Automating Automation

A friend's birthday barbecue is coming up in a few days and we decide to surprise our friend with a new grill. Online, a manufacturer's website allows us to customize the grill. Unknown to us, the design space consists of billions of grills and we create a one-of-a-kind design that has never been produced before. Designing, procuring, producing, and delivering a unique product in a short time, at an affordable price, with minimal human intervention, requires complex interactions across software-hardware, systems, and time scales. This process, known as lot size one production, is only possible through the use of autonomous production systems. Manufacturing is a cornerstone of a country's innovation pipeline and many companies are reshoring to keep manufacturing and R&D as close as possible. While most people think manufacturing is low-tech and boring, I must disagree!