General Electric’s CEO Jeff Immelt says success – or failure – over the next decade depends on the company’s transformation in adapting the digital wizardry and hurry-up habits of Silicon Valley to GE’s world of industrial manufacturing.
And GE’s factory in Greenville, where giant power generators are produced, provides evidence that the metamorphosis might work, a story in The New York Times says.
Times reporter Steve Lohr says that in the past, a model of a new part would be made and then converted to detailed blueprints running to 70 pages or more. These would then be physically sent to GE manufacturing engineers and outside suppliers to begin setting up the tooling, casting and cutting for the part.
The report also notes that the prototype-and-blueprint routine took up to eight weeks. Now, engineers use 3-D computer models, skip the prototype step and instantly send the models electronically. In Greenville, the designers are for the first time linked directly with manufacturers and suppliers in real time, in what GE calls a “digital thread,”according to the Times. This means they can collaborate in ways that have changed the work process while making it more likely that problems or defects are spotted sooner.
Engineers in the design stages are encouraged to move faster in smaller steps, conduct more experiments and be willing to fail and try again, the story notes, amounting to a sea change in the engineering culture of heavy industry.
The Times report also features a huge color photo of Falls Park.
Way cool.
