PTC Product Lifecycle Stories eMagazine- Fall 2013

Fall 2013

PRODUCT LIFECYCLE STORIES
INSIGHT ON PRODUCTS, MANUFACTURING, AND SERVICE

UNDERWATER CITY:
3D Printed Reef Restores Bahrain’s Marine Life

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE :
China’s Angst: When Low-Cost Manufacturing Dies
Google Glass Allows Surgeons to Multitask
4 Ways to Boost Workplace Innovation
US Sailing Brings Science and Engineering to Kids

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Fall 2013 – Table of Contents


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UNDERWATER CITY:
Feature Article

3D Printed Reef Restores Bahrain’s Marine Life

Coral reefs around the world are disappearing at an alarming rate. Pollution, overfishing, coastal development,
and global warming are all culprits, and the Persian Gulf is one of the hardest hit regions. Reef Arabia’s custom
designed 3D printed reef units are helping to restore reefs and attract new fish populations off the coast of Bahrain.

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Sailing organizations get together to provide kids with hands-on integrated learning opportunities that inspire interest in
physics, marine biology, technology, and robotics.

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China Looks to U.S. for New Manufacturing Model
Chinese manufacturers are facing hard times. Debt is up, sales are down. Signs of relief are followed by signs of trouble. In
response, China is beginning to study how American manufacturers reacted to a similar crisis in the 1980’s.

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Tough-to-Design Soft Robots Challenge Engineers to Think Differently
Someday soon, your life may be saved by a weird-looking octopus, squid, or caterpillar – a squishy, form-changing, animal-like
device that’s actually a soft robot.

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Philips Healthcare and Accenture are developing a new way to help surgeons deliver more efficient and effective patient care
using Google Glass technology.

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Vending Machines Dispense Bicycle Helmets in Boston
A green solution to traffic congestion and carbon emissions, bike-sharing programs have become ubiquitous in crowded cities
worldwide. But what happens if you forget your helmet? One Boston-based company has the solution.

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Can Crowdfunding Boost Engineering and Design Innovation?
Crowdfunding – already well established in our lexicon – is the way to raise capital for hip new projects. From 3D doodlers to
flying cars, it’s disrupting the way enterprises, entrepreneurs, non-profits, and individuals fund their initiatives.

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Innovation isn’t the purview of lone geniuses being struck, lightening style, by inspiration out of the blue.

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The Chinese are becoming quietly desperate. They know that they are no longer the low-cost place to manufacture, but they
don’t know what to do about it.

Using Smartphones to Diagnose Disease
Engineers are taking advantage of the flexibility of apps and the computing power of smartphones to replicate the functions of
medical devices and even laboratory instruments.

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Fall 2013 – Underwater City


Underwater City: 3D Printed Reef Restores Bahrain’s Marine Life
By Nancy Pardo

Coral reefs around the world are disappearing at an alarming
rate. Pollution, overfishing, coastal development, and global
warming are all culprits. In the waters near China, 80 percent
of the coral reefs have died over the last 30 years and, according to a 2012 study from the Australian Institute of Marine
Sciences (AIMS) and the University of Wollongong, 50 percent
of the Great Barrier Reef’s coral has disappeared over roughly
the same timeframe.
In the Persian Gulf the story is similar. Coastal and offshore
development – which often involves large-scale dredging,
infilling, coastal modifications, and the creation of artificial
waterways – has left the coral reef ecosystem in waters off
Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain severely damaged.
The World Resources Institute estimates that coral cover in
Bahrain has dropped from at least 50 percent in the 1980s to
nearly zero percent today.

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The Reef Arabia team – made up of experts from the local area
and members of Australia-based Sustainable Oceans International (SOI) – has already submerged nearly 3,000 concrete
Reef Balls and custom designed reef units near Bahrain,
successfully attracting new fish populations and helping
replace some of the reefs Bahrain has lost.
Several of the concrete reef features were designed to reflect
Bahrain architecture – a strategy SOI refers to as “culturally
sensitive reef design.”
A wind tower – common in the traditional architecture of that
region and used to generate natural ventilation – is the
centerpiece of the Bahrain reef. The wind tower features are
both aesthetically pleasing and functional, specifically
designed to appeal to certain fish species which use them for
shelter and a place to congregate.

More research, tighter regulation, improved project planning,
and better public awareness all need to stack up to prevent
more loss. But in the meantime, one organization is set on
restoring reefs off the coast of Bahrain.

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Reef Arabia designs and manufactures artificial reefs (or
constructed reefs, as it prefers to call them) with a view to
regenerating precious ocean habitat and improving fish
populations, particularly critical in Bahrain, where overfishing
has vastly diminished marine life.

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Fall 2013 – Underwater City

For David Lennon, Reef Arabia team member and director at
SOI, the reef is a dream come true.
“I grew up in Saudi Arabia and came to love the marine life of
the Gulf. I always admired historic Arab architecture and this
project allowed me to tour the old town of Bahrain and select
key building designs that would appeal to the fish we were
aiming to attract,” Lennon says. “Just like us, fish have
preferences for shape and size.”
But reefs formed from concrete molds, even with Lennon at
the helm, have their limitations. And that’s why Reef Arabia in
collaboration with SOI, 3D program specialist James Gardiner,
and rapid manufacturing experts DShape, is pioneering a new
3D printed reef unit made of non-toxic patented sandstone
material. Two of these 3D printed reefs, weighing 1,100
pounds, were sunk off the coast of Bahrain last fall.
“Sandstone, unlike concrete, is closer to a natural earth rock
and has a neutral pH surface which makes it more attractive
to coral larvae looking for a home,” Lennon says. And the
“bumpy, knobby bits” on the sandstone units provide refuge for
the common snapper and generate current eddies and
multiple horizontal surfaces that coral larvae seem to prefer.
The 3D printing technology has allowed the Reef Arabia team
to create the more intricate designs found in natural coral
structures. “With 3D printing we can get closer to natural
design because of its ability to produce very organic shapes
and almost lay down material similar to how nature does it,”
Lennon says.
Another advantage 3D printed reefs have over traditionally
molded concrete: it’s easier to build diversity into a 3D printed
model and much easier to replicated quickly. “We could even
generate a 3D image file of a natural reef and then print it,”
Lennon says.
Designing diversity into a reef is critical, says Lennon, because
diversity in habitat drives diversity of species, a major factor in
creating an ecosystem resilient to climate change. Using a 3D
printing program the Reef Arabia team can create random
variations in the reef units so no two are exactly the same.

