Future Trends: 3D printing and crowdsourced manufacturing

Manufacturing sector has always been the main driver for economic growth and creation of wealth. Be it large industries or SMEs, they have a direct association in creating more jobs and allied services. One of the biggest concerns with manufacturing has always been that it is very resource-intensive. The factories need to be built near to raw material access. They are capital heavy to start. Logistics and distribution plays a crucial role in terms reach and cost. 

The advent of 3D printing technology will change the manufacturing/production model as we know now. Manufacturing might get crowd sourced. In the future, hundreds and thousands of small players (most working from home) will start making different components in small quantities and the same will be collected by the companies and assembled as the final product.

Imagine, a manufacturer of Air Conditioners. Except for the crucial components, say compressor, the other parts, like the body, blower, circuit board, etc can be done in various locations..by different people. Every important location can have assembly units, where all the various parts are collected and quality checked before distributed to local warehouses for distribution

The 3 reasons why I believe this is feasible:

1- Technology
2- Value
3- Human behaviour

Technology: Taking leaf out of Moore’s law, the improvisation of the technology will double every 2 years, and the cost will be halved, means that a $10,000 3d printing machine now will cost around 3-4K; which will be affordable to most. Also, in the next 3-4 years, the 3d printing protocol and methods will get better and standardised, which will help the products evolve from prototyping stage to production ready stage

Value: There are 3 key stakeholders in the crowdsourced production process - the company, the contractors (the crowd), and the consumer. Each of them have various reasons to believe and promote crowdsourced manufacturing. Here are few value proposition for each stakeholder.

For the company, 
Can focus on core part production; 
the cost of transportation will come down; more units can be despatched in the same container space
increase in market geographically; fragile and perishable parts can be manufactured in-market than in-factory
the brand affinity increases, as more people are involved in the production process

For the contractors:
An additional source of revenue
Ability to start small and grow large-scale, if needed

For the consumer:
Lower cost of the product
No need to worry about spares not being available (even, if the model is discontinued)..as it can be made on demand basis

Human Behaviour: Humans are inherently enterprising. It is this nature, that makes us create anything, be it abstract or material; In fact, till about few 1000 years back, we used to create to consume or barter our creation (trade). Since manufacturing was always a resource intensive activity, most people desisted from ‘creating’ stuff (it is another story, that distribution and marketing is even more harder than manufacturing). With crowd sourced 3d printing, this human desire of ‘creation’ or being part of creating something is fulfilled.

In next 5 years, the testing and acceptance of crowd sourced manufacturing would happen. The initial groundwork on commercial, delivery, collection, quality processes will be set. Then it is a question of scale and replication



image source: www.redorbit.com

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