Design and production technologies

(upbeat music) (text whooshes) (screen whooshes) - Let's talk for a moment about the critical technologies for Industry 4.0 in modern and future manufacturing environments. Design and production technology can be characterized by the use of digital modeling tools, also known as computer-aided design software, as well as software tools meant to design and develop material characteristics, as well as process definitions. The creators of such information use these tools to create models, representations, if you will, of various physical products and materials and machines used for production at high degrees of precision and high degrees of accuracy to the physical world. This enables product designers, manufacturing engineers, supply chain specialists, to have a highly accurate digital representation of the product, its shape, the materials it's made from, and the processes that will be used to make it before we have begun to cut chips on a machine or to mold plastic or to lay up composites. Industry 4.0 design and production technologies are also characterized by advanced CNC tools, otherwise known as computer numerical control technologies, as well as the increased use and wider spread adoption of additive manufacturing technologies, sometimes which are characterized as 3D printing. These tools, 3D printing and advanced CNC technologies, use that digital model definition as input to the production process, and using raw materials, metals, plastics, even wood, allow a company to create products in a highly precise and repeatable way in large volumes over time. One of the key elements of Industry 4.0 as it relates to design and production technology is the use of data and analytics that are derived from the sensors and inputs present on modern machine tool technology. This allows us to create software tools and allows us to create validation models that enable these machines to have a sense of being self-correcting, which increases production output, as well as reduces quality costs. For example, imagine a common appliance that many people have in their kitchen at home. Imagine you have a toaster or an electric range. That was designed and made in a factory somewhere, but how was that done? Designers use computer-aided design software tools, as well as sketching tools, artistic tools, and materials definition tools to create a three-dimensional geometric representation of the individual components of that electric range or of that toaster. And then using that same software, they create a virtual assembly of that product so that the shop floor technicians in the factory know how the product is to be built and put together. In many cases, large companies, such as those that might make appliances, do not necessarily make all of their products in house. They use suppliers for different components. In many cases in today's world, those digital definitions of individual components or even of the overall product itself are shared with various suppliers, and then those suppliers make those components relative to the digital definition of that component given to them by the original equipment manufacturer. And when those components are finished, they ship them back. All of that process is enabled by the design and production technologies that are used in modern manufacturing. (upbeat music) (screen whooshes)