When held in your hands, a sheet of buckypaper seems unimpressive, with its thin and flimsy texture more closely resembling a piece of carbon paper than a breakthrough material. But don't be fooled. This seemingly modest sheet of paper -- made from tube-shaped carbon molecules 50,000 times thinner than a human hair -- when stacked, nets a material that's 500 times stronger than steel, yet 10 times lighter.

Buckypaper's strength is only equaled by its unique properties. Unlike conventional composite materials, it conducts electricity similar to copper or silicon, yet disperses heat like steel or brass. As a material, buckypaper holds the promise of changing the way airplanes, automobiles and electronics are made.

Such breakthroughs hold the capacity to touch every aspect of our lives. Manufacturing has undergone startling changes over the last 20 years, including radical advances in materials, controls, communications, electronics and software. These developments have reduced the incidence of human error, allowed for the accumulation and study of performance data, created the possibility for instant contact with customers, and established flexibility in operations in ways that only a few visionaries might have imagined.

Today, innovation is being driven by a world suddenly grown smaller, where the ability to access and to influence technology is available to a wider range of individuals, spread across a growing number of industrializing nations. According to Cliff Waldman, an economist with the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI who co-authored a paper on innovation in the manufacturing sector, globalization is the single biggest driver of innovation today.

Rockwell Automation developed two self-powered wireless sensor nodes that were used on the BP tanker Loch Rannoch.

"We have seen more and more countries -- large, potentially powerful developing markets -- joining the global trading system, becoming both competitors and potential collaborators for us," says Waldman. "The challenges that these new emerging markets present should be clear drivers of innovation. We need to differentiate our products and processes, get more efficient and get more interesting to the rest of the world. In short, we need to be out there competing."

Making Devices Smarter

Technology isn't just reaching a wider audience of users, it's also getting smarter -- especially on the factory floor. According to Sujeet Chand, senior vice president for advanced technology and chief technology officer for Rockwell Automation, a smarter device implies a technology that holds a capacity for processing and communications. With processing capability, he says, intelligence can be embedded.

Sensing technologies are evolving at a rapid rate, allowing for the possibility of sensing at the device level. Today, for example, factories use motor protection devices such as circuit breakers, which sit on the power line monitoring a spike in current or power source. But, soon, with a little more intelligence in sensing, a device could sense the power consumption and power quality, monitoring and recording any changes in its status -- becoming not only a tool for control, but also providing feedback.

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