Page 24 - Manufacturing Engineering and Technology - Kalpakjian, Serope : Schmid, Steven R.

General Introduction
TABLE l.l

Approximate Number of Parts in Products

Common pencil 4
Rotary lawn mower 300
Grand piano 12,000
Automobile 15,000
Boeing 747-400 6,000,000

Copper hydraulic
tubing

Brass and Cast-aluminum
steel bolts cylinder head
Ceramic housing, platinum
electrode spark plugs
Microhoned cast iron
Forgedsteel cylinder bore liners
crankshaft
-1- Powder-metal
B|anked'Steel connecting rods
spur gear
Graphite-coated cast-
Copper brushes aluminium pistons
(inside alternator)

Polymer manifolds removed for clarity

FIGURE l.l Illustration of an automotive engine (the Duratec V-6), showing various
components and the materials used in making them. Source: Courtesy of Ford Motor
Company. Illustration by D. Kimball.

drawings, as well as markings on clay tablets and stone, needed (1) some form of a
brush and some sort of “paint,” as in the prehistoric cave paintings in Lascaux,
France, estimated to be 16,000 years old; (2) some means of scratching the clay
tablets and baking them, as in cuneiforrn scripts and pictograrns of 3000 B.C.; and
(3) simple tools for making incisions and carvings on the surfaces of stone, as in the
hieroglyp/vs in ancient Egypt.
The manufacture of items for specific uses began with the production of various
household artifacts, which were typically made of either wood, stone, or metal. The
materials first used in making utensils and ornamental objects included gold, copper,
and iron, followed by silver, lead, tin, bronze (an alloy of copper and tin), and brass
(an alloy of copper and zinc). The processing methods first employed involved mostly
casting and /vanirnering, because they were relatively easy to perform. Over the cen-
turies, these simple processes gradually began to be developed into more and more
complex operations, at increasing rates of production and higher levels of product
quality. Note, for example, from Table I.2 that lathes for cutting screw threads already
were available during the period from 1600 to 1700, but it was not until some three
centuries later that automatic screw machines were developed.