With wishes of good health for the M&D community, I would like to start this message reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic with a sincere spirit of hope and solidarity. We are together worldwide, facing the same fears and challenges. At the same time, we must be united because as the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said,
"This spirit of human solidarity must become even more infectious than the virus itself. Although we may have to be physically apart from each other for a while, we can come together in ways we never have before" (Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General).
We are overwhelmed with news and recommendations related to how we should act concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. I encourage you to look for reliable sources of information and practice human solidarity.
In our mission to share manufacturing and design issues, I want to summarize some of the results of a recent survey made by the National Association of Manufacturers. According to the survey, 78.3% of manufacturing leaders expect a negative financial impact due to COVID-19, 53.1% are thinking of a change in operations, and 35.5% are facing supply chain disruptions. At the same time, there are many manufacturers changing their production to meet the needs of the country and help fight this virus. They are expediting the design process to manufacture and supply the products to the places in need. Design and manufacturing are essential components in this puzzle, and we are grateful for those contributing to the solutions.
We, the IISE Manufacturing Design Division, send our solidarity and appreciation to designers, manufacturers, nurses, physicians, scientists, engineers and all the personnel that risk their lives every day to help humanity.
While we let the heroes do their job, let's stay at home and do our part. For me, this has been a time to learn how to teach remotely with a high sense of responsibility to keep students encouraged and motivated while they are worried about the whole situation. This time has inspired me to be creative. My students cannot build their automated process prototypes, and I have to figure out a way to teach them about Process Automation without an actual Programmable Logic Controller. This time has also allowed me to enjoy my home, my family and the birds that visit my window. It has been a time to practice some statistics analyzing the COVID-19 data and making my predictions. I invite you to make the most of this time and look at the positive side of things. Hopefully, when all of this is over (because it does has an end date),
we will have learned many lessons to move forward.
In this newsletter
we can present you with new material, thanks to our External Relations Director Dr. Alaa Elwany along with the Newsletter Ad-hoc Committee and other volunteers. We invite you to learn about who are our volunteers in the Division Volunteers Highlight section. In each newsletter, we select 2-3 volunteers to highlight their work and share it with you.
We look forward to having you as one of our volunteers in the future! We also provide you with the opportunity to learn more about Additive Manufacturing/3D Printing for Construction thanks to the contribution of one of our M&D PhD students.
