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The manufacturing has been an important activity through the ages. The traditional manufacturing methods
were wood working, casting, forging, forge welding, powder metallurgy, heat treatment, grinding and turning
etc. The manufacturing practice went on improving through centuries but the progress remained very slow.
The manufacturing industry got mechanised after the invention of the steam engine in 18th century. Several machine tools such as the lathe, grinders were improved, and others such as milling, drilling, boring, planer, shaper, power hack-saw etc. were developed to give faster production rate. Later on, during the development, useful applications of electricity in 19th century facilitated the use of independent electric motors for driving the machine tool spindles, and thus contributed towards further development of machine tools. With the passage of time, industrial automation paid a major role in development of the industry. Hard automation in the form of automatic turrets and special purpose machines contributed a lot towards in mass production. With the invention of minicomputers and microprocessors in the 20th century, the soft automation in the form of numerical control helped reduce batch size for precise manufacturing, and thus facilitated economical and frequent design changes. Development of powder metallurgy, non-conventional manufacturing processes, rapid prototyping, advanced welding techniques and measurement and instrumentation approaches contributed towards further advancement in manufacturing industry. These advanced manufacturing techniques present a lot of research opportunities in this area.
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