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4: The Future-Challenges and Expectations
Pages 137-198

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From page 137...
... IV The Future Challenges and Expectations
From page 139...
... WORLD POPULATION AND WEALTH The world's population is expected to be about 6.2 billion people in the year 2000, with almost all the growth occurring in developing countries (Figure 11. This growth in population to 1.4 billion people more than we have today is greater than the current population of China.
From page 140...
... __ Developing ~ countries Deaths ~ 1 1 1 1 / 140 CHALLENGES OF A TECHNOLOGICALLY COMPETITIVE WORLD gains of 7% to 8~o per year in both agriculture and industry since 1978) , and other developing countries suggest the possibility of even higher gains (The Economist, 1984)
From page 141...
... Yet world food production per capita has actually been greater than ever before in both developed and developing countries (Figure 21. The much-maligned "green revolution" has brought important relief to many areas of the world with the development of dwarfed and higher-yield crops, but often at the cost of significantly increased energy and chemical requirements for the land.
From page 142...
... Rural Population Growth in Developing Countries Average Annual Percentage of Population Growth, 1980-2000 Income Category UrbanRural Low income Asia (excluding China) 4.20.9 India 4.21.1 Africa 5.81.5 Middle income East Asia and Pacific 3.10.9 Middle East and North Africa 4.31.6 Sub-Sahara 2.91.7 Latin America 2.90.4 Southern Europe 2.9- 0.2 All developing countries (excluding China)
From page 143...
... net export balance about $20 billion in 1983, may be on its way to becoming only a "residual source" for world markets, with corresponding negative effects on the U.S. trade balances needed to buy energy and raw materials.
From page 144...
... Despite concerns expressed in the 1970s about limited energy and mineral reserves, the world is slowly recognizing that its ultimately exploitable fossil energy supplies are very extensive, and that its raw materials may be substituted for each other almost without limit, based on their relative prices (Simon, 1981~. The Electric Power Research Institute (1981)
From page 145...
... To the extent that these investments are made in less developed countries, they can provide strong forces driving those nations' economic growth and emergence as attractive world markets and suppliers of other goods. Few people expect fossil fuels to be as inexpensive as they were in the 1960s; the pressures of politics and replacement costs hold prices up too powerfully.
From page 146...
... that may have half the capital costs, with others (like those in developing countries) that have a tenth or twentieth of the labor costs, and with still others that have especially low-cost raw materials in addition to low labor costs.
From page 147...
... All these strategies require continuous innovation, not just in products, processes, and system technologies, but also in the use of smaller, more flexible organizations and more imaginative management concepts. ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATIONS Many opportunities will arise from electronics, the most powerful single technology of the current era, and from biological technologies, which will offer a wide range of new solutions for agriculture, human healthcare, environmental improvement, chemical processes, and even energy production.
From page 148...
... A) 1 on ~ 1 06 At Z 1 o 1 Do 1 Lasers Communication / ~ satellites '_, if, ' 148 CHALLENGES OFA TECHNOLOGICALLY COMPETITIVE WORLD l ~ Helical waveguides ~ ~ (100,000 voice channels)
From page 149...
... Once a production line is set up and debugged, however, it is nearly totally automated. Marginal materials and labor costs approach zero; semiconductor costs become determined by error costs and yields, with prices
From page 150...
... Storage Capabilities Electronic storage capabilities and costs have also improved exponentially over the last several decades. Today all the words in all the (nonduplicate)
From page 151...
... Farm and ranch homes can adopt electronics technologies in even more spectacular ways to help with hard chores. Automated plant nurseries,
From page 152...
... However, the flexibly automated factory illustrates many of the greatest potential impacts of electronics on management and competitiveness (Jelinek and Goldhar, 19841. In such a factory items can be produced in essentially any sequence without incurring substantial extra setup costs.
From page 153...
... This should lower quality costs by decreasing reruns and warranties. Since process control is in software and hardware rather than in labor skills, many products may be produced equally effectively anywhere in the world, thus opening new world markets for a company's product lines.
From page 154...
... are trying to keep the number of personnel at individual locations below 500. Even in large-scale, continuous process industries, the minimills of the steel industry suggest the economies that may be available by decreasing fixed plant overheads and adopting alternate technologies as conditions change.
From page 155...
... Healthcare costs, now included in fringe benefits of major 1,200 _ 800 v' ~ 400 o o 4,200 u, ~ 3,000 o O 1,500 cat of up o · 04 12 10 7.5 LO TOTAL COSTS _' (current $) _ PER PERSON COSTS (current $)
From page 156...
