-speed sintering technology is mechanical engineering professor Neil Hopkinson, of the University of Sheffield in England. He believes that this really is the way forward for 3D printing. Hopkinson’s entry is based on the layering principals of laser sintering. As its name implies in laser sintering, a laser is used to melt material in thin layers. Though the results can be very precise, the technology is expensive and slow. In Hopkinson’s high-speed sintering approach, the laser is replaced by an infrared lamp and what is basically an ink-jet print head. In this process, the print head moves at high speed layering a polymer powder that is blended with light/radiation absorbing material. As each layer is laid down on the print bed, an infrared light fuses the powder. Hopkinson claims that given a large enough build area high-speed sintering can be 100 times faster than laser sintering, and deliver the same level of dimensional precision. This seems to be where injection molding may finally be impacted. High-speed sintering has no expensive tooling, design changes can be made on the fly, and there is little or no setup, essentially providing manufacturing on demand.

At this point, the technology has proven viable but there are still some hurdles to overcome. The biggest is that because the polymer must be mixed with a radiation absorbing material, it will only work with a limited number of polymers. Although this may be in the early stages, there is a lot of R&D money backing up this technology.

Hewlett-Packard has been working on a similar technology called “Multi Jet Fusion.” In HP’s product, the radiation absorbing powder is called a detailing agent. HP’s Multi Jet Fusion system is already available but is still being advertised for short-run and prototype work. Hopkinson’s high-speed sintering technology is now owned by the German 3D printer manufacturer Voxeljet. Voxeljet certainly has the know-how and resources to make this work, and German engineering can’t hurt either.

So to put it all into perspective, we have an obvious market need and two competing manufactures developing very similar technology. Both have a lot of capital, in HP’s case revenues of over $112 billion a year. Voxeljet, on the other hand, is quite modest in size, but totally focused on the industrialization of 3D printing and proving it with a pretty impressive product line. They are heavy into innovation and manufacture one of the largest commercially available 3D printers. Their VX4000 has a workpiece envelope of 157” x 79” x 40”. HP is certainly the 800-ton gorilla, but I’d put my money on Voxeljet to get this to market first. Their concentration on developing large scale volume manufacturing based 3D print systems is right in line with what this technology is meant for.

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Water, Water, Everywhere, But Not a Drop to Drink

This may not be the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, but it has everything to do with seawater

By Frank Rovella
I read an interesting fact in an MIT publication the other day; they stated that by 2025, 1.8 billion people will have trouble getting clean drinking water; that’s over 20% of the world population. This is a number that until recently has not gotten much attention, however, the recent drought on the west coast has helped to drive it home. Cities like San Diego have been hit the hardest, currently 80% of San Diego’s water supply is imported. This has prompted state and county officials to move forward with a massive $1billion desalination plant. When completed it will be the largest in the western hemisphere.

Desalination is becoming the only option for many metropolitan areas with growing populations and increasingly arid climates. This is highlighted by the fact that since 2000 over 16,000 desalination plants have come online in over 120 countries. Seawater desalination is certainly proving to be a viable option, but it’s expensive. Water produced by desalination is measured in acre-foot units, one acre-foot being almost 360,000 gallons or the estimated amount used per year by two five-member American households. One of the reasons it is so costly is that seawater desalination is based on the Reverse Osmosis (RO) process. It takes a lot of energy to push that much water through this type of system. San Diego, for example, will be paying approximately $2,000 per acre-foot, which 80% more expensive than their current supply. As you can imagine, with that much public money at stake, there is a lot of pressure to reduce costs. Though RO technology has come a long way in recent years due to advances in materials and process control, it still has a long way to go.  To understand why it’s expensive, and why it is a prime candidate for enhancements from process improvements and materials technology, we have to first look at what an RO filter is and does.

The RO process used for desalination typically uses a spiral wound type of RO filter. This configuration is composed of two sheets of membrane that are glued back to back to form an envelope or a leaf. Membrane leaves contain two membrane sheets sandwiching a porous sheet that is the permeate collector. The leaf is glued on three sides; the fourth side is attached to a perforated permeate tube.  In this method, the water can only exit through the permeate tube. While the system is in operation, pressurized water flows over the surface of the membrane on both sides of the membrane leaf. Water permeating through the membrane flows on the permeate carrier to the open side of the leaf, it then exits through the permeate tube.

