Future of Manufacturing: ASME's Research on the Roles, Workflows, and Skills

ALEX STERN: Hello, and welcome to the future of manufacturing. And more specifically this session is about the future of skills roles and workflows in the manufacturing industry. And ASME and Autodesk conducted, took the pulse of the industry and conducted a survey amongst industry and academia in the US and the UK. And this research was finished this year, which looked into demands by industry 4.0 technologies on the future of education and training of engineers.

And this session consists of two parts. We're going to have a summary of the research and the key findings. And that summary will be followed by a panel discussion. And I'm very pleased to be joined by a very eclectic panel here today.

I'm joined today by Ashley Huderson who is the Director of Engineering Education and Outreach at ASME. Also have with me Dmitriy Orlov. He's the COO of BBi. Bryce Heventhal, Technical Marketing Senior Manager at Autodesk, and James Warrick from Beacon Technology Partners. If you just want to introduce yourself briefly as well and what your role entails, thank you.

ASHLEY HUDERSON: Sure, hi, everyone. Again, my name is Dr. Ashley Huderson. I'm the Director of Engineering Education and Outreach at ASME. So I worked with on the ASME side to conduct the research tied to the presentation we're going to talk through today. And at ASME, again, just leading the initiatives that focus on engineering education, as well as engineering education outreach.

DMITRIY ORLOV: Hi, I'm Dmitriy Orlov. And I'm the COO at BBi Autosport, a small engineering company in Southern California doing stuff with Motorsport and race cars.

BRYCE HEVENTHAL: Nice, and good afternoon. I'm Bryce Heventhal. And thanks for joining us for the last session of the day. I lead a team of designers, engineers, and manufacturers here who create all the visual assets you see across the keynotes, the banners boards. So it's an exciting gig.

JAMES WARRICK: And I am Jim Warrick, the managing partner of Beacon Technology Partners. It's a market research firm that focuses primarily on B2B technology. We do a lot of work in the semiconductor world as well as in the manufacturing space. And most recently, in the last two years, a Professor of Economics at Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts. This won't be on the midterm.

[LAUGHTER]

ALEX STERN: And, finally, my name is Alex Stern. I work in Manufacturing Strategy at Autodesk. I'll be leading through this session today. OK, so first of all, James is going to give us an overview of the research. So the room is yours, looking forward to it.

JAMES WARRICK: Thank you so much. And greetings, all of you. As Alex suggested, this was an attempt to try to document the roles and expectations of three important job functions to the future of manufacturing, mechanical engineers, manufacturing engineers, and CNC machinists.

We wanted to know what was expected of them now, what will be expected of them in a decade, and what were the skills that would be necessary for them to deliver on these expectations. This was a three-part initiative, started with a literature review, as well as a review of curricula in both the United States and the UK, followed by a series of interviews with industry leaders and academicians, and finally with that same audience, a survey that was conducted again in the US and the UK.

And it's a portion of those findings that I will be sharing with you today. Notice that the data was collected early part of this year. And it did take place on both sides of the Atlantic. I can assure you that every one of the respondents was either directly involved in the design and manufacture of physical or discrete components and systems or teaching those same subjects.

So let's talk a little bit about the drivers. You're all familiar with industry 4.0. You're all familiar with the technologies. What we wanted to find out was what was vital to our designated professionals. Yes, we found out that those components are, indeed, being adopted in companies large and small on both sides of the Atlantic.

But what's important to remember is the reasons because they are for very hard-headed business reasons, for increasing productivity, for assuring competitive advantage, for greater profitability. So we keep that in mind. This is not technology for technology's sake.

We're also well aware of the tsunami of data that many of these information-infused technologies are bringing about. Now, not only does that put pressure in terms of the men and women involved in having to sift through that data, but it also is forcing something interesting because that data is now extant throughout the product lifecycle. That means the different parties can now collaborate.

And, in fact, we're seeing a much greater pressure on interdisciplinary sort of collaboration. That's horizontally within the ranks of engineers, as well as vertically from the office cubicle farm down to the plant floor.

