MechE Seminar Series

Democratizing Advanced Manufacturing – Ensuring Prosperity and Security

The technological foundations of advanced manufacturing continue to rapidly evolve as ubiquitous sensing, cloud computing and storage, and next generation controllers are introduced into the hyperconnected manufacturing ecosystem. This talk presents some of the technical concepts and business models that will enable new technologies and capabilities in the manufacturing sector to be rapidly deployed throughout the U.S. industrial base. Insight will be presented into next generation resilient production operations and business models that favor local and point of assembly manufacturing. The talk will conclude with a discussion of how rapidly advancing technical innovations such as AR/VR and AI/ML will be propagated throughout the manufacturing enterprise via flexible cloud/fog (compute and storage) operations, ensuring a state-of-the-art manufacturing economy. This will provide opportunities for businesses of all sizes and democratize advanced manufacturing technologies throughout the United States.

Thomas R. Kurfess, Georgia Institute of Technology

Thomas R. Kurfess is the Chief Manufacturing Officer of the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Executive Director of the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute. At Georgia Tech he is the HUSCO/Ramirez Distinguished Chair in Fluid Power and Motion Control and Regents’ Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. He also serves as the Chief Technology Officer at the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences. During 2019-2021 he served as the Chief Manufacturing Officer, and the Founding Director for the Manufacturing Science Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. During 2012-2013 served as the Assistant Director for Advanced Manufacturing at the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President of the United States of America, where he was responsible for coordinating Federal advanced manufacturing R&D. He served as the President of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2023-2024 and was President of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers in 2018. He currently serves on two federal advisory committees, the Department of the Navy Science and Technology Board, and the Department of Energy / National Nuclear Security Administration Advisory Committee on Nuclear Security. His research focuses on the design and development of advanced manufacturing systems targeting secure digital manufacturing, additive and subtractive processes, and large-scale production enterprises. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering and is a Fellow of ASME, AAAS, and SME.