1) Cost – in history, disruptive technologies that changed the world were more costly than the staus quo. But for a specific segment of the market this increased cost was meet with a new benefit not delivered by the current technology. This is the case here. We are not setting out to replicate or replace the amazing benefits of global mass production. But we are giving people an alternative to making and distributing individualized products. In short, you will be able to buy an individualized one-off product made just for you (and no one else) at a lower cost from Ponoko than from your hyper-factory in Asia.

2) Scale – this is probably the most exciting part of this. Scale can not be achieved inside of today’s manufacturing model, without substantial cost. Hence the rise of distributed manufacture – the ability to create and make from your own desktop. If you start thinking about manufacture in terms of the printing industry, a small part of the picture takes shape – ie, next to ‘every’ PC is a desktop printer, and down main street there’s a digital print bureau and out in the industrial park there’s an offset printer. Now apply the same model to manufacturing and you can see how scale at the right price for certain size/complexity/volume can be achieved (over time).

[Apologies for the website being down – our hosting provider was having a bad hair day (or week)!]

I have tried to get access to the Ponoko website for a deeper explanation, but the page had trouble loading. But let’s say they want a product that is made out of ABS plastic. They can rapid prototype the components and glue them together on a one-off basis. But the amount of time taken to design the product, get it to the factory, make sure the factory understands all the requirements involved, manufacture it, and send it back to the client, could be substantial. So how much will they have to charge to make it worthwhile? How many will they have to make? If they have limited production capacity, but have 100 orders placed at the same time, how will they manage that? And this is just a hypothetical scenario for a very simple plastic product.

I hope something like this can be realized. But I’m just not sure we’re quite there yet. I would love someone to educate me, Ponoko themselves perhaps, on how they will accomplish this.

You see, as we discussed earlier in this blog, that people will be moving towards decentralized production. The question that a lot of economists and industrial experts have rightly been asking is “How will P2P translate into the manufacture of material goods?”

But, the question should really be “how will industry, and industrial processes change and morph and evolve in the emerging P2P design environment?”

Current technology already supports customized manufacture and production. Having been in the fabrication trade for a number years myself, I can say that it has actually been possible to support small scale manufacturing and fabrication for quite a while, in terms of manufacturing technological capability, and distribution capability. But, the demand in the market never really existed, and efficiencies made it too expensive an option. In the 1980’s and 1990’s many efficiencies problems in production, and distribution were solved (mostly with computers and communications developments).

Now, the internet is starting to create a demand for rapid prototype-to-small scale production, and the basic building blocks of te technology exist. I think that first, we’ll see the production of simpler designs, but, eventually, we’ll see complex machines and equipment emerge.

I think that many of the first instances of this phenomenon will resemble Ponoko, and Crowd Spirit, and other for profit service/venture websites. But, I think that open tools to coordinate support open design and on-demand production/fabrication markets can, and will quickly emerge.

If I were to make a projection about how much time it will take for this to become widespread in America…I would say perhaps about a 4-6 year time period. Although, I believe there will be lots of media hype about starting this year and over the next 2 years, because it is a “next big thing”, and this is the type of content that (broadcast) media look for.

I think that this paradigm takes a lot away from the traditional economies of large industrial corporations and governments. It devolves a lot of power back to people, who previously had collectively handed that power to corporations and governments in exchange for standards of living. So, I can see right here in my own location some real social tension about the prospect of this type of production and the apparent economic and political changes it suggests.