And the reason for that, again, because we are talking about comparative advantage, is for continuous improvement. These are not mantras. These are by words that we heard in our interviews. Finally, because of that need for collaboration, we're seeing a real renewed emphasis on the soft skills, communication, creativity, problem solving, because that is what is going to position engineering and machinists for the future.

Let's take these one at a time. First, as you see here, some adoption of some of those elements of Industry 4.0. And you can see going from left to right, we see some of these technologies that are already pretty well established. But also on the radar are things like additive manufacturing, AI and ML, cybersecurity, cloud computing, and so on and so forth.

So, again, the reason for this is for those business reasons. I mentioned the data. The data is actually forcing that collaboration, as well as bringing to bear the need for greater data visualization and analytics skills, which we will get into.

But, you see, because of that, there is now the requirement that data be actually incorporated into product development design as well as QA and QC. Finally, that data is also enabling a very systemic view of how design and manufacturing is taking place, which is yet another reason why there is this horizontal as well as vertical integration of the job functions and the need for them to clearly communicate.

OK, so those are the drivers, those are the drivers-- whether we're talking about business side, or whether we're talking about more data, or we're talking about some of these other things. Let's now apply that to what is being required of each of these three job functions. We'll start with the upstream mechanical engineers.

If you look at this graph, you can get in a sense of what the re-prioritization of the mechanical engineers life is and is going to be. Now, right at the top of the list, we'll start seeing some hard skills, additive manufacturing. But look what's right below it, interdisciplinary engineering, understanding what the other folks on those design teams are trying to accomplish.

Moving down you can see that an enhancement of other types of hard and soft skills. But you see those three themes. It's hard skills, soft skills, interdisciplinary skills, huge priority being placed. And what this means in terms of the skills of our mechanical engineers of the future-- well, many of those elements are still the evergreen issues of soft collaboration and creative problem solving still will be with us.

But if you look down this chart, the butterscotch indicates what's currently being expected, the green what is going to be expected. And if you see that difference as we move along, we're seeing an increased desire for incorporating many of those technological elements into the design process.

Now, remember that our mechanical engineers are basically operating in the upstream capacity, designing new, perhaps new to the world, perhaps iterative improvements on products and systems what we're seeing here is that their world is going to start changing because all of those expectations are now going to be built into what they're going to be doing in the future.

Let's turn our attention to manufacturing engineers. Now, remember that many manufacturing engineers actually come from the ranks, educationally speaking, of Mechanical Engineers. So it should come as absolutely no surprise that the mechanical engineer and the manufacturing engineer are going to be very similar in terms of what's being prioritized.

But note that on items 1, 2, and 4, that really gets to the heart of what the manufacturing engineer has to do because they have to orchestrate all of this. They have to take what the designers are doing and actually make it real. So notice renewed emphasis on automation, on robotics, on a more robust OT infrastructure because of handling all that data and protecting it. That is going to be necessary as well.

What does it mean for their skill sets? Well, you can see the same dimensions here. They must incorporate. So in their view, they have to be using AI and ML output, but it's to make appropriate decisions. They have to be understanding everything that the mechanical engineer is going to be doing, but then have to make it real.

Let's turn to the third of our three, the machinists. It is our view that the world of the machinists is the one that's going to undergo the most radical change. And the reason for that is quite simple. They now have to understand many of these new, highly-complex technologies. They have to understand output from AI algorithms to operate their machine cells.

They have to understand how to work with, alongside robotics. They have to understand programming. In fact, when we were talking to some of our industry experts, they actually refer interchangeably to machinists and programmers. Isn't that interesting?

But at the same point, the machinists still are required to keep in mind that which brought them there in the first place. If you look down at the bottom there, they still have to understanding the basics of mechanics. Let me show you this. This is actually quite useful.

