If you're retiring in the next 5 years or have lost your passion for making things, just skip this blurb. It won't interest you much.
But for everyone else, this should be as compelling a topic as you're likely to find.
3-D printing and "distributed digital production" will touch or change every aspect of how things are made, shipped, bought and used. And the technology and logistics either exist or are in development today. The times to manufacturer and deliver products will become so different that channels and technologies that exist today will be wiped away and replaced by completely different ones.
Larry Rhoades was an innovator of the first order. Smart, passionate, and successful, I knew Larry from a distance. That's to say, he was an acquaintance of mine and several of my good friends and colleagues knew him quite well.
Suffice to say, the man was no huckster.
Larry started a company called Ex One Corporation - a company that plays a leading role in not only the machines that "print" parts in layers to create 3-D objects and products, but also the business acumen around them. The machines from Ex One are expensive, as all new technologies are early in their development and acceptance cycles.
But Larry's (and others') dreams are accelerating and stand to open up wellsprings of creativity and commerce around the world, touching everyone in ways we can't even comprehend.
Imagine:
- A man finds the fuel pump in his Chrysler Sebring is dead. He goes online to Pep Boys' Web site and downloads (buys) the CAD files for his fuel pump. He buys (virtually or actually) a "materials pack," loads it and the plans for the pump in the 3-D printer installed in his basement/garage, and in a few minutes he has his fuel pump ready to install.
- A woman follows the same process to "print" a coffee maker sent to her by her aunt in Oregon.
- Your college student in New Hampshire needs a new mouse, printer, cell phone or even a new laptop: same process.
And on, and on, and on ...
Now think about the disruption of distribution, retail, design, your business channels - it doesn't take long to see the ramifications.
Too often, manufacturers are caught unawares. Sometimes, technologies, emerging markets, economic conditions and customer demands all add up to a cacophony of change that it's hard to take seriously - much less make sense of.
But Larry knew, and he left us with a fantastic, simply written, easy-to-understand white paper before he passed away recently. It's not hard to draw the right conclusions from his words - a printer in every home, access to CAD files and plans through the Web, materials shipped directly to the user.
Titled "The Transformation of Manufacturing in the 21st Century," it is a must read for anyone in the manufacturing food chain.
