Digital manufacturing: Applications past, current, and future trends

Increasingly the convergence of natural environment (land, water, air and life), built environment (housing, buildings, transportation and infrastructure) and digital environment (computing power, the internet, big data, and technology) is shaping the economies and societies. Smart living is taking root. Mass customization of products and services is preferred over mass production. Businesses wish to serve an individual customer at a competitive cost comparable to the mass production cost, with shortest possible development time and production time. This requires manufacturing to change from a more labour intensive processes to information technology enabled mechanical processes. Digital manufacturing is a broader concept of manufacturing innovation in which the digital and material advancements enable the company to conceive products in a desired style and quantity in time scales shorter than the conventional methods while efficiently managing the entire product lifecycle. It is about defining manufacturing processes and managing manufacturing process information via full digital product definition. It encompasses visualization, manufacturing simulation, ergonomic and human factor analyses, holistic view of product and process design, and product design sensitive to the process constraints and capabilities. This article emphasizes the need and driving forces for adopting digital manufacturing, transformation of manufacturing to smart manufacturing, present applications and future scope of digital manufacturing.