Remember, machinists are actually operating the machines. They still need. To know kinematics they still need to know fixturing. They still need to know how to cut metal and so on and so forth. But then they have to add all this order of magnitude complexity.

It is that for that reason that we are looking at a potential bifurcation of the machinists role, those who are able to adopt some of these new technologies and understand them will continue. Those who are not, well, the demand will be going down for the lesser skilled.

And, remember that our machinists are generally less credentialed than are their engineering brethren. All right, so I just very briefly gave you all a very light picture about what's going to be coming over the next decade.

And I think if we were all humble, we would admit we're not there yet. We need a blueprint. We need a way of getting from here to there. So what I want to do now is take a look at least two constituencies, industry and academia, and see what do they have to change to make what I've just told you about a reality.

Well, industry can first capitalize on its training resources. And I'm not just talking about proprietary training to its own employees. We're talking about training resources in terms of a variety of methods, internships, co-op programs, and encouragement of cross functionality in terms of the training that is available to them because they need to. They must do it.

There is also the opportunity for what we would refer to as cross-pollination between themselves and academia. Let me show you what I mean there. We can be talking about serving on advisory boards. Now, many industry experts and industry leaders already do that. But there's more.

Getting involved with community colleges and helping them design their own curricula to be of use, actually working with and serving on college faculty. I will tell you that there are many universities that would die to have more industry experts, those who have actually been there in the factory to be able to educate, and so on and so forth.

And there's the other thing that's interesting here is there actually is a movement for industry leaders to actually go out and talk to not only high school students, but middle school students. The reason for it, by the time you're in high school, you've already pretty much determined what you're going to be doing. The idea is catch them early.

Explain to them about what advanced. Manufacturing really is for academia, it's a rethink. There needs to be and there is a desire to return to the roots of what engineering education was 60, 70 years ago, back to project, back to hands on.

But in so doing, being able to start encouraging a lot of this interdisciplinary cross functionality that we're talking about, having the mechanical engineers sit on the same design teams in school with their software brethren, with their EEs, and so on, as well as actually thinking about how to rethink certification.

Now, there's not going to be a diminution of interest in degrees. Engineering degrees will still be important, but many more credentials being offered in short term programs that companies are going to actually send people to. You can see some of these examples here when there is actually collaboration going on here.

Now, we just talked about how industry can collaborate with academia. It goes the other way. Notice also that there is a need for collaboration between the major four-year engineering programs and community colleges and so on. So there can be a feeder sort of system.

There's also interest-- this is the part where the audience gets to gasp-- about possibly introducing a five-year program. And I think they do that in Europe, do they not? But there is great skepticism that they can actually accomplish a similar sort of feat in the United States.

And the main reason is that there is a nervousness that families or students themselves can actually foot or be willing to foot a fifth year if they don't know if they have a job, so something that we can ponder together. So what I've showed you is what's going to be expected of these three important job functions, what industry and academia can actually do to work together step by step.

We believe, we are optimistic that it can be accomplished. But make no mistake, the first part on the digital transformation is already going on. And I think we might be able to argue together that that's pretty straight forward.

The hard part is going to be the next two, the workflow transformation and the business transformation. Why? Because we're dealing with pesky humans. And it's about culture. And it's about age-old practices that have to be reversed. And that is going to be tough.

And that is our research, thank you, Jim.

[APPLAUSE]

ALEX STERN: So what's interesting to me about this research is that the CNC machine, is this really where the rubber hits the road while the mechanical engineer gets all the glory, right?

[LAUGHTER]

Yeah, thank you very much for this overview. And by the way, you're going to get the whole presentation at the latest in 48 hours, I'm informed. So you will have all this. You don't need to take any pictures at this point. And we also going to have a Q&A session towards the end. So any questions you have, make a note of them, mental note of them, and we'll have time to cover them at the end.

So one question that-- another question I had based on the research was that, it seems to me the market for engineers at the moment is red hot. There's such a demand for engineers. So the question that I had was, why do educators need to train you skills now if there's such demand for them anyway? Ashley.