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Reef Arabia

3D printed reef from Reef Arabia and SOI

It remains to be seen whether Reef Arabia’s 3D printing
method will be faster and more cost-efficient in the long-term,
but Lennon is hopeful. The prototype reef units took a week to
make from scratch, and the actual printing – which involves
progressively layering the sandstone with a print head 5m in
diameter – takes about a day. The reef units can be printed
four at a time. And while concrete is strong and long-lasting,
the use of sandstone will cut down on the project’s carbon
footprint too, as sandstone requires less fossil fuel than
concrete to produce.
So, do the fish really like the 3D printed reefs better than the
concrete ones? It’s early days, says Lennon. “But I suspect if
we did a detailed count we would find the 3D units have a
greater number of different types of fish and the crevices
created by the knobby lumps will support more cryptic fish,
crabs, and shrimp which the [concrete] Reef Balls or other
units can’t.

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Fall 2013 – China’s Angst: When Low-Cost Manufacturing Dies


China Photos/Getty Images

By Mark McKay

Global manufacturing is in transition. The advantage of
Chinese manufacturers is slipping, and every day brings more
news of another American manufacturer gaining (or recovering) a little piece of market share.
As both a college lecturer and strategic adviser to firms on
both sides of the water, I’ve watched this process unfold for
several years. And while we hear a lot about the Chinese
economy from an American perspective, we don’t hear much
about China from the Chinese point of view.
The truth is, the Chinese are becoming quietly desperate. They
know that they are no longer the low-cost place to manufacture, but they don’t know what to do about it.
Many of these companies built their entire business model
around cheap labor. Now that advantage is gone. Most
Chinese business owners realize that they need to radically
change their thinking about concepts of quality and productivity. But meanwhile they are suffering serious cash flow problems, and the shakeout is going to be very noticeable.
The response of typical Chinese manufacturers to this new
climate is very similar to the response of many American
manufacturers in the 1980’s, with similar results.

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Here are the commonalities that I am seeing, none of which
really make the Chinese manufacturer stronger:
1. Denial. They blame current difficulties on external challenges, not on their own outdated business models.
2. Frustration with employees. Chinese business owners are
unhappy with their workers. In the past, workers would
accept low wages and long hours without complaint. Now,
workers demand high wages and will quit if they don’t like
the job. The managers don’t understand how to manage
without being autocrats, and that doesn’t play well with the
younger generation.
3. Frustration with bankers. Chinese banks for many years did
whatever was necessary to maintain the growth. Now the easy
loans are gone, and factories are saddled with debt. They can
only pay the debt if they grow, and they can only grow if they
take on more debt. It’s a classic cash-flow problem that won’t
be resolved with the current business model.
4. Moving factories to cheaper labor pools. Factories along
the coast are moving inland, or to other Asian countries, or
to Africa.

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Fall 2013 – China’s Angst: When Low-Cost Manufacturing Dies

5. Focusing on the domestic market. Many companies see
Chinese customers as their only hope for survival. Expect
the Chinese government to come under extreme internal
political pressure to put up fences to protect these firms
from foreign competition.
6. Taking the profits and getting out. Millions—literally,
millions—of Chinese business owners are trying to pull cash
out of their businesses and move them to the Unites States,
Canada, or Europe. They are concerned that a Chinese
government in need might not respect their ownership of
property, so they are transferring these assets to nations with
laws that allow stronger property rights.
Two other factors in America are helping this trend. First, in
case you hadn’t noticed, America has debts it cannot likely pay
back. Debts that cannot be paid are resolved by a transfer of
collateral assets. Properties are for sale. Second, older
Americans who hold assets are motivated to sell as they reach
retirement, and few young Americans have the ability to buy.
(As an American, I don’t think this trend is all bad. It’s a
solution to a problem.)
The Chinese government has laws that limit outbound asset
transfers, but citizens are routinely finding ways around
those laws. Their need to earn a return on these investments is only a secondary consideration. The first consideration is capital protection.

Kim Steele/Getty Images

Stay tuned for my next article on how I believe the best
Chinese companies will get through this transition. (Hint: The
winners will follow the American manufacturing playbook,
refocusing on quality and productivity.)
Find out more about MJ McKay Strategic Consulting.

Did I paint a bleak picture for Chinese business? Don’t get me
wrong. Despite these challenges, China is still strong in
manufacturing. I believe in the future that China will be even
stronger. But the future will belong to a new set of winners
who have a business philosophy that is very different from the
“low-cost labor” model that worked for 30 years.
I try to discourage American business owners from thinking of
these trends as nationalist competition. Try to see strategic
opportunities for partnership in these trends. The Chinese are
generally quite patriotic, but they admire the U.S. and place a
very high value on developing equal cross-border relationships. Global winners in the next generation will need those
relationships and partnerships to capture market share here,
there, and everywhere else.

