FreeFormFab

Home Manufactoring in the Future

This opinion piece entitled Home Manufacturing in the Future by Terry Wohlers, author of the annual Wohler’s Report is about the state of the rapid prototyping / rapid manufacturing industry. Wohler’s view is that the future won’t see consumers printing products (or parts of products) at home because it’s cheaper to go buy a new product, the printer won’t be capable of using the right materials and the 3D data will be too complex to create or download. Instead, Wohlers believes, home manfacturing will see the rise of mini factories, in which start up businesses are able to build low-risk manufacturing plants in their basements or garages.

The example Wohlers uses is perhaps prejudicial to his argument: a toaster, which isn’t likely to be an item consumers see as highly desirable in terms of customisation, and which requires high performance plastics to withstand the heat. But primarily my problem with this viewpoint is that while it may actually be right, it’s for the wrong reasons. Home fabrication will fail to take off if the quality of product it’s possible to produce doesn’t match that of other manufacturing methods. That may be quality in a production sense, but also quality from a design, engineering or branding perspective. And even if that’s the case, it doesn’t exclude the possibility of consumers designing or customising based on existing products, and using these local factories purely as service providers to supply their bespoke parts.

Source: We don’t do retro

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