ASHLEY HUDERSON: So, yeah, I'll jump in here. What's happening now is almost like a Band-Aid. It's a temporary fix. And we need a long term solution. And so this influx we see, this rapid need it was important. We need to address it because we do have needs right now. But it's not a long-term solution.

And so what happens is if you are overloading the boat on the front end, when you get to the back end, you're going to be stuck and you're going to have a similar problem. And so I think taking the time to address the current need by also implementing the foundation that's needed as things evolve, as they change, you'll have that fundamental understanding and learning about the area that allows you to grow and develop as things are doing that also.

So if you have a large underskilled workforce, or are not as knowledgeable in the foundation of the work, then it's going to be very difficult for them to understand how things are evolving because you don't know where they came from. And so this influx, again, it's necessary. But you also have to balance that with creating a skilled and well-trained workforce that can endure over time.

ALEX STERN: I think another piece that came out of the research is that ultimately digitalization offers new potential for productivity and shortening of product life cycles, as well as profitability. And ultimately I think it's going to be a matter of competing with those companies who have that workforce that already has those skills versus those that haven't got it yet.

And I was going to ask you, Bryce, what do you think. At the moment, where do you see major barriers for productivity, profitability, and also shortening product lifecycles.

BRYCE HEVENTHAL: Yeah, I'm going to break that one down in three questions there. But I think the first one, increasing the productivity, it's not about CAD. It's not about CAM. It's not about CAE anymore. It's not about one of those things, it's about all those things put together.

That's what's going to increase your productivity, no matter if it's one engineer at a small company up to a huge organization. We have to think about all those not in silos anymore. So that's going to increase the productivity.

Decreasing the product lifecycle and the product design cycle, it's going to be, first, making sure that data is in one place. So we're not storing it on multiple places. And different people have different insights into that information. The next one is going to make sure that those processes across the organization are linked up.

That's going to increase not just your process, it's going to increase automation throughout your company, and hopefully in the long run to shorten every life cycle. It's going to increase the insights that you're going to be able to get from that data in that product lifecycle.

ALEX STERN: I was watching the BBi presentation with great interest early on. And I think some of what you're saying reflects I think what is going on in the product development lifecycle that you have at BBi, Dimitriy. And, I mean, when it comes to your product, you have a very complex product. I mean, a car is by definition a complex product.

And you have a mechanical system on top of an electronic system, software. System and you need to integrate all of that. So I was wondering, when it comes, to your work what are the skills and collaboration you need from your engineers in your daily work?

DMITRIY ORLOV: I think having a very broad understanding of what it takes to get something from concept to a part is massively important. And because we're small and limited on resources, A, we have to have a good collaborative environment to be able to bring partners in.

And we also have to be very multi-disciplinary in terms of our own skill sets. So I would go from top floor to shop floor myself. So we don't have the luxury of having silos in the first place. So technology only empowers us to break those barriers down and then be able to do everything under one roof.

It's just what we need is people who can do all that as well, so like somebody who understands how to make a part, also how to design a part, how to conceptualize a part, plus an element of understanding what it takes to manage that process in the first place, so to do so efficiently in the end, just because we are limited.

And we have to wear many hats at the same time. And that's where the tech comes in. And that's where proper education can help too.

JAMES WARRICK: Can I ask a question--

ALEX STERN: Sure.

JAMES WARRICK: --of Dmitriy? You were also talking about collaboration with suppliers. Now, you were talking, of course, internally within the culture. How does the supplier collaboration also factor into this? Well, I guess we have to, if we need something made that's outside of our wheelhouse, then we have to lean on them to help deliver that.

So then it's a cross-platform communication, cross knowledge communication. So like myself who could design something to send it to a machine shop, needs to make it. And then there's a lot of back and forth chatter about what's possible, what can be made.

And having better understanding or more of a common language between the two entities is probably a very important thing because it shortens a lot of emails for sure. And then it just gets things done better.

