Incubating Innovation

Nanette Byrnes writing in Tech Review:

The hubs of advanced manufacturing will be the economic drivers of the future because innovation increasingly depends on production expertise.

To understand why manufacturing matters, we must lose some misconceptions. First, manufacturing no longer derives its importance primarily from employing large numbers of people. As software drives more of the manufacturing process, and automated machines and robots execute much of it, factories don’t need as many workers.

Second, the idea popularized in the 1990s and 2000s that innovation can happen in one place (say, Silicon Valley) while manufacturing happens in another (such as China) is not broadly sustainable. If all the manufacturing is happening in China, these networks are growing there, meaning eventually all the innovation—or at least a lot of it—will be happening there too.

image courtesy of Tech Review

Manufacturing will make its most essential economic contribution as an incubator of innovation: the place where new ideas become new products. Thanks to advanced manufacturing technologies, that place can in theory be pretty much anywhere. Robots, software, and sensors work no matter what language is spoken around them. In practice, however, advanced manufacturers thrive best in an ecosystem of suppliers and experienced talent. For this reason, specialized manufacturing networks have taken hold in many regions. Among the success stories highlighted in this report are China’s dominance as a manufacturer of consumer electronics, Germany’s lead in precision tooling and robotics, the United States’ strength in aerospace and car manufacturing, and its role in pushing forward important new manufacturing technologies.

Innovative manufacturing today requires as its base that manufacturers and their suppliers build strong relationships and share knowledge extensively, says Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

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