The future of manufacturing

The current issue of Wired magazine has a fascinating feature on dynamic changes to how manufacturing gets done. While most of us in woodworking think of full scale manufacturing as requiring large plants (here or abroad) and huge startup costs, this article explores how new technology is actually removing the barriers to entry for inventive manufacturers. Today, there is no need for the factory, the workers, or even big production runs because of breakthroughs in crowdsourcing (outsourcing to an interested community, typically through online connections) and advances in short-run prototype manufacturing. The article opens with a discussion of a Massachusetts-based car company that is soon to release its first product, a $50,000 street-legal rally car. The article even provides a road map for how anyone with an idea can bring it to fruition with the least amount of expenditure using online resources. This is not one of those futurist stores about how we will all have flying cars. This is real information about successful independent manufacturers today. For example, one manufacturer of Lego-compatible toys used to be a software engineer and brags how in a bad day at his new company, he still makes more money than he ever did in 17 years as a software engineer. The closest thing to woodworking in the article is a mention of ShoBot CNC machines, but still it's the kind of discussion that will get any entrepreneurial minded person thinking hard about where to go next.