So I guess to your point about changing roles, it's massively important that-- it has to be more of a triangle rather than a line so that the machinist is communicating with the engineer, with the communicating with the manufacturing engineer, which could be one and the same person.

But it needs to be an ecosystem where it's all a symbiotic relationship, rather than individual compartmentalized entities. Which like if the machinist doesn't know what the designer is doing, he could have input early on and really help that process down the line.

So if we keep those things separated, we're just going to be doing more we're doing now. So if we can shrink that, and that doesn't matter if it's all under one roof or if it's with other suppliers and vendors, then we're just going to be able to make things better, faster, and more efficiently.

ALEX STERN: So when it comes to-- sorry, Ashley, did you want to--

ASHLEY HUDERSON: I was just going to-- reinforcing that, especially at an education level, so those skill sets around how to work together in teams. And even if you're not an expert in your partner's space, understanding the role that your specialty plays in helping the overall project is important.

And so at the education level, when there you're in undergrad, post-secondary, having that training, and being familiar with how that looks on an interdisciplinary team is very important. And that's some of the things that are highlighted the importance of that, stepping outside of just your expertise.

And we're not asking you to be an expert in everything, but understanding how your role fits into the ecosystem, not to mention entire project, I think it's something that's very important. And we see that happening. But I think it needs to be over-- and it needs to be reinforced over and over again because it's so critical to getting a project done whether you're at a small company or a large company.

ALEX STERN: So what I'm hearing-- I mean, in the short term, there's a pressing need for more interdisciplinary at least understanding. You don't have to be an expert in everything, but at least have an understanding of what the person next to you is doing, a collaboration. So I think those are very much short-term, pressing needs for engineers.

I was wondering, this maybe goes to Ashley and Jim, if you look forward to the next two and five years, what are going to be the most pressing things that these different roles are going to need in terms of skills?

ASHLEY HUDERSON: So I'll start. Well, I think we'll see this need evolve into this standard in the education process. And so you're going to have things soft skills. You're going to have the pedagogy is going to have to change, as well as the technical skills that are being taught.

So long term I see this being something at the academic level that allows-- that's influenced by the industry level, that's supported by government. So everybody's working together-- that allows for this training to be embedded into the curriculum and the training of the students so that it's not something that's shocking when you step outside of your specific silo.

But I think the long-term space, we're going to see those change in the soft skills around email writing and communication, the technical piece, so how you're trained, the integration of other subject areas into your training, the touch of the digital piece, and just the pedagogy. How we're teaching and what we're teaching is also going to have to be revamped in a sense. It's going to have to evolve, which is what we do, to meet the long-term need.

ALEX STERN: OK, OK.

JAMES WARRICK: And let me add to that, that whole pedagogical discussion. It was recognized during our interviews that we are talking about applications in 8 to 10 years that we don't even know about right now. And that one of the reasons we're talking about the need for creativity is because you have to keep it fresh. It is absolutely a requirement.

And, in fact, in some-- I was actually rather stunned that in some of the major engineering universities in this country, they are actually considering A, dropping differential equations. Do I hear the relief? Oh, yeah, yeah, all right, we'll have a talk.

But more to the point, they're actually thinking about things like including literature in the program. And the reason is is that that teaches critical thinking, which I thought was fascinating. I also want to echo what Ashley was saying about the interdisciplinary aspect.

As I mentioned in my intro, I actually do a lot of work with EEs. In fact, I've been doing for many years a study called Mind of The Engineer, which actually looks at electrical engineering and what their needs are and expectations.

And one of the questions we inserted a few years ago was not only what did our EEs actually study as undergraduates, but what they would recommend the EEs of the next generation study. Now, as you might-- and we said including electrical engineering. So we took that one off.

And, of course, number one was going to be software because so much of embedded design is both software and hardware-- the number two item, mechanical engineering. This whole idea of the breaking down of silos is happening. It's happening because the demand requires it, because of the systemic thinking, because of this the complexity of these projects and designs. It has to happen.