In large scale RO applications such as desalination, multiple leaves are connected to the permeate tube. It is set up so that the permeate from all of the leaves goes through the same tube. In the multiple membrane configurations, a mesh spacer is placed between the leaves. They are then wound around the permeate tube, hence the name “spiral wound”.

Advances in the understanding of RO flow have brought about design changes that have added higher levels of efficiency. Modern RO filters contain more leaves that are shorter; the decrease in the water path this creates has proven to be far more efficient. This means that fewer membranes and less overall equipment is needed to create even more water. However, this is just one area where improvements have been made. There has been a great deal of advancements in membrane materials, as well as efficiency to feed pumps and general operating systems.

We have to remember that desalination power consumption is very high because of the amount of force required to pump massive amounts of water through an RO filter. The power used for seawater desalination accounts for 20 to 30% of the cost but its far less expensive now than it was. In 1979 1,000 gallons of desalinated water required 114 kWh. Today that same 1,000 gallons needs only 14 kWh.

But solving the world’s water problem will take more than high-tech large-scale filtration of seawater. Its also going to take boots on the ground in areas that can’t afford the colossal outlay for a desalination plant. The 2030 Water Resources Group has been applying some very innovative solutions across the globe to solve water shortage problems, and most of it is through pure efficiency. For example, in a project in Cape Town South Africa, they identified widespread leakage problem that caused the loss of approximately 600,000 gallons per hour. There are also a number of other examples, mostly based around water management for areas such as power generation, groundwater conservation, distribution management, agriculture, and wastewater treatment. There are also a number of other technologies in development that could change the freshwater playing field. Research is currently underway that includes distillation, ion exchange, and biochemical desalination. Whatever the final solution is, if the problem is not solved or at least addressed adequately, fresh water will become a key issue in the years to come.

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3D Printing’s Silver Bullet

By Frank Rovella
Last week I wrote about a new process for the 3D printing of circuits, it was a big story with many implications. However; news reached me today that will make it seem like a side note in 3D printing development. This week, Redwood City, CA-based Carbon3D unveiled a new 3D printing technology called “Continuous Liquid Interface Production” or “CLIP” that will finally fulfill the promise that 3D printing has held since its inception. Until recently 3D printing had been relegated to short-run production and prototypes. It's slow cycle times, and depending on the process, not so great surface finishes have been the major stumbling blocks to widespread adoption. This has kept processes such as SLA, SLS, Polyjet, and many others at the periphery of large scale manufacturing. The big difference with CLIP is that it's a totally new process and does not resemble additive manufacturing as we know it.

When comparing CLIP to standard 3D printing processes keep in mind that current methods are basically 2D printing. Layer after layer stacked on each other to create a three-dimensional object.  With layers come uneven surfaces, one of the most striking advantages of the CLIP process can be seen in the image on the right. CLIP can produce surface finishes that no other 3D technology can match but, what is really amazing is the speed.  Depending on process and materials, CLIP provides cycle times that are 25 to 100 times faster than standard 3D printing technology. In addition, it is also designed to be used with polymeric materials that open the doors to almost limitless possibilities.

The CLIP printing process starts with a pool of UV curable resin. The print head drops into the pool and begins projecting UV light through a special window into the resin, forming the base and subsequently the entire object.  As the form builds, the head raises in conjunction with object growth. UV light makes this all happen, but the window that it transmits through has to be completely transparent to the UV rays and permeable to oxygen, similar to a contact lens. The system controls the oxygen flow through the window creating a dead zone in the adjacent resin pool.  The dead zone is just tenths of a micron thick which delivers incredible resolution. The image of the part being printed is projected through the window, much the same as a movie is projected and creates the item from the bottom up.

This all sounds like a post grads project at MIT but its real and ready for prime time. In fact, Carbon3D just announced that they have raised $40 million to commercialize the technology, too bad they are still privately held. How this technology changes the landscape of plastics manufacturing and 3D printing is anyone’s guess, but one thing is for sure; we’ll be hearing a lot more CLIP 3D printing technology in the coming years.

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3D Printing & the End of the Circuit Board

By Frank Rovella
3D Printing also known as Additive Manufacturing has been around since the 1980s since then there has been a lot of positive and negative hype depending on your perspective. We’ve all heard the fear-mongering from uninformed media sources touting the end of manufacturing as we know it. Until recently it’s only been the end of rapid prototyping as we know it. However, a number of recent developments may indicate that this is about to change.

In a quiet turn of the century factory turned industrial park northwest of Boston, a small group, of academics and engineers, has developed a system that can 3D print electronics.

