Through the years, with the assistance of U-M School of Art and Design students, we have been able to portray a visual representation of manufacturing through the times.

Modular Structures - 1997 Tara Lindstrom's mixed-media essay demonstrates structures made up of simple modular components repeat themselves throughout the environment. The piece goes from the mechanistic to the natural world.

Time Line - 1998 Janet Williams narrates the history of manufacturing from the beginning when large measures of human labor (clay pyramids) and raw materials (black sand) were expended to produce very few finished products (aluminum plates). The practice of recycling scrap material (wood prisms) reduced the need for raw material, and the introduction of machine tools (cylinder matrices) made human labor more productive.

Part Family- 1998 Janet Williams narrates the history of manufacturing from the beginning when large measures of human labor (clay pyramids) and raw materials (black sand) were expended to produce very few finished products (aluminum plates). The practice of recycling scrap material (wood prisms) reduced the need for raw material, and the introduction of machine tools (cylinder matrices) made human labor more productive.

Paradigms - 2004 Muralist Anne Falardeau has captured the history of manufacturing in our RMS testbed. The mural's narrative starts with manual labor, progresses to manufacturing automation, and finishes in a future where reconfigurable technologies will lead us into the future.