Manufacturing is Everything

Welcome to the inaugural post for our new Advanced Manufacturing Blog. We are creating this blog to communicate topics that are manufacturing related with not only our customers and partners, but also the world wide web community as a whole. We hope to convey just how important manufacturing is to our readers, and also how important the manufacturing community is to Autodesk.

Some may think the title and subject of our first post to be a bit audacious, but everything is manufacturing or rather everything is manufactured. There really is nothing that we use in our day to day activities that wasn’t manufactured, or heavily relied on manufacturing. From transportation to consumer goods, everything has to be made. Even software programs and apps are useless without the manufactured computer or smart phone to run them on.

Not only is manufacturing critical to everything we use, but consequently it is critical to our economy. Factory jobs lost in the U.S. since 2000 number 5.1 million. In 2010, during the low spot in the last major recession, Scott Paul from the Alliance for American Manufacturing stated, “If we had the manufacturing base we had just 10 years ago, we would not be in this recession.” According to the consultancy group McKinsey, manufacturing in major economies generates 70 percent of exports and 90 percent of business R&D spending.

Because manufacturing is so important to us, we feel it important to weigh in on the discussion from time to time. To communicate with you our take on manufacturing, where we think it is going. Autodesk has a plethora of manufacturing products, some of which many people don’t even realize exist. More importantly, we have a lot of manufacturing talent and experience, within the company and also with our partners.

One popular definition of blog is; a regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style. We hope to use this blog to speak about manufacturing topics regularly. It is our desire that our readers will join in on the discussion, by commenting and sharing the information. We will cover a range of topics; our own products and development, the economy, tips, what’s new, etc. We may speak of CAM software and subtractive manufacturing one time, then 3D printing and additive manufacturing the next. How best to layout your machines in your plant, or how to do digital simulations before spending money on tooling. Because Autodesk covers a lot of ground in manufacturing, this blog will too.

This blog is maintained by a small group within Autodesk, but is open to the idea of partners industry & manufacturing experts making guest blogs.

Although this blog may share tips and tricks occasionally, it is not meant as a product support platform. We encourage you to follow our social media accounts for the latest tips & tricks and other breaking news.

Follow some Autodesk social media sites at: Facebook  and Twitter and  LinkedIn Groups and Youtube and our Forums

Follow Delcam Advanced Manufacturing Solutions at: DelcamAMS Facebook and DelcamAMS Twitter and Delcam TV on YouTube

How important is manufacturing to you? What do you see for the future? Please feel free to leave comments for further discussion.