In conjunction with Harvard University, Voxel8 has developed a 3D printer and highly conductive silver printer inks that allow the circuit board to be printed in process.

As revolutionary as this sounds we have to remember that this is new technology; the developers at Voxel8 aren’t even sure about the potential applications.  At first glance, it looks more like a proof of concept that a production model. Their initial offering utilizes fused filament fabrication (FFF) technology, an established 3D process that is dependable with good repeatability, but not known for high precision.  From a production standpoint, there are several drawbacks. For example, when changing from standard

thermoplastics to conductive inks the ink cartridge must be manually changed. Voxel8’s conductive inks can print the circuit board, but the operator must still manually place the electronic components.
But all this manual labor doesn’t take the wind out of my sails; think about the level of automation, speed, and precision of modern PCB insertion systems. Then combine that with the very low operating costs of the typical FFF 3D system and it’s not hard to imagine large scale production using this technology in the near future.

Its common knowledge that for 3D printing to make a dent in manufacturing metals have to be firmly in the picture. Enter Selective Laser Melting (SLM), this 3D printing process can create products composed of metals such as aluminum, stainless steel, Titanium, and Cobalt Chrome alloys.

SLM was originally employed to produce prototypes and low volumes of dental applications and medical implants and found some high profile applications with NASA.  However its ability to produce complex geometries, hidden voids, and channels has not been lost on the manufacturing community. Tolerances to ±0.02 mm, surface finishes of 20 μm, with close to 100% density make this a very attractive technology.

General Electric is pretty confident in the technology and has invested over $125 million building the first high volume 3D printing facility in the world.  The plant is designed to manufacture fuel nozzles for GE’s LEAP jet engines; they will be using SLM 3D printing technology with Ceramic Metal Composites (CMC). To get an idea of the scale of production, GE currently has orders for more than 6000 LEAP engines, each requires 20 fuel nozzles. As the facility ramps up, GE is expecting production of up to 40,000 SLM printed fuel nozzles by the year 2020.

These developments by themselves may not be cause for alarm, but when taken as a whole they represent a real shift in the way products are manufactured. According to a recent Forbes article, the U.S. 3D printing market grew by 23% from 2009 to 2014 and is expected to continue with growth of 16% from 2015 to 2019.

Though it’s doubtful that 3D printing will ever totally take the place of processes such as machining and stamping, it is certainly poised to make a profound impact on manufacturing as a whole.

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The Electric Car & How Environmentalists Saved the Internal Combustion Engine

By Frank Rovella
For the past 30 years, there has been a war raging against the internal combustion engine; its rallying cries are as familiar as peanut butter and jelly. Terms like smog alert, acid rain, carbon emissions, foreign oil, and global warming have been the lead in for thousands of speeches, news reports, articles, and studies. Ever the purveyor of public opinion, the federal government, led by the EPA and the environmental movement has steadily been raising the bar for fuel-efficiency. In 1985, the typical MPG for a passenger car was around 16 MPG. Today in 2015 the standard stands at 25.1 MPG; ten years from now, in 2025 it will more than double to 54.5 MPG. For the auto industry, compliance has been costly; however, their efforts have spawned a steady stream of innovation, not just in design but in materials technology as well. Though forced by the Fed, fuel economy is a market factor that sells cars, just as people want electric cars; they also want high fuel efficiency. Until recently the price of gasoline and its effect on the average consumer had a large impact on the sales and development of higher MPG cars. In fact, part of the recent declines in crude oil prices can be attributed to lower demand gleaned from higher fuel efficiency.
Oddly enough, now that fuel prices have plunged to the lowest levels since 1995, the expected increase in sales of lower MPG vehicle has not happened. This is an indication of a cultural shift, call it generational or conditioning, whatever its name it’s now clear that the average consumer wants clean high mileage vehicles. From super-efficient gas, diesel, electric, and hybrid cars, to cleaner running trucks, and trains operating on natural gas, efficiency sells, and the MPG numbers show it.
Where does this leave the internal combustion engine? The drive for higher gas mileage has brought about such innovation and efficiency that modern technology has made the good old gas engine far more practical than anyone thought possible. So much so that a recent report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that by 2040, 95% of cars on the road will be using an internal combustion engine. That’s right little Johnny, you may get that job pumping gas, after all. This may be a shocker to some and begs the question, what are the technologies that are bringing about all the change? As Red Green once said, “talk is cheap, let’s build.”

