Complexity, reliability and design: the coming monolithic revolution in manufacturing

Abstract

A major component of IIASA's Technology–Economy–Society (TES) Program is a project to assess 'Computer Integrated Manufacturing' (CIM), by which is meant the whole range of application of computers to discrete parts manufacturing and assembly. The paper presents some interesting and new ideas about the nature of the forces driving the worldwide trend toward flexible automation. It suggests, in brief, that the demand for CIM arises from what Nathan Rosenberg has termed as 'mismatch', i.e. a problem that was created, in effect, by technological progress itself. In this case the 'problem' is that defects in manufacturing have become intolerable. The reason for that is that demand for higher and higher levels of product performance, over many decades, has required orders–of–magnitude increases in mechanical complexity, on the one hand, and higher precision, on the other. To satisfy these high standards requires a level of error control that increasingly precludes the use of human workers in direct contact with workpiecesas they move through the manufacturing system.