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Fall 2013 – 4 Ways to Boost Workplace Innovation


By Maria K. Regan

Innovation isn’t the purview of lone geniuses being struck,
lightening style, by inspiration out of the blue. Rather it comes
from creative, intelligent people who routinely encounter
different perspectives and are frequently exposed to new
concepts. As Steven Johnson writes in his book Where Good
Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, “Chance
favors the connected mind.”

request a resource. Others passing by take note of what’s
posted, mull it over, and provide responses when they can.

Based on that principal, here are four expert tips to help
stimulate innovation in the workplace:

“On a Friday night,” she writes, “an engineer went to the board
and wrote down the details of a convoluted problem we had
with our ads system. A group of Googlers lacking exciting
plans for the evening began rewriting the algorithm within
hours and had solved the problem by Tuesday. The best ideas
at Google are sparked just like that – when small groups of
Googlers take a break on a random afternoon and start talking
about things that excite them.”

1. Connect Thinkers. One way to encourage creative solutions
is to engage thinkers with different skill sets from across
your organization. Steven Gold, Senior Partner for Entrepreneurship at Babson College, directs the college’s Summer
Venture Program, which supports the most promising MBA
and undergraduate entrepreneurs from Babson and other
nearby colleges.
“We have 24 entrepreneurs working on different businesses in
the same space,” Gold says. “Every day, sharing goes on—from
contacts and ideas to emotional support. It’s the best part of
the program.” To encourage that sharing in a busy environment, the workspace includes a centrally located whiteboard
on which anyone can write a question, describe a roadblock, or

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Google has used the same technique. In a blog post titled “The
Eight Pillars of Innovation,” Susan Wojcicki, Senior Vice
President for Ads and Commerce, describes how the company
hung an “ideas board” on a wall in a well-traveled hallway.

2. Rethink Workplace Design. David Silverman is a principal at
Silverman Trykowski Associates (STA), an architecture and
design firm headquartered in Boston’s Innovation District. STA
works with a wide range of businesses, from major universities and global marketing agencies to start-up nonprofits. The
company specializes in design that addresses key factors like
productivity, efficiency, morale, and enterprise success.

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Fall 2013 – 4 Ways to Boost Workplace Innovation

Silverman has found that providing a variety of meeting spaces
that can be tailored to the task at hand encourages workplace
innovation. “Ideally,” he says, “you want break-out collaborative
space where teams can brainstorm, as well as private conference rooms in different sizes.”
Even when space is limited, it’s possible to offer common
areas that support a variety of uses and preferences. For
example, at STA they removed a large desk in an unused
reception area to turn it into a lounge with casual, movable
seating, a flatscreen, and a whiteboard.
“It’s not a conference room – a place where you have to close
the door,” Silverman says. Instead, he calls the space a living
lab and a public thinking area. The seating can be arranged in
different ways, and the white board is on wheels so it can be
repositioned easily. “Adaptability is the key,” he says. “The area
can be used for structured presentations or casual group
discussions. People seem to relax more in this space, which is
good for creativity.”
3. Invite Fresh Perspectives. Organizing forums and inviting
speakers are other ways to bring employees into frequent
contact with fresh perspectives and rekindle mental energy.
“We’ll host speaker events and town hall meetings where we
invite people to think about a problem and potential solutions,”
says Sam Aquillano, co-founder and executive director of
Design Museum Boston, an organization that works to connect
professionals in different industries through the common
theme of design. At one town hall meeting in Boston’s Innovation District, attendees developed the idea of a public-bench
design competition that ultimately drew 172 entries from 23
countries. It also generated an inspiring interactive exhibit that
provided benches for a developing waterfront park.

start-up companies and non-profits. Both the Los Angeles
Times and The Boston Globe have utilized this tactic as their
down-sized staffs require less space.
Furnished casually and surrounded by working journalists,
the Globe’s spare office space has been rented to high-tech
start-ups and used to host a programming-code marathon. In
an interview with The New York Times, Globe’s publisher
Christopher Mayer said that in addition to allowing the
company to fully utilize an asset, the new relationships have
helped to energize the workplace and connect the paper to
the community.
“Putting people together who think differently is a very fun,
valuable experience,” says Babson’s Gold. “Being exposed to
other perspectives is refreshing for all of us.”
In another of his books, The Ghost Map, Steven Johnson likens
innovation to what happens in a flood plain: “A dozen separate
tributaries converge, and the rising waters lift the genius high
enough that he or she can see around the conceptual obstructions of the age.”

Whenever possible, Aquillano stages events in high visibility
locations, such as building lobbies and cafeterias. “To make
our events highly accessible, we put them in places where
people already are,” he says. “Providing morning coffee or
other refreshments helps, too.”
4. Bring Entrepreneurs In-House. A creative option for
companies with unused office space is to rent that space out to

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Fall 2013 – US Sailing Brings Science and Engineering to Kids


US Sailing

By Maria K. Regan

“All sailing is really about science and math,” says John
O’Flaherty, executive director of Community Boating Center in
Providence, RI.
“You’re immersed in it, whether you realize it or not.” To
capitalize on that connection, the boating center teamed up
with Providence After School Alliance to tie what kids
experience on the water to what they’re doing in science and
math at school.
Together, they developed a summer program for
middle-school students that involved two days in the classroom and two days on the water. “We added a very
under-toned dash of science to the sailing,” O’Flaherty says.
“The next day in class, the teacher used the on-water experience as a springboard for discussion of the science behind it.”
Teachers found that students were much more interested
in learning about science when they had a stake in it.
“There’s a certain magic to sailing,” O’Flaherty says. “If you
learn the lessons, you get to harness these invisible
forces—wind, currents, tides—and use them to go fast,
which is fun and exciting.”

to include physics, math, and engineering into the learning
experience, as well as wind, weather, and waterway science.
The summer program was so well received that O’Flaherty
asked US Sailing to help develop a formal curriculum. US
Sailing was enthusiastic. They hired Jessica Servis, an experienced sailor and a teacher with a master’s in education, to be
program manager for what came to be called REACH.
“Sailing is like sticking kids in a real-life interactive lab every
day,” Servis says. “Everyone knew it had a great STEM connection, but there was no curriculum that spoke to teachers and
schools, met education frameworks, and could be implemented by a community-sailing center.”
After three years of development, REACH launched in June
2012 with 10 modules, each built on inquiry-based learning and
engineering-by-design principles. The goal: to provide
hands-on integrated learning opportunities that inspire interest
in physics, marine biology, robotics, technology, and more.