Starting with materials, when I was building a drag bike an old-timer told me “weight is horsepower.” It’s also fuel efficiency. A perfect example is the all-new aluminum Ford F150. Ford's extensive use of aluminum knocked off 300 lbs., which isn’t a lot considering the F150 weighs in at just under 5000 lbs. What’s important here is the effort, Ford has been playing with aluminum for over 40 years, this is a big step forward and utilizes design and manufacturing principals that will carry over to other lines. Of course, there are also advanced composites, plastics, and even a movement to bring back wooden cars. There are also advancements in alloys used in the engine and drivetrain that are making parts stronger, lighter that are able to dissipate heat better, and run at hotter temperatures with higher compression.

Under the hood, you'll find innovations like variable valve timing that can adjust to the optimal profile based on RPM. Then there's cylinder deactivation, the expanded use of turbochargers and superchargers that utilize direct fuel injection. Integrated starter/generator systems that can turn the engine off when not needed, such as at stoplights and standing.  Another major area is electronic engine management, the level of sensors and control over engine functions is staggering. Modern systems can process up to 1000 different items of data per second and are only limited by the number of sensors available. If you look at technology as a whole, there is a massive amount of R&D that goes into developing a new car. One would think that with all the money and effort that go into producing a modern car that getting to those high MPGs numbers would not be a problem. But, there is a roadblock that is simply the physical limitations of the design. Depending on fuel costs as we get closer to that required 54.5 MPG, the effects of diminishing returns will have a big impact on further developments.

To get those extra MPGs on gasoline alone without a hybrid solution may not be possible. For a vehicle with only an internal combustion engine, meeting the federal guidelines will require a diesel engine. Unless there is some unforeseen development, and it would have to be major, the diesel engine will surpass the gasoline engine in the number of vehicles that it's used in. There is no other economical way to achieve the required 54.5 MPG. This isn’t hard to imagine since the diesel already has quite a head start.
Of the top 10 highest MPG passenger cars in 2015, five were diesels. The Volkswagens Jetta, highest on the list at #4 comes in with an MPG rating of 42 city/48 highway. These are some pretty good numbers, but getting the rest of the way to the goal on combustion alone will require a bit more innovation than the standard engine design can provide.
Here is a design that could provide that innovation it’s called the Achates engine and was developed by Achates Power of San Diego. They claim that their design gets 30% better mileage than standard diesel, and double the efficiency of a gasoline engine. When I first looked at this, I read that it uses opposing cylinders. Cool just like my old Triumph, not quite, what they mean by opposing cylinders is that it uses two reciprocating pistons per cylinder. It’s also a two-stroke and has no cylinder head.

Since its a diesel there are no spark plugs, ignition is from the heat of compression, which brings up another thing this design does well, dissipate heat. The Achates engine has 30% less surface area than a comparable four-stroke, it is just a cylinder after all so getting to and removing the heat from combustion is a lot easier. Less heat means less wear and longer service life, add the use of a turbo or a blower and this thing could really make a dent in the diesel market.

I also want to note, that I am talking about low GVW passenger cars. When it comes to large scale transportation such as trucks and trains, the amount of torque needed will always require an internal combustion engine. Moving freight by truck or rail relies on burning a lot of diesel fuel though lower in cost as of late, it cannot compare to liquid natural gas (LNG). Because of this expense, many rail companies are exploring the conversion of their trains to LNG.

So where are all the electric cars? I’ve driven electric, fuel cell and hybrids cars, box trucks, little red wagons, and shopping carts. Personally, I think having an electric car would be fantastic, and I'd buy one in a heartbeat if I could get one that was practical and above all, cheap. What’s currently available for an all-electric car just ain't gonna cut it in Brooklyn, maybe Jersey, but hey where am I gonna plug the friggin thing in any way? I know not everyone lives in a city, but to gain wide acceptance a car has to appeal to people across a wide demographic.
It all comes down to battery technology, basic practicality, and expense. As of today, battery technology simply hasn't caught up with the gold standard of 300 miles on a single charge, (that’s equal to the typical full tank of gas). There are claims by Tesla to have achieved that milestone, but there is still nothing commercially available. In 2016, GM will be releasing their version, called the Bolt, not to be confused with the Volt, which is a hybrid. The Bolt is said to provide a 200-mile range and go for around $35,000. Okay, that’s a start, but $35k for what essentially is a novelty? I’m still not sold.

