Bits of essays, I might get around to finishing someday...

Models for manufacturing in a knowledge economy.

It used to be, if you wanted something you bought it. This meant shopping in all it’s various forms. You could go to the shops, or buy from a catalogue and get your order delivered. The advent of the internet certainly had an impact on our shopping habits, if you could afford the shipping charges you could buy your goods from a global marketplace. It is a long list of web based companies that offer these services to us, their prospective clients. These technologies, these new means to purchase our goods and services could itself be about to change. The limits of conventional manufacturing may themselves soon be rendered obsolete.
The relationship between the consumer and the manufacturer.

If you look to the history of manufacturing always there is the relationship between the producer and the consumer. It has been a long history, prior to the industrial revolution and the advent of mass production, communities were relatively self sufficient. Within any given community the goods and services available were for the most part produced by local craftsmen. The study of our earliest histories, shows us there was trade happening at many different scales. There is plenty of evidence, (citation) of trade at what we would call now international level, the ancient silk road for instance, or the trade in gold from Celtic Ireland (native jewellery from that period has been discovered in Switzerland(Citation)). Perhaps I should point out the proclivity for pillage and plunder exercised by so many historic civilisations could well have been the means by which this ‘trade’ was exacted. The terms and conditions under which trade takes place may in some circumstances have improved the relationship between producer and customer but the raw mechanisms remain intact of supply and demand remain intact, even if the those who demand don't explicitly wave swords about ….in the pursuit of favourable terms...during price negotiations. Despite the advent of industrialised manufacturing, the decline of what we would now consider craft based industries unable to compete with cheaper mass produced goods, a core mechanism is still in play; the physical exchange of goods. While money may have become increasingly ephemeral and in a somewhat ironic twist all the more dangerous for it, there is no getting around the belligerent necessity of stuff. It comes from further afield than ever before in history and at a molecular level there have never been more complicated chemicals and substances at your fingertips. Yet still, you have to buy it from somewhere and it has to get delivered to your door. The technology underlying these transactions, credit systems, logistics, research and design all have benefited from the onward march of progress and now we are beginning to see some fundamental transformations in the relationship we have with this process. The oft decried critique of mass production, is the reduction in choice. As Henry Ford declared 'You can have it in any colour as long as it is black' The compensation in this alleged lack of choice is the reduction in cost to the consumer, and for many this seems a fair trade, those nostalgic for those halcyon days of handmade goods and diligent craftsmanship also forget the crushing intensity of physical labour so many suffered for so many centuries. The mawkish sentiment for rigidly enforced social castes aside there has been a a substantial benefit in return, a more equal society brought about by better access to labour saving goods and services. Those who point out the abuse of this technology forget how those same core technologies make their critique possible at all.
This potted history of the benefits of manufacture, leads us to the fundamentals of the modern consumer society. The availability of cheap goods, the resulting improvements to baseline living standards and as a result of this; an ever growing market of consumers looking to acquire ever better goods and services. The point I started out trying to make, and seem only to make passing mention of after a digression or two is the advent of new production techniques that may forever change the consumer's relationship with the manufacturer. As I said, except in those cases where someone can afford the handmade option for goods (Where practical, or instead go with 'exclusive and high cost' manufacturers for that extra cache at the dinner table/golf club/wifeswapping party, we are subject to the whims of large corporations for the majority of our manufactured goods. The cost of manufacturing one's own goods is outside the reach of many, and there are none I suspect capable of building from scratch every device or object they might require. I can only think of one character even in fiction and that was Robinson Crusoe in a time when even his set of skills was remarkable and highly unlikely. Also God doesn't count, I suppose technically he could build anything he wanted (like say, earth), yet as a being transcendent of the material world; omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent I suspect he has little need to record The Glenn Beck Show on a home made DVR. He probably sticks to carpentry (and sending people to hell).
Right, so back to the future of manufactured, goods. The point is goods are cheap because of massive economies of scale, you can make the same by the millions for very little cost per item. If for instance you decided you wanted everything in your home to be in some way unique, to reflect to those invited inside your own personal tastes, you would have to spend a lot of money, as discussed above. Now, with the advent of cheap fabrication devices we can expect these prices begin to fall. The question is, will it ever become practical for the typical consumer to take a greater hand in the manufactured goods they want. Let's start by taking a look at businesses that are already in the business of building prototypes, taking visual concepts for objects (glasses, cars, household goods and electronic doodads) and building the first prototypes. Often these are mere mock-ups, the shell that someday might be filled with the engines and computers that add the functionality. As part of the process of design it is often invaluable for a company to have something tangible they can interact with. While the costs are still high from a home use perspective, for companies the steady reduction in costs of this equipment mean many companies will now have this equipment in house. In other words the cost of building prototypes is steadily falling in price, so in the next issue, will there ever be market for factories in the home?