Engineers are no strangers to innovation — their livelihood depends on finding creative solutions to problems and developing effective ways to harness technology. New and upcoming trends in science, manufacturing, design and business are likely to reshape the industrial landscape, and the engineering community is taking note. The future may pose extraordinary advances, as well as challenges, but it's never too early to look ahead.

A rising trend in production is the democratization of the tools used in design and assembly. As more people gain access to manufacturing resources through individual or home-based systems, such as 3-D printing or "micro-factories," a new wave of customized products and designs may soon enter the global marketplace.

"Today, micro-factories make everything from cars to bike components to bespoke furniture in any design you can imagine," Wired reports. "The collective potential of a million garage tinkerers is about to be unleashed on the global markets, as ideas go straight into production, no financing or tooling required. 'Three guys with laptops' used to describe a Web startup. Now it describes a hardware company, too."

The broadening of production capabilities is further helped by a shift in the global supply chain, which is rapidly becoming "scale-free, able to serve the small as well as the large, the garage inventor and Sony," thanks to a surge in inexpensive but powerful prototyping tools.

"With the tools in place, the second part of this new industrial age is how manufacturing has been opened up to individuals, letting them scale prototypes into full production runs," Wired explains. "Over the past few years, Chinese manufacturers have evolved to handle small orders more efficiently. This means that one-person enterprises can get things made in a factory the way only big companies could before."

The long-term result is that production will increasingly shift toward smaller businesses and entrepreneurs. The concept of the "digital factory," through which engineers can upload designs and gain online access to rapid fabrication machines to produce them, is sure to play a major role in the future of mass customization.

"What if the same basic technologies that allow anyone to publish a rant, a tweet or a digital photo suddenly were to allow anybody with a computer and an Internet connection to open his or her own factory?" Inc.com asks. "What if starting a company that makes stuff were as easy as starting a company that makes information?"

As manufacturing becomes easier and production tools more readily available, engineers will also have a host of new materials and technologies with which to work. Popular Mechanics cites the following materials innovations that have the potential to revolutionize fabrication in the future:

• Magnetic Ink — Capable of writing and drying normally, magnetic ink is composed of iron particles that can conduct electricity, meaning it could be used to print circuits onto paper.
• Translucent Concrete — These concrete tiles, which contain optical fibers that permit light to pass through, could be used as a sturdy, transparent building material.
• Graffiti-Proof Film — Composed of a clear adhesive with a Teflon coating, this film could be applied to surfaces to make them immune to stains.
• Water-Expanding Plastic — This industrial polymer is essentially a plastic that can expand in water while retaining its proportions, allowing it to be used for producing casts for various objects.
• Anti-Fog Film — Special hydrophilic properties cause water to slide off this durable coating instead of turning into fog.
• Paper Honeycomb — Both strong and lightweight, paper honeycomb material may be used for building furniture or packaging in the future.

Engineers have also increasingly been experimenting with "smart" materials, which are shape-memory alloys that can adjust their dimensions, strength or stiffness in response to a given stimulus, such as heat, stress or voltage.

"Smart materials 'remember' their original shape and can return to it, opening new possibilities for many movable features, such as replacing the electric motors traditionally used to activate car seats, windows and locks," Assembly Magazine explains. "There are numerous applications for the technology in the automotive, aerospace, appliance, medical and electronics industries."

Although advances in materials hold promise for a wide range of new product types, the future of the manufacturing sector itself presents numerous challenges. Since 1979, manufacturing has shed roughly 8 million jobs. However, manufacturing has also led the continuing economic rebound.

"To recover from the current economic downturn, it has been estimated that we need to create on the order of 17 million to 20 million new jobs in the coming decade," MIT President Susan Hockfield told an industry roundtable hosted at the university in March. "And it's very hard to imagine where those jobs are going to come from unless we seriously get busy reinventing manufacturing."

Some of the suggestions for revitalizing manufacturing discussed at the roundtable include an increased focus on nanotechnology; greater integration of sensors and advanced computing into robotic systems; and a stronger focus on small-lot logistics to reduce the "flattening effect that comes from economies of scale" in the global supply chain.

The United States military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) offers another alternative, beginning work earlier this year on $200 million worth of research to reinvent the manufacturing industry, Popular Science reports. Their primary recommendation: put an end to vertical integration by separating design from production, thus cutting down on a major source of "production delays, surprises, and cost overruns."

Although they may not meet the standards of science fiction, long-term prospects for engineering and manufacturing paint a dynamic future. Will virtual factories become the new production standard? Will high-tech materials or a restructured business model bring the industrial sector into a new era of progress? We'll have to wait and see.

Earlier

3-D Printing Brings Prototyping to the Home

5 High-Tech Advances in Materials

Top Tech Trends You Should Know

Resources

In the Next Industrial Revolution, Atoms are the New Bits
by Chris Anderson
Wired, Jan. 25, 2010

The Future of Manufacturing
by Max Chafkin
Inc.com, Oct. 1, 2009

16 Wild Materials You May Find in Future Products
by Emily Anthes
Popular Mechanics, 2010

Smart Materials Have a Bright Future
by Austin Weber
Assembly Magazine, March 26, 2010

A Manufacturing Renaissance for America?
by Peter Dizikes
MIT News, March 31, 2010

DARPA's Economic Fix: Run All Industries Like the Semiconductor Industry
by Clay Dillow
Popular Science, Jan. 21, 2010