4 answers
Yanic
Student
Bamenda, Northwest, Cameroon
7
Questions
Updated
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What emerging technologies or skills are most valuable for a Mechanical Engineer looking to specialize in manufacturing #Spring25 ?
I am a young Mechanical engineer who wants a good career in engineering
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4 answers
Sundar Vokkarne
30
Answers
San Francisco, California
Updated
Sundar’s Answer
To succeed in basic mechanical engineering, learning CAD 3D is essential. To stay competitive, it's important to take electro-mechanical courses. These courses will help you work with servo motors and robotics. You'll learn how to make robots communicate with laptops and perform tasks, using servo and stepper motors. Gaining electro-mechanical knowledge and hands-on experience will give you an edge and make you more attractive to employers.
Andy Berry
Welder/fitter
2
Answers
Shreveport, Louisiana
Updated
Andy’s Answer
In my experience I have noticed a demand for your skills with automation and robotic firms. They seem to always need engineers.
Thank you Andy. This is helpful
Yanic
Bryce Calton
IT Manager - Healthcare Systems
2
Answers
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Updated
Bryce’s Answer
William's answer is good because it is more realistic and specific to what industry is doing in Africa. From my reading, Africa's adoption of emerging technology is growing fast. My answer is more generic around high level emerging tech in the manufacturing sector.
I would say the most valuable skills to learn for the future are where artificial intelligence is able power the intelligence of autonomous robotics in a manufacturing environment. Robotics in manufacturing is nothing new, but still requires humans to program the robots. Soon, the robots will have AI and computer vision helping them make real-time decisions without the need for programming. You don't necessarily need to learn how the AI in the back end works; you can learn how to put it to use by knowing how to apply it to the robots and how the robots can be applied to manufacturing scenarios.
A Google search brings up these other emerging technology areas:
Predictive maintenance - outfitting the manufacturing plant with sensors that monitor when the process is outside tolerance and/or when the equipment needs servicing.
Design Optimization: new ways to make manufacturing the most efficient it can be.
Rapid Prototyping using latest in 3D printing and/or virtual designing using digital twin technology.
Materials Science: developing new materials that make manufacturing easier and/or products last longer and/or minimize the need for sourcing minerals.
IoT Internet of Things: the communication network for all of the things involved in the manufacturing process. The end devices need to have embedded sensors and the ability to compute. Those end devices are network connected to edge network compute capacity that can do some central processing for the network of connected end devices.
I would say the most valuable skills to learn for the future are where artificial intelligence is able power the intelligence of autonomous robotics in a manufacturing environment. Robotics in manufacturing is nothing new, but still requires humans to program the robots. Soon, the robots will have AI and computer vision helping them make real-time decisions without the need for programming. You don't necessarily need to learn how the AI in the back end works; you can learn how to put it to use by knowing how to apply it to the robots and how the robots can be applied to manufacturing scenarios.
A Google search brings up these other emerging technology areas:
Predictive maintenance - outfitting the manufacturing plant with sensors that monitor when the process is outside tolerance and/or when the equipment needs servicing.
Design Optimization: new ways to make manufacturing the most efficient it can be.
Rapid Prototyping using latest in 3D printing and/or virtual designing using digital twin technology.
Materials Science: developing new materials that make manufacturing easier and/or products last longer and/or minimize the need for sourcing minerals.
IoT Internet of Things: the communication network for all of the things involved in the manufacturing process. The end devices need to have embedded sensors and the ability to compute. Those end devices are network connected to edge network compute capacity that can do some central processing for the network of connected end devices.
Dear Bryce,
Thank you so much for this wonderful ideas. It has brightened my horizon, I look forward to applying this ideas.
Thanks
Yanic
William Vvuko
Retired engineer
70
Answers
Moyo, Northern Region
Updated
William’s Answer
Dear Yanic,
It's wonderful to learn that you are already a qualified mechanical engineer aiming to build a career in the manufacturing sector.
