Seventy ways to make ceramics

This is an attempt to classify ceramic manufacturing processes in such a way that the connections to related operations in other industries and to the ancient crafts of antiquity become apparent. The aim is to make it easier for students of ceramic processing to move seamlessly across a terrain that is conceptually integrated and therefore to find solutions to manufacturing problems through creativity informed by a pan-materials taxonomy of processes. This approach veers towards the ‘systematic’ method of creativity as exemplified by TRIZ but it is important to recognise that in some organisations the ‘chaos’ approach is also gaining recognition and what at first appears to be an oxymoron; ‘management for chaos’ is gaining acceptance. The relevance of an integrated approach to processing of materials is discussed in relation to the efficacy of the National System of Innovation (NSI).