Manufacturing uses the creativity, industriousness, and productivity of line workers, designers, engineers, machinists, and captains of industry every day. Every one of these stakeholders rely on complex supply chains, resource mining, component production, competent policy-making, and countless other variables to get their jobs done as efficiently as possible. However, it’s often difficult to see all but the most immediate of goals and challenges and not get caught up in daily tasks.
To take a step back and look at the big picture of many of the trends affecting the metalcutting industry, Sandvik Coromant has established its Looking Ahead web portal, which includes a video (see above) of academics and industry professionals around the world weighing in on the types of changes industry is facing, as well as a 2012 Trends Report that summarizes some of the major movements in manufacturing, including:
- Tailoring sales and products to an increasingly socialized and urbanized consumer-base
- New considerations of environmental impact in light of growing climate change fears and resource management concerns
- Further integrating CAD/CAM services with digital data to produce more efficiently
- Developing new materials and discovering new ways to use established materials
- Forming new components faster, less expensively, and more efficiently.
You can read the whole trends report here (PDF format).
