John Parsons –
A Master of Manufacturing
Stamping Press Team
Institute of Precision Engineering
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Oct. 23, 2007
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Outline of the presentation
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Society of Manufacturing Engineers
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Computer Numerical Control
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The Father of the Second Industrial Revolution
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Society of Manufacturing Engineers
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SME (Society of Manufacturing Engineers)
– SME's Core Purpose: To advance manufacturing knowledge.
– SME's Mission Statement: The mission of the Society of Manufacturing
Engineers is to be internationally recognized by manufacturing practitioners,
companies and other organizations as their source for information,
education and networking.
– SME's Long-Range Goal: To be the most influential, respected
manufacturing society.
– Manufacturing Engineering Magazine
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CNC Machine Tools
A CNC Turning Center
A CNC Milling Center
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CNC Machine Tools
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CNC (Computer Numerical Control) machine tools
– Improved automation
– Consistent and accurate workpieces
– Flexibility
– The most basic function of any CNC machine is automatic, precise,
and consistent motion control
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CNC was preceded by NC (Numerical Control)
machines, which were hard wired and their operating
parameters could not be changed.
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The Father of the Second Industrial Revolution
John T. Parsons (October 13,1913 – April 18, 2007)
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The Father of the Second Industrial Revolution
• How did his life in manufacturing begin?
– Born in Detroit in 1913.
– His first memory, at age 3, was filing a piece of iron.
– He learned to differentiate metals by their smell, in much the same
way others distinguish flowers.
– He grew up on the shop floor in an era when American industry
was young and visionary.
– He started working in his dad’s factory in 1927 at age 14 as an
assembler, and then he worked as an apprentice in the toolroom.
After awhile he was doing die repair and try-outs.
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The Father of the Second Industrial Revolution
• How fast did he progress in the company?
– Bid on a defense project to make landmines
– Manufactured 240,000 landmines a month in their Detroit plant
in 1941, they became the largest producer in the country.
– Bid on entire bomb casings
– Built a whole new plant in Traverse City, MI in 1942; built
15,000 a month
– Designed and engineered a complete fragmentation bomb
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The Father of the Second Industrial Revolution
• How did he become involved in aerospace work?
– Got acquainted with Bill Stout, the chief engineer for the Ford Tri-Motor
airplane in 1942
– Made a call that day to Igor Sikorsky, of Sikorsky Helicopters.
–Talked to purchasing agent
– Entered the rotor-blade business
– Made a blade with a 24" chord and 22' long
– One of the first 18 blades he made failed on December 1, 1944
A helicopter rotor blade has roughly the same freedom of movement
as a bird’s wings. It can move up and down (the flapping motion), it
can sway a bit within the rotor disc plane (lead-lag motion), and it can
be rotated along its longitudinal axis. The latter is referred to as
changing the blade’s pitch.
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The Father of the Second Industrial Revolution
• What was the next step in designing the blades?
– There should be a better way to design a rotor blade
– Visited Frank Stulen, head of the Rotary Wing Branch of the Propeller Lab
at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
– Started the engineering department for an aircraft division
– Used IBM punch-card accounting machines to speed up all the design
calculations
– Define an airfoil template, 17 points were given between the radii on the
upper and lower surfaces
– 200 points were given along the radius of each surface , made up a chart to
describe the x-axis and y-axis coordinates for a milling machine
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The Father of the Second Industrial Revolution
• How did the Air Force get involved with his process ?
– The Air Force had given a contract to Republic Aviation for a fighter plane, and
to Lockheed for a medium-range bomber with a 220' wingspan.
– Lockheed had contracted to design a machine to make these wings
– Prepared a dog-and-pony show for the government’s visit
– Received a $200,000 contract from the Air Force Air Material Command to
build an automated machine
– Collaborated with the MIT Servomechanisms Laboratory
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The Father of the Second Industrial Revolution
• Did MIT stay on track with the servomechanism portion of
the machine?
– MIT overshot their budget with John by about $50,000
– Put in his bid for a price increase, and MIT underbid him.
– MIT negotiated a new contract with the Air Force that essentially removed the
Parsons company from further development of the NC system
– 1952, MIT completed the NC machine
– A patent was issued to John T. Parsons on January 14, 1958 three months
before the MIT filing. The inventors were John T. Parsons and Frank Stulen.
Patent No. 2,821,187.
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The Father of the Second Industrial Revolution
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The Father of the Second Industrial Revolution
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The Father of the Second Industrial Revolution
• Got Bendix to license NC
• Sold his company in 1968
• Created a consulting and design firm to pursue development of
technology with the US Navy for the manufacture of controllable-pitch
propellers.
• The other works
– Developed a milling machine to produce polystyrene patterns,
– Developed another machine for automatic programming and tape preparation
for an NC machine
– Involved in several projects throughout the 1970s dealing with alternative
energy sources, including the conceptual design of a wind-energy system that
would use a 420' diam blade to produce power.
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The Father of the Second Industrial Revolution
• The other works (continue)
– He also pioneered adhesive bonding in metal aircraft structures, then built the
first all-composite airplane.
– He produced fuel lines that were 20” in diameter and 22' long for the Saturn
booster that launched the US astronauts to the moon.
– Parsons brought computers to aircraft design, manufacturing, and real-time
management reporting.
– Personally received approximately 15 US patents
– His business was awarded about 35 patents
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The Father of the Second Industrial Revolution
• Awards and accolades
– SME honored Parsons with an Engineering Citation as the person
whose “conceptualization of numerical control marked the beginning of the
second industrial revolution” in 1975
– SME Fellow since 1986, and an Honorary Member since 1998.
– An honorary engineering PhD from the University of Michigan in 1985
– He and his associate, Frank Stulen were among the first recipients of
the National Medal of Technology, which was presented to them by President
Ronald Reagan, in 1985
– Parsons was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1993
– Recognized by the SME as the "Father of the Second Industrial Revolution"
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