摘要
Current scientific understanding and available technologies are still limited in their ability to generate engineering solutions and meet manufacturing demands imposed by ever-increasing requirements on manufacturing and functional efficiencies as they relate to accuracy, productivity, production control, waste reduction, and customization, to mention a few. To this end, developments that address some existing process- and system-related limitations will be presented. First, several newly conceived processes and enhanced versions of conventional processes principally in the areas of cutting-, laser-, deformation- and additive-based methods, spanning the micro- to the macro-scales, will be introduced. Examples will include methods for the generation of microfeatures and engineered surfaces in terms of their topographical and physical properties to meet precisely prescribed functional characteristics at the micro-scale along with rapid prototyping methods for functional parts at the macro-scale. Second, the impetus provided by advances in IT technologies that are gradually finding inroads into all realms of advanced manufacturing enterprises ranging from the basic monitoring and control of the hardware functions of the production machinery through process control to the management of the supply chains will be discussed. To this end, current efforts toward the development of an operating system for cyber-physical systems and the creation of a generic process control platform for distributed systems will be presented. The examples presented will principally highlight activities under the auspices of the Northwestern Initiative for Manufacturing Science and Innovation (NIMSI) and the Advanced Manufacturing Processes Laboratory (AMPL).