ALEX STERN: The Mind of an Engineer, that reminds me of a colleague of mine from BMW who created a cookbook for engineers. It's, unfortunately only available in German but it's very technical.

[LAUGHTER]

It really is-- sorry, random side note. I had another question when it comes to-- so I understand that the short term and longer term implications for education. I just want to double click on that a little bit. Dimitriy, when it comes to your point of view as very hands on company in the weeds, very-- we had a discussion about this actually.

What is the difference between a smaller shop and a big OEM? And, for instance, at BMW we called the engineers PowerPoint engineers. So they don't spend a lot of time machining anything. But for a company like yours, what would be your requirements for educational courses and training, and the structure and contents? What would be your wish list?

DMITRIY ORLOV: I would want the kids in colleges or even high schools or maybe even middle schools to be OK with getting dirty. I want them on the shop floor. And then I want the people studying machining to be on the top floor to understand the business side of it or the management side of it.

So, honestly, everybody just needs to be in the same room working on the same similar things and to see how each discipline works, how each thing functions. I mean, and my background, I started being fascinated with machining. And so I went from machining to programming to design.

And there are so many stories where here where it's a machinist would be cursing some engineer because they put some feature where it's impossible to manufacture. And that could have been prevented. And the other thing is, the technology that we have now, I feel like there's a lot of educational programs, and from interns that I've seen, they're trying to use almost legacy tools because that's what they're taught.

And much like new technology, you can't just come into it without-- it's hard to explain, but it's like you have to be exposed to it very early on so that you could leverage the benefits that it brings. So if we have generative design, or additive manufacturing, we have to start teaching that and being exposed to that on a ground level across all the different roles so that everybody knows these are the things that you can explore, so to a point of like exploring creativity and things like that.

To innovate, you have to be exposed to the tools and then try to push those tools further. So then that's where the relationship between industry and academia comes in. So industry can help teach academia what tools are coming out. So then they can test them on the students. And then the students can challenge them. And then we can come into new workflows and roles and things like that.

And then it starts to get messy. But at some point, we'll settle into better roles and better understanding of what to do and how to do it. But, yeah, I mean, simple answer is everybody seems to be in the same room, no more keyboard engineers and then button-pushing machinists. Everybody needs to play along and with each other to learn from each other.

ALEX STERN: Yeah, so we always need to roll back some of that division of labor.

DMITRIY ORLOV: Yeah, I mean, pretty much bring back vocational schools and things like that where everybody gets to play. I mean, how are you supposed to know how to make a machine part if you don't know how the machine works. I mean, you don't need to be a machinist, but you should be exposed to it. And the machinists should know the challenges of working on the design side.

How do you how do you engage in something that has no beginning, where do you have to start somewhere, or what are the top level foundational knowledge that you might need to start creating a part, or create a product, or what the product lifecycle looks like and things like that.

ALEX STERN: OK, interesting. So you're all for more integration--

DMITRIY ORLOV: Completely.

ALEX STERN: --of perspective, but also tools.

DMITRIY ORLOV: Yeah, I mean, you don't have to be the master of all trades, but you should understand them at least, yeah.

ALEX STERN: Very interesting. And so if we have education on the one hand, then you have continuous training on the job or in the company. And maybe question to you, Bryce, when it comes to ongoing training and reskilling, what are the options that industry has?

BRYCE HEVENTHAL: Yeah, and I guess this is where we could start an argument because I'm obviously the voice of the technology vendor from Autodesk. We have someone from the industry and then academia. It really does require all of us to be marching in the same direction at the same time.

As Autodesk, we could create technology that the industry doesn't want. The industry might want something that academia is not teaching. If we're not all on the same page, it causes this out of loop cycle that it doesn't benefit any of us. So that is, I think, going to be the most impactful thing as we move forward, is making sure that, as we saw in a lot of the research, that we're all investing in those at the same time, moving in the same direction. And I'll invite you both as well to comment.

