Technological advances in recent decades have been rapid. Recently, there is a story that artificial intelligence exceeds human beings, and no one can accurately predict the future. Under such circumstances, what should young people in future society learn? This time we would like to talk about the mechanical engineering future.
First, let’s talk about what a machine is?
A machine is an object that moves other things or itself with energy other than electricity. In other words, machines refer to construction machinery, robots in factories, automobiles, while smartphones and televisions are treated as electronic devices rather than machines.
That doesn’t mean that electronic devices don’t require mechanical engineering. For example, the vibration function on smartphones cannot be designed without knowledge in mechanical engineering.
Agricultural machinery such as tractors, combines, trucks and excavators are industrial machinery. You may think that you just need to design and develop according to a set of requirements, but there are a lot of things to think about when designing your new product. For example, what parts and materials to use. Also, things that should work in theory don’t really always go as planned, and sometimes you will need to check and test prototypes repeatedly.
Cameras, lenses, and medical devices fall under the category of precision machinery.
Automated, flexible, and adaptable machines will determine the future.
The machine of the future is automated, flexible, networked and can adapt to its environment. In the end, all the digitization challenges can be traced back to one skill – How to master complexity in an efficient manner. The future belongs to companies that can translate this complexity into a competitive advantage in the mechanical engineering futuristic market.
With each step in design, development, manufacturing and go-to market processes, the complexity grows exponentially.
Almost every machine builds on what already exists. Accordingly, the development process should integrate the experiences & knowledge from its predecessors with upcoming technologies, in order to generate added value in every new machine design.
The more individual and connected machines become, the more complex launching a new product or service become, especially in a market that demands more reliable products.
Successful mechanical engineering companies with a high degree of digitization essentially focus on the following concepts in order to turn complexity into a competitive advantage:
With the digital twin insights and data, companies can realistically simulate their machines’ performance. This allows flexible, networked machines to be developed and to process a broader range of products, thus enabling customers to react more quickly to changing market requirements.
The more complete the digital twin is, the more meaningful the simulation results are and by thus, greater product improvements will occur.
Every employee has the tools they need to fulfill their tasks. These tools must be easy to use, to collect data together from all the development areas and to present it in an understandable way.
Information technology plays a major role in managing complexity now. and will be more in the future. In companies there are diverse software solutions. The task now is to seamlessly connect these tools from different sources in order to realize the full potential of digitization.
