Trendsurfing: The personal factory (The Times)
By David Rowan
Reckon you could build a better mousetrap? Or maybe you think you could improve on Stradivari's violin designs? Now you are going to have to prove it. Thanks to a quiet technological revolution, modern industrial manufacturing has begun opening up to anyone with a web connection and a credit card. Whether you want a one-off aluminium espresso machine or a custom-made plastic catflap, you can now use a bunch of online manufacturing services that will turn your screen-based designs into one-of-a-kind physical objects. It's a trend that is being labelled "personal fabrication" - and if the forecasters are right, it promises to democratise the assembly line just as radically as computers reinvented communication.
Working from your own designs, some of the new systems use the equivalent of 3-D printers to manufacture the finished product, building layer upon layer of thin plastic to create the required shape. Others rely on laser-cutters and miniature grinding tools to cut patterns from steel or wood. Until recently, only industrial companies and professional designers could afford to use these highly customised production lines. But all of a sudden, new high-tech processes are sending prices low enough to attract low-budget home businesses and Saturday-afternoon hobbyists.
At the eMachineShop.com website, for instance, you plan your product using computer-aided design software, select the materials you want to use, and then click to pay and have the finished item made and posted to you. If you know what you want, the company says, the entire planning and ordering process can take 15 minutes. Depending on your ambitions and the quantities you order, unit prices range from a few pounds to a few hundred. Commissions so far have included anything from a saxophone mouthpiece to a replacement accelerator pedal for an MG sports car.
And this could be just the start. Neil Gershenfeld, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor, looks forward to the time 10 or 20 years away when £700 will buy a desktop fabrication machine for every home or office. Ultimately, he says, these small-scale fabrication laboratories "will be just like PCs - just technology that people have". You will feed them raw materials such as metal and wood, and then watch them custom build for you everything from crockery to electrical appliances.
It all sounds very Star Trek, but Gershenfeld is not lost in science fiction. Already his team has installed "fab labs" among farming communities in Ghana and India. The labs - in effect a collection of computer-controlled cutting and milling tools - are replacing tractor-engine parts and creating new metal tools. Specifications are determined locally, not by some mass-production plant thousands of miles away.
It's easy to understand why low-cost custom manufacturing is causing a buzz. Feel the urge to personalise your sofa? Simply alter the standard blueprint before e-mailing it back to the shop. Car door been smashed in an accident? Don't lose your no-claims bonus, just build yourself a replacement. Nobody's asking, though, whether we're all actually cut out to be product designers. As the bloggers have shown, the ease of churning something out does not necessarily endow it with value.
(The Times Magazine, October 29 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE TRENDSURFING COLUMNS HERE . . .
Reckon you could build a better mousetrap? Or maybe you think you could improve on Stradivari's violin designs? Now you are going to have to prove it. Thanks to a quiet technological revolution, modern industrial manufacturing has begun opening up to anyone with a web connection and a credit card. Whether you want a one-off aluminium espresso machine or a custom-made plastic catflap, you can now use a bunch of online manufacturing services that will turn your screen-based designs into one-of-a-kind physical objects. It's a trend that is being labelled "personal fabrication" - and if the forecasters are right, it promises to democratise the assembly line just as radically as computers reinvented communication.
Working from your own designs, some of the new systems use the equivalent of 3-D printers to manufacture the finished product, building layer upon layer of thin plastic to create the required shape. Others rely on laser-cutters and miniature grinding tools to cut patterns from steel or wood. Until recently, only industrial companies and professional designers could afford to use these highly customised production lines. But all of a sudden, new high-tech processes are sending prices low enough to attract low-budget home businesses and Saturday-afternoon hobbyists.
At the eMachineShop.com website, for instance, you plan your product using computer-aided design software, select the materials you want to use, and then click to pay and have the finished item made and posted to you. If you know what you want, the company says, the entire planning and ordering process can take 15 minutes. Depending on your ambitions and the quantities you order, unit prices range from a few pounds to a few hundred. Commissions so far have included anything from a saxophone mouthpiece to a replacement accelerator pedal for an MG sports car.
And this could be just the start. Neil Gershenfeld, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor, looks forward to the time 10 or 20 years away when £700 will buy a desktop fabrication machine for every home or office. Ultimately, he says, these small-scale fabrication laboratories "will be just like PCs - just technology that people have". You will feed them raw materials such as metal and wood, and then watch them custom build for you everything from crockery to electrical appliances.
It all sounds very Star Trek, but Gershenfeld is not lost in science fiction. Already his team has installed "fab labs" among farming communities in Ghana and India. The labs - in effect a collection of computer-controlled cutting and milling tools - are replacing tractor-engine parts and creating new metal tools. Specifications are determined locally, not by some mass-production plant thousands of miles away.
It's easy to understand why low-cost custom manufacturing is causing a buzz. Feel the urge to personalise your sofa? Simply alter the standard blueprint before e-mailing it back to the shop. Car door been smashed in an accident? Don't lose your no-claims bonus, just build yourself a replacement. Nobody's asking, though, whether we're all actually cut out to be product designers. As the bloggers have shown, the ease of churning something out does not necessarily endow it with value.
(The Times Magazine, October 29 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE TRENDSURFING COLUMNS HERE . . .
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