Battery charging is where the rubber meets the road for practicality. The needed infrastructure is certainly in place, millions of miles of the electric grid, an entire supply chain ready to serve. But you still need a place to plugin. If you live in a rural area or the suburbs and have an unchanging day-to-day routine no problem, pull into the driveway pop on a cord, and you're good to go. However, there is a growing urban population, and as I mentioned earlier, the mass adoption of technology means it has to be practical for everyone. If you don’t own a home or live in an apartment than plugging in every few days gets to be more of an issue. And then there is the question of the length of charge, 6, 8, 10 hours for a full charge, seems to be a lot of planning to maintain. Having a car in the driveway is supposed to give a measure of freedom, just get in and go, anytime. Unlike filling a fuel tank, there is not a lot of room for error, or you’ll be on the side of the road waiting for a wrecker.

Even with all of these drawbacks, there is still one thing to consider. If the auto industry could produce a cheap electric car with a 300+ mile range for around $20 to $25k, they would fly out of the showrooms. Automakers know this and have spent billions trying to develop a solution. These efforts are reflected in the news every day, articles expounding Tesla’s advancements, development projects from Google to Apple, and every major automaker on the planet, even a hybrid F1 class, its big news for a reason. The question now is whether the US market is even ready for a cheap all-electric car? American automakers have focused solely on the US market while it’s clear that Japan and China are far better suited to accommodate an all-electric vehicle, and would make a better proving ground as well. For the US, the realities of commuting, the infernal distances, and a growing urban population will dictate. Looking forward, with current technology it seems likely that reaching the federal mandate while appealing to a broad market base will require a diesel/electric hybrid solution.

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Breakthrough Innovation for Welding Dissimilar Metals

By Frank Rovella                                                                     Maximizing strength and minimizing weight is a critical design factor that has vexed engineers throughout the automotive and aerospace industries. Even with the advancements in material science and the increasing sophistication of FEA and modeling software, in the end, it always a trade-off between strength and weight, however, that may all be about to change. In a small shop in the industrial heart of Austria, a team from Voestalpine AG, one of Europe’s largest steel manufacturers may have developed a solution.

Until now there were not many options for joining dissimilar metals, mechanical fastening, brazing, and friction stir welding were the only available alternatives. The use of fasteners and adhesives has their place but are quite limited when it comes to a high strength joint. The remaining options are friction stir welding and brazing. Brazing isn't technically welding and doesn't offer the same strength characteristics to make it a viable option. Friction stir welding has been in use for some time, but it requires the use of high-pressure clamping and the exertion of heavy forces making it very expensive. It does have advantages in certain scenarios, but it lacks the flexibility to allow widespread deployment. There is also the development of an increasing number of special alloys and heat-treating processes that impart various characteristics. But, in the end, specialized materials and processes equal higher expenditures through limited material production and increased manufacturing costs.

The process that Voestalpine is developing may change all that, although it is still in the early stages of development it shows great promise. Unfortunately, there are very few technical details available, but it is basically MIG welding with special wire, an argon shield, and a zinc coating. There also a number of very critical, precise, and undisclosed parameters that have to be met for the process to be successful. Representatives of Voestalpine state that the weld is so robust that it can even be die-stamped with no effect on weld integrity.

If this new process delivers on its promise, then the economy of scale will take this quickly into the mainstream. The design flexibility it would give engineers would be unprecedented. Imagine the effects on a large structure such as airframe or an automotive chassis. For the automotive and aerospace industries, weight is horsepower, and a tool that would allow for practical welding of dissimilar metals will no doubt have a huge impact. This technology will also affect many other industries as well and could eventually make a significant impact on the cost of many high strength alloys. You'll probably never see one of these for sale at Home Depot, but if you're in the metal fabrication business, then this is certainly a development worth following.

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Opportunity or Obsolescence?

Automation, Supercomputers, & AI

By Frank Rovella
For the past two years, IBM has been involved in a lobbying effort to convince Congress to allow its Watson supercomputer technology to be used as a medical diagnostic tool. You may remember Watson by its now-famous victory on the game show “Jeopardy!”. IBM wants Congress to classify Watson as a diagnostic tool rather than a medical device. This will allow IBM to avoid the long and costly clinical trials that medical devices are subject to. If approved, and all indications are that it will, this would truly be groundbreaking, and a first for the medical industry, which until now has relied on the expertise, and experience of people who have dedicated their lives to medicine.