Hull shape, sail size, tillers, and pulleys created opportunities

To actively involve students, each lesson takes an investigative
approach and is built around answering questions such as:
How does this boat float? What shape are sails and why? How
does marine debris get in our waters and where does it go?

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Fall 2013 – US Sailing Brings Science and Engineering to Kids

Why does the wind change as the day progresses?
Katie Schlotterbeck, a middle-school science teacher at St.
Michael Lutheran, a National Blue Ribbon School in Fort
Myers, Florida, was part of the five-site pilot REACH program.
“The curriculum is very flexible,” she says. “It’s also easy to
teach. You don’t have to make the topics exciting – they’re
already exciting for students.”
Schlotterbeck likes that the modules are inquiry based. “Too
many times, students are given a set of directions to follow,”
she says. “I like to say, ‘here’s the question, now how can you
solve it?’ They’ll draw, test, and come back to the drawing
board until they get their answer. We need to teach students
how to solve problems, not just how to follow directions.”
For each REACH module there are in-classroom and on-water
activities that teach the same concepts. “Our philosophy is to
let experts do what they do best,” says Servis. “Let sailing
schools get kids on the water and do those parts of the lesson,
and have teachers do pre-teaching, follow-up activities, and
post-discussion of what was learned on the water.”

SeaAffinity, Inc.

centers, and youth programs purchased the REACH curriculum (REACH Educator Guide $59.95). Fifteen of those groups
are already using REACH for ongoing programming.
“REACH empowers kids to control their own learning environment and encourages them to ask questions, then come up
with answers,” O’Flaherty says.

Sailing and STEM are being connected on a more informal
basis, too. During the recent America’s Cup racing in San
Francisco, the connection was leveraged by sailors from the
American Youth Sailing Force, a team that competed in the
youth version of the America’s Cup, held concurrently.
“We wanted to use our position, our team, and the excitement
of the America’s Cup to show kids how the math and science
they learn in school are applied in real life,” says 22-year-old
Ian Andrewes, Force team member and manager.

“For most kids, it’s the first time someone has trusted them
with something as expensive as a sailboat and let them be the
captain. When they realize they’re in control of it with nothing
but simple machinery, it’s a real eye-opener. You see the
smiles come out the first day we get kids in the boats.”

The Force worked with schools and sailing programs in the
Bay Area. “Getting kids out sailing is the most important
thing,” Andrewes says. “As a sailor, part of your job is to
understand things like rigging load and structural dynamics.
You end up dealing with a bit of everything. Basically, we
wanted to help kids realize what’s available to them if they’re
just willing to step outside their comfort zone.”
The REACH program and others like it continue to grow in
popularity. In its first year, more than 70 schools, sailing

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Fall 2013 – China Looks to U.S. for New Manufacturing Model


China Looks to U.S. for New Manufacturing Model
By Mark McKay

Chinese manufacturers are facing hard times. Debt is up,
sales are down. Signs of relief are followed by signs of trouble.

and discovered the open secret of modern manufacturing:
Labor costs are not a driver of manufacturing competitiveness.

Last week, I wrote about the responses and solutions that
most Chinese business owners are employing. These
solutions will be ineffective, and they will be the analgesic
prescription for most. The result will be a slow fade into
competitive irrelevance.

The real driver in manufacturing is the cost tied to material
flow. Quality and efficiency are measured by the materials, not
the worker’s experience. Wasted time around materials is
more damaging than wasted labor time. Labor is still a factor,
but it is only decisive when two firms are roughly equal in the
effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of managing the costs tied to
material flow.

There will be a few savvy manufacturers though, that rise
above the crisis and embrace a new Chinese business model.
These survivors will find new strategies that make them
healthy, name-brand global players.
A few Chinese manufacturers are beginning to study the
response of many American manufacturers to a similar crisis
in the 1980’s. Modern China opened for business in the year
1980. Hundreds of thousands of American businesses were
directly affected by China’s competition. What was the response
of these American firms? Some of them just died. Some moved
for the cheaper labor. Some looked for help from the American
government, trying to build a fence around their customers.

In 1980, American companies were lousy in this regard, and
they should have known it, because that is why so many of
them were losing to Japanese competition. When the enormous labor pool in China opened up, Chinese factories (with
low-paid workers and poor material flow) were facing off
against American factories (with high-paid workers and poor
material flow.) Suddenly, everything was “made in China.”