... Increasing evidence is accumulating on the health effects of atmospheric pollutants, including carcinogenic particles, leads, aerosols, and acidity. Maps of cancer incidence suggest that living around industrialized cities seems to be dangerous to human health.
From page 157...
... National Healthcare Costs Annual U.S. healthcare costs will probably exceed $~:.2 trillion in the mid-199Os, creating enormous national overheads and great challenges for new technologies and systems to contain these costs.
From page 158...
... Although extraordinarily difficult to achieve, such a development could have dramatic effects on less developed countries' food production and energy imports. By the same date, however, and with higher probability, genetically engineered vaccines and hormones should vastly improve animal husbandry and prevent some deadly livestock diseases, like hoof-and-mouth disease and shipping fever.
From page 159...
... 1981. A Review of World Hydrocarbon Resources Assessments.
From page 160...
... 160 CHALLENGES OF A TECHNOLOGICALLY COMPETITIVE WORLD Talaysum, A., M Hassan, D
From page 161...
... BEMENT, JR. INTRODUCTION Today the United States is being strongly challenged by its international trading partners for world markets.
From page 162...
... A great deal of credit for these achievements must be given to the skill of our work force and to the successes of our management methods, entrepreneurial vitality, willingness to take risks, and technological contributions to productivity. However, global competition now compels us to improve our performance further dramatically in most instances-at all stages of technological and business development.
From page 163...
... industry is being challenged more now than ever before in the face of growing international competition, not only to plan strategically, but also to manage strategically. Yet the effectiveness of such strategic plans and actions depends critically on industry's ability to reliably forecast future changes in technology and the environment.
From page 164...
... Furthermore, many multinational corporations will be marketing to the more than 600 million people of the highly industrialized countries. In contrast to these trends, however, there is growing pressure on the United States government to protect employment by means of industrial policy, to control the flow of technological information, to protect emerging technological industries, and to pursue a policy which advocates United States domination in all of the sciences and technologies, under the assumption that it might even be possible to do so.
From page 165...
... These examples represent only a few of the socioeconomic and political forces that can dramatically alter the environment for technological change and industrial growth in the future. These forces do not represent new challenges to the engineering community, but they most likely will become more critical determinants of how an industrial enterprise flourishes in an increasingly competitive world.
From page 166...
... Second, information technology in the form of direct terminal linkups is extending the value chain to include suppliers at the leading edge and users at the trailing edge. These extensions of the value chain to suppliers and customers are stretching around the world to facilitate world sourcing, marketing, and distribution strategies.
From page 167...
... Finally, in some cases full automation may not be warranted because it will not contribute sufficiently to the value of the product to justify the investment. In the future some emerging technologies, many of which are already in use, will add substantial value to manufacturing operations: · Net and near-net shape fabrication methods will reduce materials use and minimize metal removal operations.
From page 168...
... THE STEEL INDUSTRY OF THE FUTURE The steel industry is in a state of ferment, in spite of the restructuring, downsizing, and refocusing of large, integrated steel mills going on today. New technologies are emerging that will enormously improve quality, productivity, and product performance while reducing energy and capital costs.
From page 169...
... Finally, parallel advancements in electrogalvanizing technology, to provide improved laminated and alloyed zinc coatings for corrosion protection, will greatly extend warranty times against cosmetic damage and coating perforations. I see the next 15 years as extremely challenging for the steel industrycertainly a time in which the industry can demonstrate to the nation that technological revolutions also come to mature, basic industries.
From page 170...
... The challenge is not whether to optimize technology but how to develop and select what's best for our purposes, how to control the cost of using it, and how to finance it, all the while earning enough profit to continue to invest and compete in world markets on a sustained basis." A major part of this challenge is to remain aware of technological developments around the world. Our universities represent the best means for doing this.
From page 171...
... If our public and private sectors cooperatively support and sustain the enthusiasm of this talent, our nation will go a long way toward meeting its goals and needs in a technologically competitive world. REFERENCES Mettler, R
From page 172...
... The reasons, as Professor Quinn's paper points out, are relative labor costs, the relative value of currencies, tax policies of various governments, and even the targeting of markets by other governments. A second characteristic of mature industries is the growing need to meet demands on the part of customers for improved product quality.
From page 173...
... How are the mature industries attacking these problems? How are they achieving cost reductions?
From page 174...
... To illustrate this need for applying general criteria, I wonder how many of the six currently funded ERCs would be readily identified as relevant to the mature industries. Probably not many, and yet they all are.
From page 175...
... The automotive industry will continue to be one of the very largest users of integrated circuits. We design our own circuits; we have to know how they are going to be manufactured.
From page 176...
