[MUSIC] Welcome to the first course in the Digital Manufacturing and Design Specialization, Introduction to Digital Manufacturing and Design. My name is Ken English and I'll serve as your guide as we explore this new approach to making products. After completing this lesson, you'll be able to explain what is meant by digital manufacturing. And also explain how digital manufacturing and design represents the fourth generation of the industrial revolution. To set the stage, let's take a step back to the First Industrial Revolution, ending in the early 1800s. This transition is often thought of as the Industrial Revolution, but is actually the first of an ongoing sequence. The First Industrial Revolution was represented by the transition from manual production to mechanical production, enabled by the harnessing of water and steam power. The Second Industrial Revolution came at the beginning of the 20th century with the development of approaches that enabled mass production, including the assembly line. The Third Industrial Revolution, also known as the digital revolution, represented the advances made possible by automation as mechanical and analog technologies gave way to digital electronics between the 1950s and the 1970s. We are now entering what is being described as a fourth revolution, also known as Industry 4.0. Industry 4.0 is the next phase in the evolution of manufacturing. Combining the cyber capabilities resulting from advances in computing with physical systems to create a highly intelligent, interactive, and automated manufacturing ecosystem. That integrates product design, manufacturing, and logistics. Now a formal definition of manufacturing is the process of converting raw materials, components, or parts into finished goods that meet a customer's expectations. Manufacturing is the most tangible part of the product lifecycle because it results in a clear outcome. There are multiple definitions of the product lifecycle. Most differing only in their terminology or details. For this course, we'll use the definition provided by Michael Grieves in his 2006 book, Product Lifecycle Management, Driving the Next Generation of Lean Thinking. Grieves defines the lifecycle as all aspects of a product's life, from its design through manufacture, deployment and maintenance. Culminating in the product's removal from service and final disposal. The first stage in a product's lifecycle is planning. This is where designers work through understanding requirements whether they come from customer expectations, industry standards, or regulations. These requirements are then transformed into specifications or technical requirements that can be measured. These specifications give you a way to evaluate initial feasibility of a product and whether the process should continue to design. Design is the product lifecycle stage where form and function come together to meet specifications. As you develop prototypes, whether physical or in a computer, design is where parts are created to fill the needs of the product. This begins in an abstract fashion with conceptual design. And concludes with detail design, where final detailed part specifications are created. The next step of the process is to take the product from a design and build it. This stage includes when you define the items that need to be manufactured and how they'll be created and assembled. Production prototypes are created and checked to see if they meet performance and cost requirements. As well as long term production capabilities are established. This is also where customers have a chance to evaluate the acceptability of a manufactured product. Once produced and purchased by the customer, the product must still be supported. The support stage of the lifecycle is where you provide the customer with information to assist in the effective use of the product and maintain the operational performance of the product. A product's lifecycle ends with disposal and recycling. The dispose state of the lifecycle draws on information from the design and build phases to understand the composition and what portions of a product can be recycled into future applications. As with other stages, the dispose stage may iterate with design as you work to develop a product that meets performance expectations and that can be disassembled at the end of life. Over time, multiple opportunities for improvement have been identified for traditional design and manufacturing processes. In a product's lifecycle, many iterations may be required before customer approval is received. In traditional paper based processes, information sharing can consume valuable time and delay the development process. In traditional processes, there is also a lag during and in-between stages in the lifecycle as necessary approvals are sought. Sometimes, this can even result in losing first-to-market competitive advantage. Another challenge in paper based processes is that maintaining a single source of truth for product and process definitions is very difficult. And can result in limited capabilities for data analysis and evidence based decision-making. Communication problems can result when planned changes are made during design and development process, as well as after the production launch. A new approach is digital manufacturing. This approach uses increased computing power to improve the product lifecycle. The Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute, or DMDII, defines digital manufacturing as an integrated suite of tools that work with product definition data to support tool design, manufacturing process design, visualization, modeling and simulation, data analytics, and other analyses necessary to optimize the manufacturing process. Deployed throughout the product lifecycle, digital manufacturing enables you to more quickly and authoritatively share information in the design process. With all the data generated in every part of the lifecycle representing a digital thread. This digital thread can be used to create a computer based digital twin. An integrated system of data, models, and analyses that can be used in design, manufacturing, support, and disposal. These concepts all come together as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Industry 4.0. An example of the vision and promise of Industry 4.0 can be found in the wind power industry. Wind power is an important component of the clean energy industry. An ongoing challenge for wind farm operators is the significant wear and tear of gearboxes. Gearboxes are expensive to fix especially after failure. However, if sensors on the turbine are linked with weather information and computational models, a very accurate simulation can be developed for each individual turbine. Enabling evidence based decision-making and the creation of predictive models for performance of individual turbines and the wind farm as a whole. This concludes the first lesson of digital manufacturing and design. As we continue this course, you will build on your knowledge of digital manufacturing and Industry 4.0, including career opportunities and forces driving the transition to digital manufacturing and design.
