Hi all,
I am a guy interested in the art and science of machining.
For those of you, who are not familiar of this topic, it is a
manufacturing process,which converts rawmaterial into
a finished product by removing unwanted material, more
like the art of sculpting. To put in the simplest of terms,
it is like cutting your apple. The only difference is instead
of apple, we have metal, and instead of a steel knife, we
have a much harder and tougher knife.
I am writing this blog to get to know people who are also
searching an answer for the question that I have.
" What is the future of machining?"
The first question that will come to anyone's mind will be
what is the need to put in so much of thought now?
I am asking this question when the world is experiencing one
of the worst economic crisis the world has ever seen. It is
said that everypart of a thing that we use in our day to day
life, has been influenced by machinining process in the course
of it's manufacturing. Either directly or indirectly.
Today we have the idea of electric drive vehicles, drive by wire
systems and many advanced hybrid vehicle concepts. My question
is what will happen to the practice of machining. I am sure that
it will be absurd that machining will vanish from the face of earth.
But I also strongly believe that machining will not be able to have it's
share of the global manufacturing economic pie as before and hence
the global economy will undergo a complete sea change.
In the due course, I will add many articles that I had come across.
I asked this question to a professor who had involved himself in the
art and science of machining, hailing from Aachen, Germany and he
had aptly put it this way.
"I think metal cutting will not disappear from production. May be that the amount of chips will drop, but the application of cutting
will become more sophisticated"
I call upon all those engineers, machinists who are fond of machining and who
are interested in the future of machining to come up with their views on this
topic.
Very interesting topic Ashwin. In my point of view, 'Metal cutting won't vanish. Powder metallurgy or forging can't replace the art. But Metal cutting tools will be enhanced to reduce job time and wastage. More inventions on tool materials should make way to this revolution. Robotic arms will be used more widely to reduce injuries / time or to enhance perfection. CNC will take a new turn....' You have a wonderful blog. Start writing more. (I did my graduation in Mech and Masters in Energy....some yrs in teaching ...now a full time homemaker)
ReplyDelete@Viki's Kitchen,
ReplyDeleteIt is nice to hear from you. I was working with a metal cutting tool manufacturer and had written this blog then. Nice to see a fellow Tuticorin Blogger here.
We are awaiting for the next jump in the metal cutting tool material between Carbide and Diamond Cutting Tools. Although it is only one aspect of the whole art of machining, it still decides a lot of factors in the world of machining.
I personally alsow wanted to do some amount of teaching in the area of machining, just to keep in touch with the basics of machining.