... The functions and complexity of integrated circuits continue to increase, and are the key elements for systems that will allow us to understand, manage, and control information and activity in many areas of human endeavor. For this reason we tend to equate the integrated circuit industry with the information technology industry, and to believe that United States success in integrated circuits will be central in future economic growth.
From page 177...
... Such experiences predestine a research center to a limited existence. A new approach to motivating the best faculty to participate in Center research may do more than anything else to make an ERC successful.
From page 178...
... In research related to integrated circuits, the SRC identifies 6 schools in the top tier of research capability. One objective of the SRC, and of the NSF in establishing the ERCs, is to elevate the research productivity of additional universities.
From page 179...
... EXPECTATIONS OF A GROWTH INDUSTRY The integrated circuit industry is a growth industry. Often an industry downturn such as we are now experiencing really means that revenues are flat rather than increasing 20 percent a year.
From page 180...
... Now both the fraction and the comfort level are lower. A growth industry looks to the Engineering Research Centers for added input and support so as to compete more effectively and to continue growing.
From page 181...
... Strong institutional support and attention are required for these opportunities to be realized. The entire engineering community will be watching with anticipation for the results.
From page 182...
... HEALTHCARE: THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY Domestic expenditures for healthcare in all categories exceeded 10 percent of the gross national product for the first time in 1983. One of the major healthcare industries, pharmaceutical manufacturing, focuses on the discovery and development of drug treatments for the prevention, cure, or moderation of disease states.
From page 183...
... The challenge to the engineering community is clear: we must increase engineering research in biotechnology to keep pace with the explosive growth in the biological sciences. Manufacturing Engineering research in the manufacture of biological products has focused on four major areas: (1)
From page 184...
... The requirement for high purity is particularly demanding, since nonproduct macromolecules may possess physical and chemical characteristics that are quite similar to the product of choice. Process control technology in the pharmaceutical industry has kept pace with the advances in the chemical process industries.
From page 185...
... Opportunities in the engineering of process biochemistries abound, not just in the commercial-scale synthesis of drugs, but in drug discovery and drug design as well. If any criticism can be leveled against the biochemical engineering community it is that we are not sufficiently in tune with the chemical potential of biotechnology.
From page 186...
... Clearly the next generation of bioengineers must have a broader and deeper knowledge of the life sciences. At the moment biocatalysis, biochemistry, microbiology, and molecular biology are a few of the areas needing particular focus by engineering students.
From page 187...
... Challenges for Government NAM P SUH Several papers in this volume discuss engineering issues in the context of the year 2000.
From page 188...
... Third, NSF plans to secure for the ERC program the support of Congress, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Office of Management and Budget, the National Science Board, and the engineering community at large. I will be spending a great deal of time trying to articulate the need for this type of Center.
From page 189...
... With the support of the entire engineering community behind the ERCs, I think Congress will continue to look favorably upon this endeavor in the years to come.
From page 190...
... engineering education; in helping create shortages of qualified engineering faculty by hiring talented faculty members away from teaching; and, in ignoring the dearth of adequate research into manufacturing itself, industry has contributed to the problem it has finally identified and would like to see corrected. Why is it that industry apparently has acted against what clearly were its own best interests?
From page 191...
... Unfortunately, we have only now begun to recognize that the solution we adopted with such confidence has resulted in inefficient, unresponsive organizations that are difficult to manage, resistant to change, slow to adopt new technologies, and suffering from formidable communication problems. These negative and unexpected results have caused thoughtful industrial managers to consider reintegrating manufacturing so as to survive in an intensely competitive world.
From page 192...
... 2. Industry must help identify and define manufacturing research needs that offer intellectual challenges to the academic community, that are commensurate with established research activities on university campuses, and that will withstand the scrutiny of peer review.
From page 193...
... As we move closer to where we want to be, we will require special skills and knowledge that can put us right on station. I think these can cometo an important degree from the Engineering Research Centers, and I believe these Centers deserve industry support.
From page 194...
... will have the last word on whether the Centers are successful. In these pages many leaders of American industry, government, and academe discuss how important the Centers are to the nation's future.
From page 195...
... Many of them may be quite excited when they notice all the drum-beating that has accompanied the ERC program. But some will look at the situation and conclude that the disciplinary approach to education is still very strong.
From page 196...
... This can only be done through a systems approach to real-world problems not through abstraction and analysis for its own sake. A new generation of engineering students has to be educated to think and function in the cross-disciplinary context.
From page 197...
... This is where we can clearly see the fragility and the vulnerability of the fledgling ERCs. By funding these six Centers, the National Science Foundation has taken the first strengthening steps toward a new approach to engineering research, education, and practice.


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