Proponents such as Eric Topol, a genomics professor at the Scripps Research Institute has used the technology and is excited about the prospect of its widespread use. He states, “No human being can read five billion pages of medical literature in two seconds.” Of course, if adopted, a physician will make the final decision. However, there are many who worry that this powerful technology will make its way beyond the control of a physician. This could undermine one of the key aspects of the doctor-patient relationship, trust.

The widespread propagation of technology such as Watson has far-reaching implications, both economically and ethically. In manufacturing and industrial applications, deployment of new technology is standard practice and is in large part the reason that the US has become so competitive in the world market. The demands for higher precision, faster throughput, and lower cost keep raising the bar. The new technology this is driving is revolutionizing the workplace in ways not even thought of just a few years ago. As Kurzweil’s predictions of the exponential growth of computing power have come to fruition, so follows the automation of manufacturing processes. The subsequent transformation this has precipitated has been very subtle, so much so that most people hardly notice; an upgrade here and new function there. These are small incremental advancements that have occurred over long a period of time and can require a perspective spanning years to comprehend fully.

Automation: The use of automation is everywhere; we’ve all seen it and work with it every day. From AutoCAD, CAD/CAM, and CNC controls to telemetry on an N2 tank, monitoring software connected to hundreds of thermocouples and pressure transducers, a robotic pick and place, or any one of a thousand custom-designed automated systems. Automation simply put is the conversion of a manual task into a hands-free process. In one of my recent articles titled “The Next Industrial Revolution,” I wrote about the changes brought about by automation. For example, because of automation, over the past 20 years of jobs for machinists have decreased by 20%. A recent study conducted by Oxford University concluded that due to the widespread deployment of automation and computerization that 45% of jobs in the United States will disappear over the next 20 years.

Supercomputers: IBM calls the Watson system cognitive, and many people are identifying it and others like it as artificial intelligence (AI), in reality, it is neither. Supercomputers like Watson are just very large, very powerful mainframe computers using millions of processors. Although the use of supercomputers may be out the reach of most shops, high power computing using increasingly sophisticated software is not. What this means to design and engineering is what automation means to manufacturing. Advancements in MRP, design, modeling, and FEA software are becoming less expensive and more accessible. The ability to determine mechanical stress and vibration, the effects of motion and fatigue, as well as heat transfer characteristics and even electrostatics, can all be done long before the chips of a prototype fly. This is not even touching on the developments in 3D printing. For industries such as injection molding, these tools have provided significant advantages. Considerations for machining tool steels, getting the correct mold flow

characteristics and dozens of other factors used to take a highly skilled engineer and a

seasoned toolmaker. Now, most of the upfront development is done in the office. In the realm of computational fluid dynamics (CFD), the use of supercomputers is significantly decreasing development time, increasing accuracy, and making system modifications far less painful. Think of the complexity of designing or engineering additions to a modern refinery. The ability to determine complex CFDs brings higher efficiency, faster response to required process changes, and a higher level of safety, all at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): Once this is developed, and it’s just a matter of time, everything changes for the engineer and in time to everyone else in the process stream. Development of an AI has been coined as “The Singularity”, meaning the point where computing power surpasses that of human ability and/or becomes self-aware; it has also been called man’s last invention. There are many views pro and con, and some who say that a truly self-aware machine will never be achieved, there is even argument as to how self-awareness is even determined. Much of public perception is media-driven; Hollywood has made a lot of money portraying self-aware machines as monsters bent on ridding the world of us. I think a more accurate depiction of what we can expect was exhibited in the recent movie “Her” (my wife made me watch it).

There are a lot of people taking the development of AI very seriously; over the past four years, funding for AI research projects has soared. In 2014, a total of 16 AI startups received over $309 million in funding. This wasn’t a Kickstarter campaign either, companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook are betting heavily on AI and are putting up the money to prove it.

Automation, computing, and eventually AI are all intertwined and will spell the end of work as we know it. What AI will ultimately mean to jobs and the industries that are our livelihoods isn’t hard to predict. A system that can learn can bring incredible speed and accuracy to almost every industry. The wild card is a system that can learn and self-improve.

The widespread use of automation, computing, and eventually AI will be driven as always, by the economy of scale. As each new advancement is adopted, it gets less expensive and can be deployed by smaller organizations. For manufacturing, it's already happening, the ability to work “lights out” is a typical example of a fully automated system. If you go to the trade shows, every year systems require less operator intervention. CAD and MRP software is getting more sophisticated, 3D printing and materials technology is going through the roof. I’ve even read about an algorithm that can generate technical writing.