Many of those companies just don’t exist anymore. But the
smartest—the best firms you do business with today—dug deep

In America, of course, many tried ineffective strategies, but a
few learned to adapt. These are the companies that the smart
Chinese business owner wants to study. The winning strategies in many cases were a combination of concepts studied
from those aforementioned Japanese companies. American
companies learned that:

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Fall 2013 – China Looks to U.S. for New Manufacturing Model

1. Material flow and cash flow are closely related.
2. A focus on material flow creates a natural requirement to
treat quality as a number one priority.
3. Management and labor could cooperate with very similar
objectives. It is no coincidence that the past 30 years
have seen a decrease in the need for factory labor unions.
4. Rapid materials flow opens up the opportunity to satisfy
niche markets.
Only a few Chinese manufacturers understand these secrets.
Twenty years from now, those firms will be the survivors. Other
Chinese manufacturers know that they are falling behind, but
they usually think (incorrectly) that the American advantage is
in replacing workers with automated machinery. Again, they
just cannot get themselves away from thinking about labor
cost. Automated machines can reduce labor, but they will only
create an advantage when they first of all support a simplified
material flow.
The Chinese who study these methods find the human
element to be the most difficult to understand. The methods I
describe cannot be successfully put into place just by repeating some Japanese words and sketching out some diagrams.
The attitude of managers needs to change.
To encourage cooperation between labor and management
means that both parties agree to openly point out opportunities for improvement, to act with humility, and to not focus on
who should take blame for problems that are hard to solve.
Mistakes are expected. Finding a mistake is celebrated, not
suppressed, not denied.

Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

were connected to an individual. Criticism in public therefore is
not to be taken lightly. Mistakes are denied, to save face.
Nevertheless, the few will persevere. I foresee a new phase of
both competitiveness and cooperation in business relations
between Chinese and American firms. American and Chinese
products will be very similar in cost, engineering, and quality.
Smart strategists on both sides of the water will seek out a
new kind of partnership, built on trust, leveraging access to
brains, capital, and markets on both side of the water.
The new reality will come within a generation, I think in twenty
years, but perhaps even within ten.

These “soft” aspects of change are the most difficult for
Americans, and they are even more difficult for
Chinese—much, much more difficult.
The managers I’ve meet do understand this challenge, but
they worry about the substantial cultural barriers to getting
past it. In China, the concept of “gaining face” or “losing face”
is extremely important. Criticisms are almost always taken
personally, even criticisms that a Westerner would never think

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Fall 2013 – Tough-to-Design Soft Robots


Tough-to-Design Soft Robots Challenge Engineers to Think Differently
By Nancy Langmeyer

Someday soon, your life may be saved by a weird-looking
octopus, squid, or caterpillar – a squishy, form-changing,
animal-like device that’s actually a soft robot.

Two groups at the forefront of this research are located in the
Boston area. At Tufts University, professor Barry Trimmer
heads one of the first groups to explore soft animal neuromechanics and how soft structures can be controlled through
electrical motors.

Scientists are exploring the fluidity and deformable nature of
animals like those mentioned above, as well as insects,
starfish, and lizards. Their goal is to combine the maneuverability of these creatures with the autonomous nature of the
hard-shelled robots we’re all familiar with—think R2-D2.
The ability of soft robots to climb onto textured surfaces and
irregular shapes, crawl along wires and ropes, and burrow into
complex, confined spaces will take them to places the hard
robots of today can’t venture. In the biomedical field, they could
assist in surgeries: while in search and rescue missions; they
could crawl into hazardous situations to aid victims.
While a life-saving soft robot may not be a reality for several
years, teams from various disciplines—computer science,
organic chemistry, biomechanics, biomimetic robotics, flexible
electronics, mechanical engineering, and materials development—are all making advances. Contributions to this field are
also being made by neuroscience, polymer chemistry, control
systems, and biomedical engineering.

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At Harvard, a team of researchers led by professor George
Whitesides, has developed a soft, silicone-based robot that
looks much like an octopus. With a focus more on chemistry, the
Whitesides Research Group is exploring elastomers, such as
silicon polymer, and how the use of pneumatics—inflation and
pressure—can change the shape of soft robots and power them.
According to Trimmer, soft robotics requires a new perspective
for engineers. Typically, engineering theory deals with stiff
materials and engineers have been trained to make sure what
they build—whether it’s a bridge or a car—has minimal
deformity under normal activity.
Soft materials, because they can change shape, are often
considered to be problems that needs solving. “Soft material
engineering is not taught much, and the engineering world
needs to catch up fast,” Trimmer says. “Rarely are engineers
encouraged to think about how they can build out of completely different materials.

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Fall 2013 – Tough-to-Design Soft Robots

“This would give them access to a whole new world of capabilities. Think of the proteins and sugars found in human bodies.
These are amazing materials with fantastic properties that
have never been used or exploited,” Trimmer says.
While this type of study won’t supersede current engineering,
it will be an important part of the design of structures in the
future. The promised applications are, however, some way off.
“There are still huge issues that need to be addressed,”
Trimmer notes, “particularly in terms of developing a good
framework and tools to support our theoretical approach.”
One area that needs to be advanced is soft material simulation
tools. There is no means yet to build or model a device in a
computer and simulate how it’s going to work as engineers do
currently with structures such as aircraft.
Another challenge is the electronics that power the soft
robots. “A rotary electric motor won’t work because it’s built of
stiff materials and will limit the capability of a soft robot,”
Trimmer says.
The Harvard team is using pressurized gas or liquid to power
their robots, but it still has to use pumps and values and other
equipment to drive the pressure. Trimmer’s group is exploring
micro-coil shaped memory alloy wire, which can pull great
force when current is passed through it. Trimmer and his team
are also looking for a solution that is more like muscle, with
electrically active polymers. The group is also using stem cells
to grow muscles for their research.
The final major challenge is the control of movement of the
robots. “Currently, engineering theory around controlling
movement is for rigid systems,” Trimmer says. “This fails
miserably when applied to deformable structures.”