Manufacturing is quite diverse. Africa is modernizing it's manufacturing industries very rapidly with very high levels of control & automation. Even mechanical aspects of equipment is evolving constantly.
In manufacturing, two game changing aspects are predominant: technology & people. Agro processing is by far the biggest beneficiary of this evolution: beer, soft drinks (carbonated & still products), tea, cocoa, coffee, tomatoes etc. The mining sector is the other beneficiary: oil, cement, gold, diamonds, cobalt, iron, copper, nickel etc.
Modern packaging equipment that we now have on the continent have robotics integrated into them. Integration using control & automation also requires higher levels of knowledge & skills for operating crews.
Employees provide the most enduring competitive advantage, especially in manufacturing where there is fierce competition. Operational excellence becomes imperative under these circumstances. Many approaches are used in the persuit of excellence. For mehanical engineers, two of them truly stand out: Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) & Reliability Centered Maintenances (RCM).
TPM is the main foundation for World Class Manufacturing Best Practices: teamwork, elimination of waste, continuous improvement, planned maintenance activities, workplace organization for safety and efficiency (5S), operator involment in reliability improvements (autonomous maintenance), competence of employees etc. These are practices that optimize productivity, quality, efficiency & costs within supply chains.
Reliability Centered Maintenance is a tool that engineers use for developing maintenance programs. It focuses on the failure process in order to realize Inherent safe & reliability of equipment at minimum cost. It ensures maintenance tasks strictly target equipment root causes based on the consequences of the failures they cause. Embedded in RCM are problem solving methodologies for identifying potential & functional failures.
Modern maintenance also focuses on the leverage of maintenance information. Use of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems is now a basic requirement.
Competence in these systems & practices are essential in ensuring a successful career in the manufacturing sector.
It's wonderful to learn that you are already a qualified mechanical engineer aiming to build a career in the manufacturing sector.
Manufacturing is quite diverse. Africa is modernizing it's manufacturing industries very rapidly with very high levels of control & automation. Even mechanical aspects of equipment is evolving constantly.
In manufacturing, two game changing aspects are predominant: technology & people. Agro processing is by far the biggest beneficiary of this evolution: beer, soft drinks (carbonated & still products), tea, cocoa, coffee, tomatoes etc. The mining sector is the other beneficiary: oil, cement, gold, diamonds, cobalt, iron, copper, nickel etc.
Modern packaging equipment that we now have on the continent have robotics integrated into them. Integration using control & automation also requires higher levels of knowledge & skills for operating crews.
Employees provide the most enduring competitive advantage, especially in manufacturing where there is fierce competition. Operational excellence becomes imperative under these circumstances. Many approaches are used in the persuit of excellence. For mehanical engineers, two of them truly stand out: Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) & Reliability Centered Maintenances (RCM).
TPM is the main foundation for World Class Manufacturing Best Practices: teamwork, elimination of waste, continuous improvement, planned maintenance activities, workplace organization for safety and efficiency (5S), operator involment in reliability improvements (autonomous maintenance), competence of employees etc. These are practices that optimize productivity, quality, efficiency & costs within supply chains.
Reliability Centered Maintenance is a tool that engineers use for developing maintenance programs. It focuses on the failure process in order to realize Inherent safe & reliability of equipment at minimum cost. It ensures maintenance tasks strictly target equipment root causes based on the consequences of the failures they cause. Embedded in RCM are problem solving methodologies for identifying potential & functional failures.
Modern maintenance also focuses on the leverage of maintenance information. Use of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems is now a basic requirement.
Competence in these systems & practices are essential in ensuring a successful career in the manufacturing sector.
Dear William.
Thank you so much for sharing this beautiful insights. I have learned a lot of new things and look forward to applying them. Thank you again Sir.
Yanic
Yanic,
It's a great honour being of help to you. Best of luck in your career.
William
William Vvuko