The basic principles of modern manufacturing have been around
since the turn of the century. Assembly lines, mass production,
and interchangeable parts made it possible to produce large
numbers of products in a short time, and new manufacturing
methodologies like quality engineering, six sigma manufacturing
have made high levels of quality possible. This section will
explore modern manufacturing methodologies, point out what an
embedded systems engineer should know, and what parts of these
methodologies can be applied to other areas of embedded systems
engineering. An embedded needs to understand the basics of
manufacturing because manufacturing is an important part of life
cycle cost analysis. Also, its possible that some manufacturing
techniques can be applied to other areas of embedded systems
development. Quality techniques have become quite prominent in
many ultradependable or safety critical systems. Software
engineers are also exploring new software development methods
that rely on some manufacturing p