Masters of Manufacturing: M. Eugene Merchant

Manufacturing Engineering, Jul 2004 by Destefani, Jim

ME: And that's about the time when, according to your book, there was quite a large gap between the theoretical knowledge that had been developed and what was being applied on the shop floor. What factors helped drive that knowledge from theory toward practice?

Merchant: The requirement to machine aerospace materials is really what drove a lot of the theoretical knowledge down to the shop floor. MetCut Research Associates, where I spent some five years as a research engineer and which later became the source of today's Machining Solutions program at TechSolve, recognized the challenge, and they undertook, with Air Force funding, to change that situation.

And they really did. Their machinability research was quite an undertaking, larger even than the research of Frederick Taylor, who focused primarily on turning.

ME: Speaking of Frederick Taylor, according to your book he felt that his contributions to metalcutting science were overshadowed by the attention paid to his management theories-like the concept of the division of labor. What would you like to be remembered for?

Merchant: For recognizing the potential of computer technology, and recognizing that it was a systems tool and that manufacturing had to be approached and operated as a system. The only way you could really do that, and integrate the system, was by using computer technology. So I believe that started the whole movement, slowly at first, but then continually gaining momentum, toward really applying the capability of the computer as a systems tool to integrate, operate, and optimize manufacturing. After all, as I said at that time, manufacturing is a system, and it should be operated as a system. So I started working more in that area.

ME: And you began talking about the concept of computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) about 40 years ago?

Merchant: Yes. I wrote and published several papers on it that described the concept. That was the main thing, to get people interested in developing the required software based on that concept. So the idea was to clarify the concept of CIM, and to make sure the possibilities were understood so people could develop meaningful software. I did not get directly involved in software development, but I encouraged it. That was the only way that practical CIM for industry-CAD, CAM, and all the rest-would be developed.

The thing, to me, was to be sure that everything was kept integrated, so that CAD, CAM, and other types of software were not developed as independent technologies. They had to be integrated technologies to get CIM to work. That was a hard fight, to get people to accept that, because they were interested in concentrating on just one area or the other. But that's just human nature, I guess.

ME: What progress is there to be made in the area of CIM?

Merchant: The progress that is being made now can be characterized as leading toward making the whole system capable of operating as a holonic system. That's a system in which every entity-machines, software, people, all the entities involved in a manufacturing enterprise-can communicate and cooperate totally with every other entity in the system, whether it's a machine, a person, a piece of software, or whatever.