Practical Applications in Use Today

Abstract

Prediction is difficult, especially about the future, said J.D. Barrow; amusing and very true. However, there is no doubt that in today’s manufacturing business world one cannot avoid the fact that the rate of change is accelerating. Apart from conventional incremental innovation, radical innovation has become strategically very important and used as a source of competitive advantage in the global market place. The development of semisolid metal processing is an example of the full spectrum of experiences involved in turning a “research idea” to a successful “commercial product”. Following an unsuccessful attempt to exploit the technology directly by forming an entrepreneurial company, located on the famous Route128 ring road around Boston, the original MIT technology patents eventually were licensed to International telephone and telegraph corporation (ITT Corp.) in the late 1970s. ITT Corporation held the technology very closely, a practise which was also adopted by Alumax Inc., which acquired the technology from ITT Corporation around 1985. The philosophy of both corporations was to maintain tight secrecy around all developments of semisolid processing and to resist request for licensing or joint venture without stringent demands, which effectively eliminated all opportunities for the type of cross-fertilization, which in turn so greatly evolves as technical innovation. However, by around 1985, ITT Teves, a subsidiary of ITT Corporation and a leading manufacturer of braking systems, had established a semisolid manufacturing facility in Northern Germany, which sparked interest in a number of European manufacturers. As a consequence, in the late 1980s, a number of European manufacturers, having been rebuffed by Alumax, began to develop their own independent approaches for both raw material production and parts forming.