ASHLEY HUDERSON: So I'll just-- I think balance is important. And so I think having stakeholders, having all the stakeholders on the same page, even with different goals is important because, again, we're all looking toward the same purpose. We're here for this reason. We may have a different interest and what we want to get out of this reason, but we all have the same goal moving forward.

I also think there's a balance between how we adjust curriculum for this ever-evolving space that we're in, again, making sure that people have the fundamentals of their training so that they can understand the evolution that comes from it. If you don't know the basic information or how to function on a basic level, then I don't know if you're going to have the ability to create and move from that.

You may be able to create, but you may not know why you created what you created, which is very important. And so I think having those voices together, again, allows for the collaboration that we want to happen for the engineer, as well as the stakeholders to be working together, and to figure out what each one of our-- what we all bring to the table and what we're invested in in this essentially ideal engineer, how we're going to contribute to that to make sure that ideal person is produced.

ALEX STERN: I noticed that when it comes to Industry 4.0 technologies, there was a long list of--

JAMES WARRICK: There is indeed.

ALEX STERN: A long laundry list of things that-- 3D printing, robotics, and so on. And I know that the research basically fed back what people, what the responders are thinking about, what they consider important. But I was wondering, when you look at all of these things, which ones are going to have the biggest impact?

JAMES WARRICK: Biggest impact, hmm. It's an interesting thing when you think about what's going to be truly transformative. And as you ask that, I go back to the interviews that we had that's led up to the survey. And I was interested how many of those technologies were-- we would have some that would just be exalting how transformative they would be.

Take, for example, additive manufacturing. I had one gentleman who [INAUDIBLE] said that anybody who doesn't think this is transformative is a fool. But what was also interesting is it seemed like those who were a bit more tenured, a bit more out there. I'm about to say gray beard because I have a gray beard.

But one of the things that they were all saying was that, but wait. But hold on. There are some contingencies here. Consider additive, for example. The fact is that there are still some vertical niches where the production of additive manufactured parts is still being accepted. FAA still has yet to approve stuff for aerospace for example.

Or that if you're going to go pell mell into additive, all of a sudden the demand for a cross-proprietary database of materials becomes paramount. So it's one of those things, we can think about in terms of being transformative.

But there's also the yes, but-- or internet of things. We know that there is a tsunami of data coming out. But the fact is that also brings to bear the need for very robust OT. The number of higher ups in these companies that I would talk to who have been so bedeviled by getting their IT people to understand what's going on in the shop floor-- it's one thing to talk about the office cubicles, but what's going on in the shop floor-- or it immediately brings in cybersecurity and data protection. So you see that there are these contingencies that kind of give a reality check to some of these potentially transformative technologies.

ALEX STERN: Well, I mean, to me-- and I haven't been deeply involved in the research. But one of the big impact areas for me is the whole idea of digital thread and while it's not called out here explicitly. It's a big part of all of these things.

It's a big enabler having a common data basis, having a common thread that spans the entire product lifecycle, from design through to production, because when it comes to profitability, productivity, and shorter product life cycles, I would assume that is a big game changer.

But a lot of things have to fall into place for that to happen. And then you can also leverage all of these other things I mentioned here in a more efficient way because you have that databases that all of these things leverage, like IoT and so on.

JAMES WARRICK: Right, right, well, we had actually a discussion with some of my interviewees about digital twin. And the fact is is that some of the very large OEMs that were part of the interviewing process were basically singing the praises of using digital twins.

But by the same token, equally experienced other individuals in other niches, in other applications were going, it's nice. It's OK.

ALEX STERN: Nice to have.

JAMES WARRICK: Yeah, exactly, it's a nice to have. So, I mean, in that case, it's going to be an application-specific sort of demand, I would think.

ALEX STERN: OK, good.

DMITRIY ORLOV: You're talking about technologies, I think the transformative thing would be, for lack of a better term, AI as we're seeing regenerative stuff. That's going to get applied to a lot of things. So a 3D printing additive will get further augmented with the help of AI. So that's going to solve a lot of problems. That's not necessarily problems, but bottlenecks. AI will then move on to augment processes. It will move on to shorten other steps, which then will present other issues in itself.

