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It's good to see 3D printing in the news all the time now, but in reality the bigger story is that all manufacturing methods are becoming more and more accessib

It's good to see 3D printing in the news all the time now, but in reality the bigger story is that all manufacturing methods are becoming more and more accessible. With open hardware, digital manufacturing, and the burgeoning maker scene - hardware is becoming the new software. Wired's article delved a little deeper into the "New Industrial Revolution": http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/01/ff_newrevolution/all/1 http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/01/ff_newrevolution/all/1

acgourley 16y ago
The biggest obstacle between seeing more hardware being built isn't the up-front price structure of manufacturing techniques, it's the twofold information gap between would-be entrepreneurs and manufacturing processes. One gap is simply the body of knowledge necessary to spec and drive that process. The second gap is actually knowing who does what, and who has a good history of meeting their promises. Right now to bridge both gaps you need to go through intermediaries, but it's easy to immagine a world where technology solves both information problems. And to me that's a lot more exciting than 3d printing.
- nickpinkston 16y ago
  Are you saying that the knowledge needed for manufacturing a product is more than a small software startup could muster? To me, it seems the gaps are the same as software products: Software: Business Guy w/ idea -> Developer + Servers -> Product Hardware: Business Guy w/ idea -> MechE/EE + Manufacturers -> Product Are you saying the MechE/EE are harder to find/coordinate and/or typical software startup guys don't have the skills to develop hardware? I agree with you - when we can solve this gap - then we've got something cooler than any one manufacturing process.
  - zwieback 16y ago
    My experience working in a ME/EE/FW/SW team is that the turnaround times in ME and EE are much higher and more expensive. Making masks for chips and molds for parts is extremely expensive and time consuming. Our EEs and MEs use high-end modeling tools and draw on a lot of outside vendor experience to get their work done. Turns can take weeks or months and that's after your prototyping phase and/or process development is done. Whether it's harder to find and coordinate ME/HW resources is hard to judge. It doesn't appear like that to me and the disciplines have been around longer so there's more maturity in the industry. Typically you won't find the MEs bickering about the latest framework or tool to use. There's more of a get-er-done attitude, especially since the best MEs tend to be more practical minded people in the first place, more likely to go out and pour some concrete on the weekend instead of spending it at their computer screen. My team mates frequently joke that my job as FW engineer is easier and I tend to agree - only half jokingly. On the other hand, more than once we've sent out firmware fixes to the field that prevented a gear box from stripping or some part from overheating so everything has its place and value.
motters 16y ago
Right. The bigger trend is downward mobility in automation, to the point where advanced automation is much more commonly available.
- zwieback 16y ago
  Definitely for small scale specialty manufacturing, like 3D printing and other rapid proto methods. However, we've seen a lot of automated processes being shifted back to manual lines since manual labor is so incredibly cheap and becoming better and better in quality. This typically happens after some years of automated production in higher-wage countries like the US or Singapore. Once the process/product is mature and the equipment amortized its often cheaper to get manual labor to take on big parts of the process.

acgourley 16y ago

The biggest obstacle between seeing more hardware being built isn't the up-front price structure of manufacturing techniques, it's the twofold information gap between would-be entrepreneurs and manufacturing processes. One gap is simply the body of knowledge necessary to spec and drive that process. The second gap is actually knowing who does what, and who has a good history of meeting their promises. Right now to bridge both gaps you need to go through intermediaries, but it's easy to immagine a world where technology solves both information problems. And to me that's a lot more exciting than 3d printing.

nickpinkston 16y ago
Are you saying that the knowledge needed for manufacturing a product is more than a small software startup could muster? To me, it seems the gaps are the same as software products: Software: Business Guy w/ idea -> Developer + Servers -> Product Hardware: Business Guy w/ idea -> MechE/EE + Manufacturers -> Product Are you saying the MechE/EE are harder to find/coordinate and/or typical software startup guys don't have the skills to develop hardware? I agree with you - when we can solve this gap - then we've got something cooler than any one manufacturing process.
- zwieback 16y ago
  My experience working in a ME/EE/FW/SW team is that the turnaround times in ME and EE are much higher and more expensive. Making masks for chips and molds for parts is extremely expensive and time consuming. Our EEs and MEs use high-end modeling tools and draw on a lot of outside vendor experience to get their work done. Turns can take weeks or months and that's after your prototyping phase and/or process development is done. Whether it's harder to find and coordinate ME/HW resources is hard to judge. It doesn't appear like that to me and the disciplines have been around longer so there's more maturity in the industry. Typically you won't find the MEs bickering about the latest framework or tool to use. There's more of a get-er-done attitude, especially since the best MEs tend to be more practical minded people in the first place, more likely to go out and pour some concrete on the weekend instead of spending it at their computer screen. My team mates frequently joke that my job as FW engineer is easier and I tend to agree - only half jokingly. On the other hand, more than once we've sent out firmware fixes to the field that prevented a gear box from stripping or some part from overheating so everything has its place and value.

motters 16y ago

Right. The bigger trend is downward mobility in automation, to the point where advanced automation is much more commonly available.

zwieback 16y ago
Definitely for small scale specialty manufacturing, like 3D printing and other rapid proto methods. However, we've seen a lot of automated processes being shifted back to manual lines since manual labor is so incredibly cheap and becoming better and better in quality. This typically happens after some years of automated production in higher-wage countries like the US or Singapore. Once the process/product is mature and the equipment amortized its often cheaper to get manual labor to take on big parts of the process.