Tufts University

complicated tasks of control, much like how animals work,”
Trimmer says.
To advance the study of soft robotics, Trimmer argues, it’s
essential for engineers in different disciplines to be open to
ideas and approaches from other fields. “In engineering, there
is a tendency to be siloed. The people who build hard robots
know mechanical engineering and work with control
engineers. Because they have different backgrounds, these
engineers tend to bolt the control system onto the robot,
rather than develop an integrated system,” he says.
“The different disciplines need to be willing to get out of their
comfort zone and collaborate with people in unrelated
fields—even beyond engineering, such as physics, chemistry,
and biology.”
We may see soft robotic toys and other advances like simple
manipulator arms and gripper systems within the next five
years. But, says Trimmer, it most likely will be another decade
before completely soft devices will be put into use in more
complex fields such as medicine.

Trimmer believes that advances in this area will come from
computer science, morphological computation, and artificial
intelligence as scientists explore the use of the material
properties of structures to achieve control.
“Instead of having everything centralized in a computer, you
actually use the body itself to accomplish many of the

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Fall 2013 – Google Glass Allows Surgeons to Multitask


Philips Healthcare

By Maria Doyle

Philips Healthcare and Accenture are developing a new way to
help surgeons deliver more efficient and effective patient care
using Google Glass technology.
Google Glass is wearable technology that looks like eyeglasses, but without the lenses. Instead, a small prism on the right
side displays information via a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection
to the MyGlass app on Android or iOS devices.
Google Glass was rolled out to early adopters this year, and the
company is encouraging these users to share innovative ways
they use the product. Software developers are also writing new
applications for Glass in a variety of fields.

patient’s vital signs into Google Glass, for hands-free, voice
controlled access to critical data.
Anthony (Tony) Jones, M.D., is the vice president and chief
marketing officer for patient care and clinical informatics at
Philips Healthcare. He explains, “The most exciting potential
application of Google Glass in healthcare is the ability to allow
providers to ‘virtually’ be in two places at once, which will have
a significant impact on workflow and patient care.”
For instance, imagine a doctor or nurse is with a patient and
he or she is doing a basic procedure that requires both hands.
An alarm or alert is triggered in another room.

Researchers from the Philips Digital Accelerator Lab, a newly
formed unit tasked with rapid prototyping of new solutions,
have collaborated with their colleagues from Accenture
Technology Labs to explore the potential uses of Google Glass
in clinical settings.

“Rather than interrupting the current procedure, the provider
can use the verbal commands to call up the patient monitoring
data that’s triggering the alert," Jones explains. “At that point,
the provider can decide whether the alarm can wait or whether it needs immediate action.”

They are looking at how Google Glass can be used during
surgical procedures to allow doctors to access information
quickly and easily. Google Glass can connect to Philips
IntelliVue Solutions to deliver the seamless transfer of a

Similarly, bringing some of the basic vital signs info from the
monitor directly into the field of vision via Google Glass allows
the provider to do the procedure and view the feedback data
without taking their eyes off of the patient.

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Fall 2013 – Google Glass Allows Surgeons to Multitask

“It sounds simple, but small workflow improvements like this
can reduce errors and have a significant impact on patient
care,” Jones says.
Brent Blum, wearable display practice lead at Accenture
Technology Labs, adds, “With the proliferation of wearable
devices comes a number of really exciting use cases for
surgeons, anesthesiologists, first responders, ER staff, and any
other healthcare professional that could benefit from access to
information in a hands-free way.
“Beyond healthcare, we’re exploring the impact of wearable
devices on a number of other industries to help demonstrate
what’s possible with this emerging technology in terms of
making a mobile, hands-free workforce more productive and
efficient,” Blum says.

Google Glass

Google Glass’ video feature was used in an actual surgery this
past June when a surgeon base in Madrid used the technology
to stream video of a surgery in real-time over the internet to
other doctors watching in the United States. Other doctors have
used the Google Glass video feature as a training tool, to allow
others to see the same view they do when performing a surgery.
As with many new technologies in the healthcare industry,
concerns about patient privacy and information security have
been raised, but since this application is still in its infancy
there should be time to iron out these issues.

Google Glass sold for $1,500, the retail version is expected to
be priced about the same as a new smartphone – in the $300
to $400 range.
This infographic by MHADegree.org gives additional information
on how Google Glass could revolutionize the medical industry.
How do you envision Google Glass being used in the healthcare industry, or other industries?

Jones concludes, “Philips was inspired by the potential of
exploring Google Glass in a clinical setting. Within two weeks,
the [Philips and Accenture] team was able to take a mobile
Android app and install it on the Glass platform.
“We’re particularly proud of the fact that our team went
beyond the original challenge of mocking up a solution and
actually delivered a working demonstration. We’ve been
working on extending many of our applications to smartphones and tablets. We’re very excited about the opportunity to
port these apps to Google Glass and work with our customers
to discover novel solutions using the platform.”
Google Glass won’t be released to the consumer market until
sometime next year, although the initial Explorer version of

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Fall 2013 – Vending Machines Dispense Bicycle Helmets


Hubway

Vending Machines Dispense Bicycle Helmets in Boston
By Jon Marcus

A green solution to traffic congestion and carbon emissions,
bike-sharing programs have become ubiquitous in crowded
cities worldwide, letting users check out bicycles from kiosks
to commute, ride across town, or sightsee.

comes up. Every bike-rental fleet in the country has to deal
with this issue.”
Now there may be a solution. After two years of design work
that started in a mechanical engineering class, a team of
recent MIT grads has designed a bicycle helmet vending
machine that will be launched this month in Boston.

