Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is a hybrid of chemistry, physics, and engineering that manipulates molecules to achieve industrial goals. Nanotechnology describes any type of engineering that takes place at a scale smaller than 1,000 nanometers (a nanometer is 1 billionth of a meter). The uses for nanotechnology include applications in biology, instrumentation, computer hardware, and advanced materials. Much of nanotechnology research has jumped beyond primary research to practical arenas that are venture capitalist funded. For manufacturers, this means dealing with things that get, as one insider puts it, “smaller and smaller and smaller.” Some devices and applications include carbon tubes, the opportunistic use of a state of carbon in which it forms a tube; nano-machines wherein devices currently in development use miniature cantilevers as sensors; self-assembly, in which the tendency for atomic particles to self-assemble or form an orderly pattern is taken advantage of; as well as other uses in photonics and electronics. Large manufacturers, especially aerospace and defense contractors are already dealing with the implications of nanotechnology.

Six Sigma/Quality

Sigma refers to the Greek symbol for standard deviation. Six sigma means controlling a process to six standard deviations—which translates into 3.4 defects per million. In other words, a maniacal focus on quality. Bill Smith, a reliability engineer at Motorola in the early 1980s, developed six sigma. During routine testing, Smith saw that products were failing at a much higher rate than predicted. He hypothesized that increased system complexity might be the cause of the failure. His solution was to build controls into the system so the process could be measured and acted upon before a final product was produced. He convinced Motorola management to adopt the program and the rest is history. Six sigma is still proliferating throughout manufacturing organizations. It is somewhat strange that an industry obsessed with precision would take so long to adopt the methodology. According to General Electric (GE), six sigma is a “disciplined methodology of defining, measuring, analyzing, improving, and controlling the quality in every one of the company’s products, processes, and transactions— with the ultimate goal of virtually eliminating all defects.”

Lean Manufacturing

Lean manufacturing was developed by Toyota and its Toyota Production System more than a decade ago. Traditional manufacturing methodologies stress high utilization of machinery with slim regard for cycle time or manufacturing waste. Lean manufacturing, on the other hand, stresses reduced cycle times and waste.

Cycle time refers to the amount of time that it takes to complete a set of operations. So in lean manufacturing, the goal is not to push more goods through a process— say, the painting area of an automobile assembly line—but rather to make a better process. Similarly, lean manufacturing attacks root causes by identifying “seven wastes”: overproduction, transportation, motion, waiting, processing, inventory, and defects.

Engineering Outsourcing

Whereas manufacturing has long been outsourced to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), outsourcing has taken the next logical step up the value chain and begun to take over design and engineering functions. These firms are referred to in the industry as outside engineering companies. Companies like Flextronics, a contract manufacturer, already have added design and engineering capabilities to their offering to the electronics industry. Within the automotive industry, companies like MSX have already off-loaded some of the design effort from major companies. MSX, a company with more than 7,000 employees, engineered Ford’s entry into the European mini-car market, the Ka. MSX’s engineering outsourcing revenue has exceeded $500 million, and it’s growing. Industry pundits estimate that the engineering outsourcing market is growing at a 10 to 15 percent clip. It’s not just startups that are jumping into the engineering outsourcing fray. European automobile manufacturers Porsche and Lotus, always known for their design prowess, have hung out signs for outsourcing services. The value of these outsourcing companies comes in their ability to design cheaply and quickly—in the automotive industry’s case, this applies to niche markets—those that sell 150,000 to 200,000 units a year of a particular model. Other scenarios include firms seeking to build products that are at least partially out of their range of expertise. In addition to the automobile industry, the aircraft and medical device sectors are becoming large consumers of outside engineering services.