“Sampling” past manufacturing successes can help fabricators innovate

Smart manufacturing technology gives metal fabricators the ability to capture experiences across the product lifecycle and to apply learned successes in new manufacturing endeavors. gmast3r/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Did you ever listen to a popular song and feel that something about it was familiar? Chances are, you noticed the use of sampling, or interpolation. Sampling is the reuse of tracks or snippets from a previous recording in a new recording.

Many hip-hop recordings use background tracks sampled from other artists’ previously recorded songs, and while 1970s DJs like Grandmaster Flash and Kool Herc popularized the practice, it’s not a new practice. In fact, the Beatles used sampling on their “Yellow Submarine” album.

Today, music catalogs are lucrative because sampling and interpolation—an artist’s performance of a portion of someone else’s musical composition—are used so commonly. Music publishing companies have paid artists like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and Neil Diamond billions of dollars for full or partial ownership of their catalogs because licensing that music is incredibly profitable.

While the challenges of licensing and theft exist, there are some advantages to recycling prior work. Sampling and interpolation can breathe new life into old, but worthwhile, works. Sampling in contemporary music draws from works from many music genres going back to blues from the early 20th century. A new generation of listeners is exposed to music history with a new twist. If you read the credits of many artists, they include the contributions of prior artists. It can be a fun exercise to revisit old music to discover the roots of many popular contemporary songs.

The flipside, however, is that without new and creative works, music can easily become a tired rehash of old songs. There needs to be a balance.

So what does this have to do with manufacturing? Simply put, both the music industry and manufacturing can benefit by balancing new creativity with the reuse of tried-and-true, successful practices.

Take smart manufacturing, for example. This technology gives designers and fabricators a comprehensive view of materials, processes, equipment, and products, letting us capture experiences across the product lifecycle. This gives us the unprecedented ability to study and learn from previous product design and development successes and failures. In many instances, we can reuse common components and processes to leverage learned successes while allowing greater focus on innovation in new and unexplored topics.

Of course, learning and reuse of experience demands that manufacturers collect and maintain quality, relevant information. At the smart manufacturing events I attend, there are usually one or two companies that speak proudly about the volume of data they have. To me, this is like bragging that your garage is so full you can’t fit a car in it. Unless it’s known, quality data that’s usable for manufacturing progress, it has all the value of grandma’s old garden gnome hiding in a box you haven’t seen in a couple decades. Too many organizations hoard data but fail to support its quality, relevance, and usefulness. Obsolete and poor-quality data only drains resources and decreases processing efficiency.

Data resources available to capture manufacturing experiences across a product’s lifecycle include:

• IoT-enabled monitors.
• Design and simulation data.
• Enterprise resource planning.
• Product lifecycle management.
• Manufacturing execution systems.

Capturing experiences from production projects and using them early in the next product lifecycle can help you achieve superior results in design for manufacturing. These experiences also help identify your best processes and tools for specified materials and components.

Many data resources are available to capture manufacturing experiences across a product’s lifecycle.

Manufacturing involves many commonly used processes. These processes often include variability but don’t necessarily require innovation. With your captured experiences, you can reuse common processes and techniques with the modifications that best suit your manufacturing demands.

Similar to the music industry, manufacturers can find meaningful information in their past. Making your experiences useful requires discipline in capturing and maintaining thorough, quality information about your design and operations. With knowledge, skill, and creativity, you can use these experiences as a foundation for efficient innovation to take on future manufacturing challenges.