This is a draft of a textbook for a course in fabricator science, the studies underlying the new technology of digital manufacturing. This book is a new edition of Automated Fabrication—Improving Productivity in Manufacturing, originally published by Prentice Hall in 1993, reorganized and with substantial new material. It is being prepared as the text for two courses in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Southern California:

• ISE 232L, Manufacturing Processes, undergraduate
• ISE 511L, Computer-Aided Manufacturing, grad level

     The new book is undergoing some final preparations for you. When it is ready, the headings in the table of contents below will link directly to the respective chapters and sections. (“Ready” does not mean the book will be finished or complete. It means that the content will be sufficiently organized for you to use it productively. See Is This for You? for more information on the textbook for this course.) In the meantime, I’m making the first edition available to you to study from. At the present time, the table of contents below has an extra column on the right-hand side with links to the relevant sections of the first edition. You can also browse the table of contents of the entire first edition. There are two problems with the material you will find behind these links:

• While the entire text of the first edition is there, most of the pictures and most of the tables have not been uploaded yet. So for most pictures and tables, you will see only a caption.
• The first edition was published over ten years ago and a lot has changed since then. The old book is still valuable for conceptual content that explains the underlying principles of digital manufacturing, but detailed information on machines, materials, processes, and applications is outdated.