Manufacturing Is Returning to America

Although it may not be the panacea that everyone seems to think it will be.


The robots of today aren’t the androids or Cylons that we are used to seeing in science fiction movies, but specialized electromechanical devices run by software and remote control. As computers become more powerful, so do the abilities of these devices. Robots are now capable of performing surgery, milking cows, doing military reconnaissance and combat, and flying fighter jets. Several companies, such as Willow Garage, iRobot and 9th Sense, sell robot-development kits for which university students and open-source communities are developing ever-more sophisticated applications.


Note what’s missing from this picture: Jobs for people from the left side of the Bell Curve, the sort of people who work on assembly lines and join unions. This is bad news for the Democrats and throws them back on the other half of their base, i.e. welfare recipients. Look for them to push even harder for increased dependency on the government largesse that they use to buy votes.


How will we turn these designs into products? By “printing” them at home or at modern-day Kinko’s using shared public manufacturing facilities such as TechShop, a membership-based manufacturing workshop featuring manufacturing technologies now on the horizon.


Another hit for the working class. The emerging technology of ‘contour crafting’ will affect the building trades the way that Henry Ford’s assembly line did the manufacturing trades. Once we have programmable machines to ‘print’ houses, there won’t be a lot for bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers, and electricians to do.


In additive manufacturing, parts are produced by melting successive layers of materials based on three-dimensional models — adding materials rather than subtracting them. The “3D printers” that produce these parts use powdered metal, droplets of plastic and other materials — much like the toner cartridges that go into laser printers. This allows the creation of objects without tools or fixtures. The process doesn’t produce waste material and there is no additional cost for complexity. Just as, thanks to laser printers, a page filled with graphics doesn’t cost much more than one with text (other than the cost of toner), with 3D printers we can print a sophisticated 3D structure for what it would cost to print something simple.


More efficient, more economical, more ‘green’ — you name it, automation does it. What happens when ‘customized’ products are the same price as mass-produced? The ‘fashion’ industry ought to be getting pretty nervous right about now. Upside: Prices will plummet. Downside: How are people going to pay even these low prices without a job to generate income?


Of course, there will always be niche positions for custom craftsmen — there are people today making a living doing custom wood and stone work — but that’s not going to float the working class.


This entry was posted on Monday, August 13th, 2012 at 03:58 and is filed under Think about it. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.