There are a lot of people who would like to think that all of this is far in the future, but it’s not. We are on the doorstep of profound changes in our society, and as with so much in the world today, it’s all uncharted territory. This is a story of vicissitudes that is part and parcel of every revolution, whether it is industrial, social, or political.

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Tesla's Golden Egg

By Frank Rovella
Elon Musk is about to lay a golden egg in the Nevada desert with the world’s largest battery manufacturing facility. The $5 billion Tesla Motors battery factory, which is currently under construction will be the largest of its type in the world. All last summer states in contention for the facility were falling over themselves in an effort to be selected for the plant. Nevada, the winner of the competition offered Tesla over $1 billion in incentives.

Everyone knows that electric cars are gaining in popularity and practicality, especially if you consider some of the advances that Tesla has been able to achieve. The new Tesla plant makes sense for this growing company and the industry as a whole. However, unless some serious advancements are made in battery and vehicle performance and cost the market for electric cars will always be a niche. So it begs the questions is there a need for a factory so large and is there that big of a market to be had for electric cars, today the answer to both is no.
But this isn’t just a battery factory for electric cars, Musk also owns SolarCity Corp., which is a full-service solar power provider. Currently operating in 15 states and growing, SolarCity is a single source for the entire solar package, from design and permitting to installation and repair.

Why Batteries Matter
Alternative power generating applications (green energy) such as wind and solar has always been held back by the lack of a practical method for power storage. The inability to get power when you need it has always been the biggest drawback. The wind doesn't blow the sun doesn't shine, real fodder for a blues song, but if you’re trying to calculate ROI the feasibility just isn't there. In the early days, developers were counting on battery technology to catch up. The federal government and many states have helped keep the industry afloat with very generous energy credits and incentives. But practically speaking compared to the large scale power generation of an NG fired power station, without taxpayer-subsidized incentives the green energy industry would look much different. Add to this the recent drop in natural gas prices due to massive domestic increases in the extraction and being competitive would seem a vain effort.
For practical purposes solar and wind power are best suited for on-site use, and from the beginning, the scenario of on-site power generation has been the industry dream. There are three factors that will ultimately allow this to become a reality.

1. The continuation of federal and state incentives
No matter how cheaply power can be created through existing methods, being green is a key political issue, so don’t expect energy credits to go anywhere. As it stands today, without credits and incentives there is no form of alternative energy that can be competitive with baseload power.

2. Cheaper solar panels that last longer
As the innovation continues, and the economy of scale kicks in, cost and panel degradation have been steadily decreasing as output per square foot has been steadily increasing. This is a trend that shows no signs of abatement. 

3. Cheaper higher capacity batteries
This is the golden egg. Tesla has clearly exhibited increases in battery performance, they recently announced that they achieved a 300-mile range per charge in their cars. In addition, for Musk to get $5 billion worth of backing from companies like Panasonic means that they are onto something.

Many major utilities sponsor green energy projects and see the type of on-site power generation that Musk is offering as a benefit that would lift some of the burdens of increased demand. This is a good assumption if you don’t factor in storage capacity, which until now hasn't been a serious concern.

What may be about to happen will unfold outside of utility regulation. Typically, without the ability to store the energy being harvested, it had to be sold back to the utility. Expensive systems meant that even with generous incentives, small scale generation was more of a hobby and only practical in remote locations.
Elon Musk’s companies are in a position to change that scenario. Imagine a cheap and easy to install a solar array for a residential application with a measurable ROI. Collect the energy during the day and use it at night. Companies such as SolarCity could install and maintain systems just like any other service industry, and doing it for less than utility costs. For the solar and wind industry, this is the scenario that they have been waiting 30 years for. For utilities, this is a scenario that will change over 100 years of dominance.

The overriding factor that will be the true test of the viability of green energy technologies and lead to its widespread adoption is in the use of energy credits and incentives. If systems can be developed that provide savings on their own without the help of Uncle Sam, then people like Musk will make billions, and the way we think about power generation will change forever.

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The New Lean Imperative

HYPER EFFICIENT METHODOLOGIES FOR A  HYPER COMPETITIVE WORLD: HOW THE EU IS COPING

By Frank Rovella
Over the past 20 years, the tenets of Lean Manufacturing have gone from nice to have, to must-have, to an SOP. Nations across the western world have implemented Lean Manufacturing with great success, so much so that without it, being competitive has become virtually impossible.  If you were around in the early days, before Lean became a household word, you'd remember how difficult it was to implement. Toyota had to practically crush the US auto industry before anyone took it seriously.