But even as it’s helping solve one problem, bike-sharing has
created another: It’s put bicycle riders on city streets without
figuring out a way to loan them helmets.
That’s created legal and promotional problems in cities like
Vancouver, where provincial laws require cyclists to wear
helmets; a requirement that’s delayed the bike-share program
for years. In Melbourne and Brisbane, Australia, which also
require helmets by law, the bike-share programs were so
underused that the government offered 200 helmets to riders
for free to boost business.
Trouble is, creating a vending machine to dispense and retrieve
bicycle helmets has proven a significant technological trial.
“It’s a very difficult challenge because of the shape and bulk of
helmets,” says Andy Clarke, president of the League of
American Bicyclists advocacy group and a former city bicycle
planner. “We’ve heard all kinds of stories about inflatable or
foldable helmets. And the cleanliness issue is something that

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The machines, dubbed HelmetHubs, will be attached to four of
the city’s 108 Hubway bike-share stations where records show
riders are least likely to wear helmets. Another 10 are scheduled to be installed over the next few months. Each machine
can hold 36 unisize helmets with adjustable straps, and a
24-hour rental will cost about $2 on a credit card.
The toughest obstacle for the designers was figuring out a way
for users to return the helmets. An open receptacle on a city
street, they feared, might attract trash. So they put RFID, or
radio-frequency identification chips in loaner helmets, which
activate a door on the machine.
The devices can’t sanitize the helmets; that would require a
more significant power source than it uses to run the
credit-card reader. So, once they’ve been returned, the
helmets will be picked up and brought to a warehouse to be

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Fall 2013 – Vending Machines Dispense Bicycle Helmets

cleaned. But the engineers hope that future incarnations of
the machines will disinfect the helmets automatically.
The long slog from problem to solution started when Boston’s
bicycle coordinator appealed to an MIT mechanical-engineering class two years ago to prototype a helmet dispenser.
It was a thankless assignment.
“There were a lot of conversations about how the hell are we
going to do this,” says one of the students, Breanna Berry.
But they took it on anyway.
“The challenge was one of the things that attracted us to it.
Helmets are really awkward. They’re an awkward shape. So
the dispensing and the return were hard to figure out. And how
do you get a lot of helmets in a small space?”

HelmetHub

After graduation, Mills and Berry moved to a startup accelerator lab; neither drew a salary, and Berry worked in a restaurant to pay the bills. Eventually, they found investors and a
manufacturer—Big Belly Solar, which makes solar-powered
public trash compactors.

After they came up with their proposal, satisfying their
academic obligation, Berry and a classmate, Chris Mills—an
ardent cyclist—decided to keep working on it when they
graduated last year.
“A couple of us thought, ‘Maybe we should keep going with
this,’” Berry says. “It was very apparent that this wasn’t a bad
business model to get involved in, and that bike-sharing was
growing worldwide.”
There are 535 bike-sharing programs worldwide, according to
the Earth Policy Institute, collectively loaning out an estimated
half-million bicycles. That’s twice as many as when Mills and
Berry began to work on the vending-machine problem.

Each of their helmet dispensers costs $10,000, and there’s
been interest from companies that supply bike-share bikes
and cities that are pushing them. That’s an enormous worldwide market. And there are potential uses at ski resorts and
elsewhere.
“It’s an intriguing project,” says Clarke, the cycling advocate.
“And it’s a fascinating design and engineering issue.”

Yet fewer than one in five people who use bike-share bikes
wear helmets, compared to more than half of those who own
their own bicycles, according to researchers from Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center. And cyclists who don’t wear
helmets are as much as 88 percent more likely to suffer head
injuries in crashes than those who do. In Boston, half the
cyclists in crashes to which paramedics have had to be called
weren’t wearing helmets.

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Fall 2013 – Can Crowdfunding Boost Engineering?


Witold Mielniczek

Can Crowdfunding Boost Engineering and Design Innovation?
By Maria Doyle

Crowdfunding—already well established in our lexicon—is the
way to raise capital for hip new projects. From 3D doodlers
to flying cars, it’s disrupting the way enterprises, entrepreneurs, non-profits, and individuals raise capital – enabling
large numbers of individuals to fund a project or company,
with each backer contributing a small percentage of the
total investment.
The fundamental idea behind crowdfunding is anyone can set
up a new product or project and invite others to help fund it
within a specific time frame. Each project has a funding goal
and contributors can kick in as little as a few dollars to
thousands. Typically, supporters will get a token gift or special
status updates for their help.
There were over 500 active crowdfunding platforms in 2012,
raising $2.7 billion dollars, according to crowdfunding site Go
Get Funding, and that is set to increase to $5.1 billion by the
end of this year.

KEM STUDIO funded its industrial design project SKATE
BENCH No 1 on Kickstarter and raised over $17,000 to
manufacture a bench which incorporates a custom skateboard
deck atop a continuously bent stainless steel or powder coated
frame. The design was a finalist in the 2012 IDEA awards.
GoldieBlox, a toy designed by engineer Debbie Sterling to get
girls interested in engineering, also got its big break with
Kickstarter. The project raised $150,000 in just four days,
ultimately collecting $285,000. On the last day of the
campaign, Sterling was contacted by Toys R Us, who will be
featuring the new toy on their shelves.
In addition to Kickstarter, there are industry-specific crowdfunding platforms for science and technology, such as FundaGeek, TechMoola, RocketHub and the #SciFund Challenge.
It’s likely, however, that these will consolidate and only the
highest quality crowdfunding sites will thrive.

According to IEEE, science and technology currently make up a
very small percentage of the total number of crowdfunded
projects, but as crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and
Indiegogo become wildly successful and R&D budgets tighten,
more engineers and industrial designers may join the trend.