But when you're going to have computers crunching numbers and understanding bigger, overall, overarching processes, you're going to cut a lot of the meat and potatoes out of it. And it's going to short cut straight to production or more ready components.

And I think as we progress, as the technology improves, and as the AI get smarter, it's just going to get better, at the cost of maybe not as many people being employed, or the cost of-- technology bridges gaps, but that also means a lot of things will fall by the wayside. So that's going to be a pretty big impact as it gets better.

ALEX STERN: And I think--

DMITRIY ORLOV: [INAUDIBLE].

ALEX STERN: You brought up a great example, generative design is a great application that is here already because otherwise a lot of people say AI is too far away.

DMITRIY ORLOV: It's a form of AI.

ALEX STERN: But there are applications of it already.

JAMES WARRICK: Indeed-- if I can comment on that one because we actually talked in our interviews about generative design as well. And here, too, we saw a division. We had those that were singing its praises that thought it was also transformative.

But we had some more experienced engineers that were also saying, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, we can't let that fundamental knowledge of why a particular design parameter is what it is, we can't let that go out, we can't just simply chase whatever the AI has told us. Now, is that because of where it is right now, or is that because of a cultural resistance to really embracing the full promise of AI-- interesting discussion.

DMITRIY ORLOV: Yeah, it's like saying that when DSLR cameras started recording video, there's a lot of pushback against that. And now it's like the industry standard. It's the transformative-- you have to assign probably a time value to that as to when is a transformative, in the now, or is it in five years, or is in 20 years. In which point in the technology is it impactful enough to be transformative? And where are we relative to that?

BRYCE HEVENTHAL: But I think we need to encourage not just educators, students, industry experts to be uncomfortable. Be uncomfortable with what they're doing today. If you're going to continue to do the same thing, you're going to not change the market. You're not going to innervate. You're just going to continue to due the same day in, day out task processes and delivering the same product. We have to encourage people to be uncomfortable.

DMITRIY ORLOV: Disrupt.

ALEX STERN: OK, so a final question-- everybody feel free to comment-- but I was going to ask Dimitriy because you have the industry view of things. If you will go back to-- or if you look at your own education, what are the three things you wish you would have learned back then?

DMITRIY ORLOV: Honestly I think I would have wanted to have access to more tools, to have a more applied knowledge of things, or at least at hand, so that if I did-- if I was going down the route of designing something that I could play with machines, I could play with printers and have just a playground, kind of like Autodesk Pier 9, where it's like you just use the tools that you're going to be using later on in life.

So that's hopefully where we can change the college structure a little bit and bring labs back in, bring machinery back into schools, and encourage people to play, and touch things, and just experiment because I think as long as we live in the physical world, we still need to create physical objects and--

ALEX STERN: And not in the metaverse, you mean.

DMITRIY ORLOV: Yeah, not the--

[LAUGHTER]

ALEX STERN: That's another session, by the way.

DMITRIY ORLOV: And so, you know, what better way to understand that other than to actually do it? So I think that's just been missing. And it's important. And that's what I would have wanted.

ALEX STERN: So that was one thing. [LAUGHS]

DMITRIY ORLOV: Is that one thing?

ALEX STERN: No, that's fine. I'll let you get away with that. OK, I think we-- I want to leave some time for Q&A. I really enjoyed the session today. And so I want to summarize that once again. So you would like to have more tools to play with. And that maybe goes to also the kind of budget and funding that we have in education to have that available, to be able to experiment with different tools, and having more space to actually try things out.

I'm still very much shocked by the fact that the CNC machinists get so little love. And I want you to go on an internet rabbit hole and look for that cookbook for engineers. It's still out there.

[LAUGHTER]

That's not a joke. It's still out there.

DMITRIY ORLOV: Is it just many variations of the same type of food?