ABSTRACT
Manufacturing is a science. Of course, it has always been a science, even though for millennia it was regarded and practiced as an art. However today people practice it as a science, and enjoy the benefits of this deeper insight and control. The key to increasing the productivity of our manufacturing enterprises is this understanding of the process as a science. Some may be quite proper differences, as for example, when operating a job shop producing items to other peoples’ designs, in which case there may be no product development unit in the organization. The remainder of the generic structure will still be directly applicable to the case in hand. Other discrepancies in the structure will raise appropriate questions for further investigation. Computing power is a powerful force for the reintegration of all the diverse bits of manufacturing as people knew it just a few years ago.
