Tuesday, December 20, 2011

What Does the Next Generation Need to Know and Do in Manufacturing and Design?

Following is the address from Lawrence D Burns at The National Academy of Manufacturing's 2011 Design and Manufacturing Forum. It addresses some of the lessons to be learned about manufacturing by the next generation, such as:

Lesson 1:  Manufacturing is an Integrated System
Lesson 2: Manufacturers Must be Driven by Customer Experiences
Lesson 3: Manufactures Must Grow Better “Beans” in Addition to Counting Them
Lesson 4: Manufacturing Innovation Is Still Quite Young
Lesson 5: Engineers with Integrative Minds Will be the Leaders

Click here to read the full article.

1 comment:

  1. Lesson 4: Manufacturing Innovation Is Still Quite Young

    I dont agree with this at all in the sweeping sense of the statement. Manufacturers by nature are innovative people. They are problem solvers. If you ask them to fix a problem as a client they will no doubtingly innovate to solve it. What Burns means is that Manufacturing is quite young at value-centred innovation or what I would call strategic/targeted. I agree with him that manufactures need to get smart about how they innovate at the business level.


    Lesson 5: Engineers with Integrative Minds Will be the Leaders

    To add more to this point, the Team of engineers, designers and dare I say marketers :P with Integrative Minds Will be the Industry leaders of the future.

    You will see disruptive business models and disruptive service delivery as the next thing in manufacturing in my opinion. More and more the actual product is becoming meaningless. This isn't to say just anything will do - indeed it needs to be designed perfectly and manufactured to a high quality, but more importantly the manor in which it is delivered is increasing becoming the key to success of the product. The quality is now taken for granted AND quality alone won't ensure success. As Burns says, its all about the customer experience...

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