Manufacturing has grown little since mid-2014. Five million manufacturing jobs have been lost since the start of the 21st century. U.S. manufacturing hit a cyclical bottom in June 2009, and a 21% increase in output since then has been accompanied by only a 5% increase in manufacturing employment. February 2010 was the low point in manufacturing employment, with the job count rising 7.2% since then, indicating that employment recovery lags far behind the cyclical norm following past recessions. That’s the news from a June 2016 Congressional Research Services (CRS) report by Marc Levinson, section research manager.

But there really is some good news in manufacturing, especially medical. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), even as overall manufacturing employment fell during the last two decades, the number of workers employed in manufacturing medical equipment and supplies grew 8%, with many positions requiring individuals with advanced degrees. A high school diploma is no longer a ticket to the factory floor. The CRS report states that between 2000 and 2015, the number of manufacturing workers with graduate degrees increased by 32%. Demand for workers with associate degrees in academic fields level rose 17%, as the number of manufacturing workers without degrees beyond high school fell by one-third.

The need is for educated workers trained and ready to work in the automated, technically advanced factories of today. And, as one reader recently responded about my editorial in the Nov/Dec 2016 issue, “As far as I am concerned, we do not have a skill shortage. What we have is a VISION shortage. Right here in the good old USA we have plenty of people. Potential skilled workers to design, build, and service automation equipment.”

However, there’s another part of the manufacturing equation coming into play and that has to do with what counts as manufacturing. Mark Mills, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, states that the size of the manufacturing sector at 12% share of gross domestic product (GDP) is underestimated – that it’s an artifact of how government accounts for business activities, not how businesses operate or what they do. He notes that it’s likely twice as large, stating that if the final assembly of products takes place in a warehouse – part of manufacturing – those employees are counted by BLS as services, contributing to skewed data for the strength and contribution to manufacturing.

Even if data isn’t fully representative of manufacturing’s strengths, what’s clear is the need for companies and workers to have a vision to embrace and make the most of today’s advancements. The materials, technologies, and machines, along with Big Data and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) are all playing a role in the changing face of manufacturing. Growth in manufacturing productivity is possible, but it will take vision and investment in workers, automation, and its future.

What is your vision to grown, invest, and stay on the leading edge of manufacturing excellence? Drop me a line at emodic@gie.net to let me know. ~Elizabeth

Harvard University researchers have demonstrated the first autonomous, untethered, entirely soft robot. This small, 3D-printed robot – nicknamed the octobot – could pave the way for a new generation of completely soft, autonomous machines.

Soft robotics could revolutionize how humans interact with machines. But researchers have struggled to build entirely compliant robots. Electric power and control systems – such as batteries and circuit boards – are rigid. Until now, soft-bodied robots have been either tethered to an off-board system or rigged with hard components.

Robert Wood, Charles River Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences; and Jennifer A. Lewis, Hansjorg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), led the research. Lewis and Wood are also core faculty members of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.

“The struggle has always been in replacing rigid components like batteries and electronic controls with analogous soft systems and then putting it all together,” Wood says. “This research demonstrates that we can manufacture the key components of an entirely soft robot, which lays the foundation for more complex designs.”

“Through our hybrid assembly approach, we were able to 3D print each of the functional components required within the soft robot body, including the fuel storage, power, and actuation, in a rapid manner,” Lewis says. “The octobot is a simple embodiment designed to demonstrate our integrated design and additive fabrication strategy for embedding autonomous functionality.”

Since octopuses can perform feats of strength and dexterity with no internal skeleton, they have been a source of inspiration in soft robotics.

Harvard’s pneumatic-based octobot is powered by gas under pressure. A reaction inside the bot transforms a small amount of liquid hydrogen peroxide into a large amount of gas, which flows into the octobot’s arms and inflates them like a balloon.

“Fuel sources for soft robots have always relied on some type of rigid components,” states Michael Wehner, a postdoctoral fellow in the Wood lab and co-first author of the paper. “The thing about hydrogen peroxide is that a simple reaction between the chemical and a catalyst – in this case platinum – allows us to replace rigid power sources.”

To control the reaction, the team used a microfluidic logic circuit based on work by co-author and chemist George Whitesides, the Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor and core faculty member of the Wyss. The circuit, a soft analog of a simple electronic oscillator, controls when hydrogen peroxide decomposes to gas in the octobot.

“The entire system is simple to fabricate. By combining three fabrication methods – soft lithography, molding, and 3D printing – we can quickly manufacture these devices,” says Ryan Truby, a graduate student in the Lewis lab and co-first author of the paper.

The simplicity of the assembly process paves the way for more complex designs. Next, the Harvard team hopes to design an octobot that can crawl, swim, and interact with its environment.

The paper was co-authored by Daniel Fitzgerald of the Wyss Institute and Bobak Mosadegh of Cornell University. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation through the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at Harvard and by the Wyss Institute.

Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS)
www.seas.harvard.edu

Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University
www.wyss.harvard.edu

Robotic machine tending cell

The VersaCELL robotic machine tending cell reduces manpower requirements for a two-machine production center by as much as 66%. The operator loads parts onto the included conveyor or drawer system and the VersaCELL then performs the following operations for up to two machine tools:

• Unloading parts from conveyor or drawer system
• Loading parts into machine tool using customizable end-of-arm tooling
• Unloading parts whenmachining operation is complete
• Transferring parts to second operation for additional machining
• Stacking finished parts in drawer or on conveyor to return to operator

If the drawer system is used, multiple parts can be staged for machining, allowing the operator to complete other tasks while the VersaCELL is working.

Versatech LLC
www.versatech1.com

A broad range of connectors are available for medical, consumer, industrial, and Internet of Things (IoT) applications in which small size and high-reliability performance are critical. Available as a physical sample and an interactive online simulation, the interconnect sample kit consists of a printed circuit board (PCB) loaded with 15 examples of board-to-board, wire-to-board, battery, and pogo pin connectors, including several of the STRIPT UL-approved, insulator-less single contacts.

The physical version of the sample kit features a white lid designed to simulate a replaceable or disposable module, so users can experience how AVX’s vertical-mate battery connectors eliminate angular insertion in pluggable module applications. Also with the lid, users can see how pogo pin contacts mate with modules in cradle and docking applications, where they can function as the charging, data transfer, or programming interface to a portable device.

The virtual interconnect sample kit allows users to navigate the board with their cursor, and provides brief descriptions of each connector category, summary information about each series, and links to each product page.

AVX
www.avx.com