Chris Anderson has an crucial message from the future : Did you know you could outsource manufacturing ?
The problem is that they so are n’t . Atoms are tangible , finite thing . Until 3D printers can do more than squirt out monophonic - material rosin sculptures — inevitable , perhaps , but not within the next decade — even the at - base rotation that Anderson puts up as an exemplar of a unexampled manner of manufacturing consumer good is n’t really fresh at all . Until that glorious daytime , Anderson suggests American fancier maker outsource the dirty oeuvre to China .
“ Today , micro - factories make everything from cars to bike component to call for piece of furniture in any intention you’re able to envisage , ” claims Anderson .
We used to call “ micro - manufactory ” “ little businesses ” , but that was before we knew they were a revolution .
It ’s painful for me to charge this out , because many of the multitude involve in this so - called “ revolution ” are my acquaintance . They ’re smart people doing admirable , cunning thing . But at good they ’re changing the way hobbyist and dress shop manufacture work . The futurity of mainstream industry stay about the same as it ’s been for the last thirty old age .
Reinventing Wheels
Let us fisk . Anderson ’s opening representative isLocal Motors , a workshop which is building a $ 50k “ crowdsourced ” car with a Creative Commons - licensed design :
The Rally Fighter ’s body was designed by Local Motors ’ community of Tennessean and put the lie to the whimsey that you ca n’t create anything good by citizens committee ( so long as the residential area is well managed , well chair , and well equip with tools like 3 - D design software and photorealistic rendering engineering ) . The consequence is a car that puts Detroit to shame .
I guess the Rally Fighter is nifty , but get real : It ’s not all that different that designs from major manufacturers . Moreover , you ’ll find in the very next paragraph that the innovation sprung first from the mind of a single individual , a conception student named Sangho Kim .
So great . There ’s a car company building a kit railroad car that habituate a BMW crate railway locomotive . you’re able to download their plans — but not their role — for free . They plan on trade a couple thousand .
So what ?
There are wads of kit car manufacturers in the United States . impart in the tradition car party likeDevonor coach builders likeSportsmobileand you ’re up into the hundreds .
It ’s very bully that they designed their auto with input signal from others online . But until I can go down to the local Local Motors monger and trial ram one for myself , you’re able to hardly call it a revolution . Open source is a nice way for information to disseminate , to make a project well ; its addition does not guarantee a revolutionary — or even successful — business model .
Why Pay Licensing Fees?
Everyone knows aboutBrickarms , correct ? They make weapons for the Lego men that Lego themselves wo n’t make . They ’re a fun small thing for hardcore Lego fans who require their minifigs to wield Uzis or grenade .
Anderson offers Brickarms up as an example of … something . Perhaps of inexpensive prototyping ? Brickarms ’ owner , Will Chapman , models his weapons at home on his computer , makes his own simple moulding using a gimcrack CNC router , and then hired man - presses the Lego arm to sell online .
If you go to Brickarms website mightily now , you ’ll see that they ’ve block taking orders so they can “ bewitch up ” on manufacturing . The future of concern , apparently , is not cause enough supply to meet your requirement .
Please also note that in Anderson ’s companion TV for his piece , he single out Brickarms ’ unofficial Halo gear as an example of something that the grocery store has asked for but Lego and Microsoft have not provided . But when introducing Local Motors earlier in the composition , Anderson observe , “ One problem with the kit - car business … is that the vehicles are typically pattern after famous racing and mutation cars , make lawsuits and license fees a constant burden . ”
Guess when worrying about licensing fee is unneeded ? When your business is too small to make big money .
China Is Not A Robot
There are several other vaguely supportive examples in Anderson ’s piece , but the one I find most grind isDIY Drones , Anderson ’s own company which sells cheap kits from which you could build up your own UAVs . It ’s a fine little troupe with a fine little project , but to hear Anderson lecture about it he ’s stumbled on an entirely new path to run a job , when in fact he ’s plainly experiencing what it is like to run a commercial enterprise in the modern era .
Here ’s how DIY Drones makes their kit :
1 . Anderson hire a “ 21 - class - old high school alum from Mexico ” to facilitate him make a intent .
2 . They commit their conception to a Colorado company , Sparkfun .
3 . Sparkfun sends the design to China , where elfin robots make “ millions of them using automatize etching , boring , and cutting simple machine . ”
4 . “ That ’s it . ”
Except it ’s not . Those PCBs are made by human being in factories . Factories that are at the good of clock time less than cushy , populated by worker without a conjugation .
To wonder that you could convince a Taiwanese fellowship to make a little batch of electronics for you ? In many cases , that ’s whenconditions are tough . endeavor to get something that is more than a greenboard made and you ’re back to standard manufacturing issues like making dies for stamp parts . Why ? Because tangible 3D printer do n’t be yet .
Using the web to communicate with Taiwanese factories is an improvement … over the fax car . But the material revolution is that it only costs a few Pearl Buck to send a part from Shenzen to Sunnyvale . You want to babble out revolution ? Thank FedEx .
There Is No “Virtual Manufacturing”
Here ’s Anderson ’s penultimate paragraph , right before his electrify - by - numbers “ Welcome to the next Industrial Revolution ” kicker :
How big can these small enterprises get ? Most of the companies I ’ve delineate deal thousand of units – 10,000 is considered a breakout winner . But one that has graduated to the big league is Aliph , which makes the Jawbone noise - cancel wireless headsets . Aliph was founded in 1999 by two Stanford graduate , Alex Asseily and Hosain Rahman , and it now sells one thousand thousand of headsets each year . But it has no manufacturing plant . It outsource all of its production . And though more than a thousand people help to make Jawbone headsets , Aliph has just over 80 employees . Everyone else work for its product married person . It ’s the ultimate virtual manufacture company : Aliph makes bits and its better half make atoms , and together they can take on Sony .
Here is the key deceit : a line get between hobbyist wee a few item for sales event , and westerly design outfit that work essentially as branding consultant for Chinese empire .
Just because an enterpriser can plough the former into the latter with more public convenience than ever before does n’t make it novel . It sure enough does n’t make it moral . And it damn well does n’t make it good for business .
It ’s great that hobbyists can make ever more complex detail , sell them on the internet , and have a small business . But the same mental process used by Aliph to manufacturer Bluetooth headset ( and contain in mind it takes 80 people just to coordinate this ! ) is exactly the same outsourcing summons used by Apple to make iPhones .
But the remainder between an Apple or a Sony versus a Brickarms or a Local Motors is vast , both in auxiliary armed service propose like warrantees or technical funding , to the only metric by which any industrial rotation can be measure : profits .
Atoms are not bits . Bits are limitless resourcefulness . particle , as the underlying , literal ingredient on which a marketplace of scarceness is based , are not .
crap
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