Here we are in 2015, the word Lean is now rarely used because of its just business as usual. So what happens when you take a Lean enterprise, place it in a developing, unregulated economy with the same material resources as the western world, and labor costs that would make Montgomery Burns smile? Serious competition.

How companies in the EU have dealt with this rising tide of competition is simply to enhance systems and processes that are already in place. Many success stories have been highlighted through the Industrial Excellence Award (IEA).  Since 1995 European manufactures and suppliers have competed for the IEA, which awards companies that have proven their competitiveness through new and innovative means. The award is the vehicle for benchmarks that benefit the entire industry; additionally, the IEA is also highly prestigious and tells partners, customers, and colleagues that they are serious about being competitive.

After looking at some of the recipients, I found three main areas of innovation that distinguish winners of the IEA; they are:
1.    Maximize data flow across the entire supply chain
2.    Create value elsewhere in the supply chain
3.    Enhance manufacturing efficiency through communication and process flexibility

Maximize data flow across the entire supply chain
We have all heard it, partner with your customer, partner with your suppliers. For IEA winners, it means sharing data with customers and suppliers in real-time, as if they were an in-house entity. This allows for a seamless and fast reaction to any changes that may affect production or the product. The level of cooperation and data sharing required here is something that is difficult to impossible to achieve with off-shoring. Not many companies in the US or the EU would be comfortable sharing that level of data with a supplier in China, Brazil, or India. However, it is much easier to accept when you’re dealing with suppliers who have the same values and standards of quality and abide by the same laws of intellectual property. In the EU, this is now standard practice for engaged companies. The reward is a sense of ownership between stakeholders and the creation of something we don’t hear much anymore, trust, and loyalty.

Create value elsewhere in the supply chain
One can relate this aspect to any value stream except it goes beyond the shop walls. To succeed an organization must have the ability to look up and down the supply chain. The hard part is understanding the challenges that each member faces and the knowledge that your part of the chain is only a fraction of the total cost of the product. Again, this is the insight that most offshore providers simply will not have. However, if the entire chain has this understanding than the group can move as one.
Of the three areas, success in this requires an elevated level of innovation. The benefits are certainly tangible, the cost savings and decrease in the waste can make a big impact however; there are a number of intangibles that are harder to put into numbers. The most obvious is the benefits to partner relationships, especially with new customers.  Getting insightful suggestions drives home a company’s commitment to the long term. It also places them in a position of being more than just a provider of products and services. For employees working on this type of initiative, it allows them to work in areas outside of their usual sphere of influence, giving them a broader understanding of related industries and processes. That is a win-win now and down the road.

Enhance manufacturing efficiency through communication and process flexibility
In today’s far-flung supply chains, changes to product specifications usually equate to schedule delays, missed deadlines, or excessive waste. The ability to be responsive starts with the ability to be flexible.
Eliminating these issues begins with open lines of communication between suppliers up and down the supply chain.  Each stakeholder needs to be able to contact the person that makes the decision that will facilitate a change quickly. For example, recipients of raw materials should be able to easily change the requirements for a particular JIT delivery while manufacturing and assembly processes should be set up to easily accept requests for change.
Achieving this type of hyper-responsive environment requires a roadmap with clearly defined responsibilities and processes that are designed to allow for change while minimizing their impact. The commitment, that this entails, needs to reach into every part of the organization, from the front office to the loading dock. Every employee has to be a stakeholder. If all of the staff understands what their part is and why, you’ll build trust and dedication within your own walls, which will as a matter of course permeate to your suppliers.

The type of competitive success that the IEA focuses on can only be won by a broad commitment that is shared by entire industries. This means that the entire supply chain must be doing business in the same manner. Similar to selecting a supplier with an ISO cert, you would also have to choose partners with the ability, and the desire to hold up their end of the bargain. 

In the US, as in Europe, this must begin with larger manufacturing entities that have the resources and utilize larger supply chains. Just as in the early days of Lean, over time the benefits will slowly reach even the smallest shops. One could certainly draw similarities between today and 25 years ago.  I remember holding Kaizen events with people who didn't understand why we needed to turn everything upside down. In fact, we were turning them right side up, right now we need to polish the profile.

 

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