As crowdfunding grows in popularity, the business strategies
surrounding it become more complex. Jumpstart Our
Business Startups Act (or JOBS Act), signed in April of 2012,
includes a Crowdfund Act which will allow ordinary investors
the opportunity to invest in small or early stage startups in
exchange for company equity. (Currently, only individuals who

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Fall 2013 – Can Crowdfunding Boost Engineering?

meet certain wealth or income requirements are allowed to
invest in private companies in exchange for ownership.)
Pending the creation of SEC regulations expected later this
year, new businesses will be able to make their own IPOs and
enable small investors to act as venture capitalists. This would
involve much larger sums than most of the crowdfunded
projects today, and Kickstarter has already stated it will forego
any type of equity-based crowdfunding due to the success of
their current “gifts and perks” model.
By allowing equity investment, lawmakers expect to supercharge crowdfunding, and proponents believe this will give job
creators access to more capital and will spur innovation
across a wider range of companies and industries – including
science, technology, and engineering. However, detractors feel
that by allowing unaccredited investors to participate in online
equity crowdfunding there is more opportunity to scam
investors through fraudulent offerings.

Goldie Blox

Is crowdfunding a good idea for the engineering community?
Share your thoughts and experiences about crowdfunding.

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Fall 2013 – Using Smartphones to Diagnose Disease


Withings

Using Smartphones to Diagnose Disease
By Bill Bulkeley

Engineers are taking advantage of the flexibility of apps and
the computing power of smartphones to replicate the
functions of medical devices and even laboratory instruments.
Smartphone based medical apps started to proliferate two
years ago. Handy integrated devices like the $129 Withings
blood pressure monitor simplified the process of tracking
personal health. This year, the level of sophistication has taken
a significant leap.
Take for instance the NetraG from Massachusetts-based
EyeNetra. The company, which develops mobile diagnostic
tools to aid eye-care, is working on manufacturing an effective
diagnostic system using plastic lenses mounted on a smartphone. By replacing autorefractors—the expensive medical
devices optometrists use to prescribe glasses—EyeNetra says
it can cut eye-care costs by thousands of dollars.
The device works by determining how accurately a person’s
eyes focus on light. Placing the NetraG viewer against a
smartphone screen displaying colored lines, the user spins a
dial to align the sets of lines. The app calculates the inaccuracy
in the person’s focus and prescribes corrective lenses. It can
diagnose near-sightedness, far-sightedness, and astigmatism.

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Eyenetra, which was started by Vitor Pamplona, a MIT graduate student from Brazil, hopes to transform eye-care in the
developing world by giving consumers cheap, easily administered eye exams.
In the United States, only optometrists can write prescriptions
for vision correction. But in areas of the world with fewer
regulations like India, which has 300 million people with
impaired vision and relatively few optometrists, Eyenetra could
make a big difference by providing affordable care.
Eyenetra is signing partnership agreements with various
Indian eye-related enterprises, and last month it demonstrated working models of its product at an MIT introductory
session for freshmen.
Meanwhile, Scanadu, a California-based company, is connecting smartphone technology with EKG monitors, blood-pressure sensors, and thermometers to provide patients feedback
on their vital signs. Scanadu’s $199 cookie-sized electronic
puck can be pressed to the forehead to collect data that is then
transmitted to a smartphone for analysis.
Walter de Brouwer, a Belgian engineer and founder of Scanadu, predicts that empowering patients with their own devices

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Fall 2013 – Using Smartphones to Diagnose Disease

to monitor their vital signs will transform healthcare.
“We have never had access to this kind of information before,”
say de Brouwer, who hopes that sensing abnormalities in
blood pressure, heart rate, and stress levels with the device
will prompt patients to take corrective action before a heart
attack or stroke occurs.
Scanadu has certainly attracted public attention. Using the
crowdfunding site IndieGoGo, it raised $1.6 million last
summer, a record at the time.
In the Midwest, University of Illinois researchers are using a
smartphone camera and its processing power to perform
sophisticated laboratory-equivalent tests for allergens,
pathogens, and toxins in food or soil.

Andrew Thomas Ryan, Tangible Media Group, MIT

The device consists of an app and an attachment to the phone
that the team calls a “cradle.” This wedge-shaped attachment
that fits on the back of the phone contains optical components,
lenses and filters, and a compartment where a sample is
placed. It is positioned to allow the phone’s camera to measure
the spectrum of light coming through the sample and into the
camera, and provides a result in just a few minutes.
According to the University of Illinois team, the cradle provides
a result as accurate as from a $50,000 lab spectrophotometer
at a fraction of the cost, and it can easily be carried around for
field tests.

racehorses for illegal painkillers at tracks. Environmental
scientists could identify toxins and certain pollutants in soil
and water samples.
With this technology, Cunningham says, “you can detect
molecular things, like pathogens, disease biomarkers, or DNA,
things that are currently only done in big diagnostic labs with
lots of expense and large volumes of blood.”
Cunningham is currently negotiating with potential partners,
and a prototype product might be ready within a year.

“A lot of medical conditions might be monitored very inexpensively and non-invasively using mobile platforms like phones,”
said Brian T. Cunningham, professor of bioengineering at
University of Illinois, in a telephone interview.
The new device, which isn’t likely to be used for medical
diagnostics in the U.S. because of regulatory challenges, has
promising applications in developing countries where it could
be used to test for iron or vitamin A deficiency in pregnant
women, without the need of sending samples to a distant lab.
Cunningham says the device could also be used in veterinary
medicine to test large animals without needing to send
samples out to laboratories. Another use might be to test

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Fall 2013


PTC Product Lifecycle Stories brings you the latest news and trends in design innovation and manufacturing. Subscribe to PTC
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PTC Product Lifecycle Stories eMagazine- Fall 2013

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PTC Product Lifecycle Stories eMagazine- Fall 2013