The first issue of SME's Smart Manufacturing magazine, now available online and in print, honors the leading thinkers, makers and doers in manufacturing who are helping to make the Fourth Industrial Revolution, often referred to as Industry 4.0, a reality.

DEARBORN, Mich., May 3, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The first issue of SME's Smart Manufacturing magazine, now available online and in print, honors the leading thinkers, makers and doers in manufacturing who are helping to make the Fourth Industrial Revolution, often referred to as Industry 4.0, a reality.

Smart Manufacturing is published by Advanced Manufacturing Media, which is part of SME, an organization that promotes advanced manufacturing technology and develops a skilled workforce. The first issue can be downloaded for free at www.sme.org/smart.

"The first issue of Smart Manufacturing is really a celebration of many of those in manufacturing who have had the foresight to develop and adopt cutting-edge digital technologies and drive manufacturing into a new era of competitiveness," said Sarah A. Webster, editor in chief of Advanced Manufacturing Media. "These leaders are helping to make U.S. manufacturing more competitive every day."

The mission of the new quarterly magazine, which supplements Advanced Manufacturing Media's monthly Manufacturing Engineering magazine, is to educate manufacturing professionals about the digital changes and opportunities already underway in manufacturing by telling the stories of shops and factories making investments in these new technologies.

"In our first issue, we introduce 30 visionaries focused on running efficient, lean, safe, responsive and sometimes shared shops and factories," said Brett Brune, editor of Smart Manufacturing magazine. "We also provide a primer on how the cyber and physical worlds are being merged to improve quality, customization, safety and costs. And we provide a space for executives to talk about innovations, such as the 'data lake,' that can propel smart manufacturing forward. Our goal is to deliver the intelligence industry executives, engineers and other entrepreneurs need to learn and thrive as they apply Internet of Things and other technological gains to manufacturing."

Profiled in the first issue of the magazine are these 30 leaders who are merging the cyber and physical worlds in manufacturing:

Bryce Barnes, Senior Manager, Machine and Robot Segment, Cisco IoT
Dean Bartles, Chief Manufacturing Officer, UI Labs, and Executive Director, DMDII
Carl Bass, President and Chief Executive Officer, Autodesk
Stephan Biller, Chief Manufacturing Scientist, GE
Sujeet Chand, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Rockwell Automation
Jim Davis, Vice Provost, IT & Chief Academic Technology Officer, UCLA; Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition
Thomas F. Edgar, Chairman, Chemical Engineering, University of Texas, Austin, and Co-founder, Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition
Dave Edstrom, Chief Technology Officer, Memex
Franz Gruber, Chief Executive Officer, Forcam
Karen Kerr, Senior Managing Director, Advanced Manufacturing, GE Ventures
Scott Hibbard, Vice President of Technology, Bosch Rexroth
Jeff Immelt, Chief Executive Officer, GE
Jay Lee, Professor, Department of Mechanical & Materials Engineering, University of Cincinnati; Founding Director, National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center on Intelligent Maintenance Systems
Dennis O. Little, Vice President of Production, Lockheed Martin Space Systems
David McPhail, President & Chief Executive Officer, Memex
Greg Morris, Additive Technologies Leader, GE Aviation
Joel Neidig, Engineer & Lead IT Developer, ITAMCO
Keith Nosbusch, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Rockwell Automation
Brian Papke, President, Mazak
Drura Parrish, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, MakeTime
David A. Patterson, Professor, Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley
Jason Prater, Vice President of Development, Plex Systems
Denise Swink, Chief Executive Officer, Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition
William Sobel, Chief Strategy Officer, System Insights
Pete Tecos, Executive Vice President, 5ME
Florian Weigmann, Managing Director, AXOOM
Jim Wetzel, Technical Director, General Mills; Board Chairman, Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition
Dave Wickelhaus, Managing Systems Engineer, TechSolve
Deborah L. Wince-Smith, President & Chief Executive Officer, Council on Competitiveness
Detlef Zuehlke, Professor of Industrial Automation, Technical University of Kaiserslautern; Director of Human-Machine Interaction, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence; Chief Executive Officer, SmartFactoryKL
About Advanced Manufacturing Media
SME's Advanced Manufacturing Media is a leading source for news and in-depth technical information about advanced manufacturing in North America. It serves an audience of more than 100,000 manufacturing professionals who subscribe to the monthly magazine, iTunes app, e-newsletters and other publications. Coverage is focused on some of the world's most critical industries: aerospace and defense, motorized vehicles, medical and energy, whether that's oil and gas, nuclear, electric, solar or wind. Learn more at advancedmanufacturing.org, follow @MfgEngNews on Twitter or facebook.com/AdvancedManufacturingMedia.

About SME
SME connects all those who are passionate about making things that improve our world. As a non-profit organization, SME has served practitioners, companies, educators, governments and communities across the manufacturing spectrum for more than 80 years. Through its strategic areas of events, media, membership, training and development, and the SME Education Foundation, SME is uniquely dedicated to the advancement of manufacturing by addressing both knowledge and skill needs for the industry. Follow @SME_MFG on Twitter or facebook.com/SMEmfg.