Many times we have witnessed how technology has enabled disruption in various industries. Chris Anderson provides a preview of not so distant future which would transform US manufacturing. Author signals an advent of new industrial revolution. Using open-source design and 3D printing, ordinary people are able to create a plethora of products that are highly customized. Mimicking how the world wide web ended the monopoly of mass media, rise of technology can really impact mass manufacturing.
Chris Anderson is the editor in chief of Wired magazine. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller The Long Tail and Free: The Future of a Radical Price. He is the cofounder of 3D Robotics which is manufactures aerial robots and DIY Drones.
The book has two parts: the revolution and the future. The revolution comprises five chapters while the future has eight chapters. In Part I, the chapters are “The invention revolution, The new industrial revolution, The history of the future, We are all designers now, and The long tail of things”. In these chapters, authors describe the rise of new industrial revolution where entrepreneurs are using do-it-yourself product design and creation to drive innovation and develop highly customized products giving rise to uncountable choices or the long tail of things.
Part II, The Future comprises chapters “The tools of transformation, Open hardware, Reinventing the biggest factories of all, The open organization, Financing the maker movement, Maker businesses, The factory in the cloud, DIY biology.” In this section, author unveils the near future where countless micro-manufacturers using open-source design and DIY manufacturing would fuel the global economy.
The writer starts with the anecdote of how his grandfather was an inventor who invented automatic water sprinklers. His grandfather was an inventor rather than an entrepreneur. He had to find a big manufacturing company to license his invention so that the invention could be turned into mass production. Once the licensing went underway, the manufacturing company went on to develop similar products and make lot of money along the way. His grandfather made some money in royalty but nothing compared to what he could have made if he had been an entrepreneur and had he marketed his invention himself instead of licensing to another company.
Then the author goes on to explain how he himself got started in “making” phenomenon with DIY movement, at the beginning, helping his grandfather in 1970s to make a four-stroke gasoline engine in the garage. The author's DIY movement makes the transition from making “things” or “atoms” to “computer programs” or “bits” when he starts writing computer programs.
In the second DIY movement, the author joins one of the many garage rock and roll bands, in the early 1980s, and makes its own music tape without a professional studio. The music was recorded and mixed with the help of four-track tape recorders, distributed as small-batch singles and EPs that were marketed via mail order and local shops.
Author draws comparison of his early making endeavors to his present job, as an editor of Wired magazine. He observes that new tools of manufacturing such as desktop publishing, web development, blogs and social media in the Web Age, have transformed individuals to become makers of digital goods. Now, individuals can make YouTube music videos, create music with iPad apps. The “making” phenomenon is still on but only using different media nowadays.
Although manufacturing generated path to riches for many families in the twentieth century, the number of net jobs created is declining due to automation in large-scale. The days of driving productivity gains through mass production are over as whatever could be achieved has already been achieved. However, small businesses can still create lot of jobs and drive the wheel of innovation.
In the new industrial revolution, the incredible thing is not how it will be done but who is doing it. Rather than big companies it would be individuals who would be driving the manufacturing in the new industrial revolution. An individual with a good design can upload his design file and manufacture goods with the help of 3D printers. Thus, individuals will be empowered and would no longer have to depend on larger companies to mass produce the invention and market it.
The platform for new industrial revolution has been getting stronger with the addition of numerous makerspaces around the world such as membership workshops called TechShop and other places run by communities. Etsy, a web marketplace with almost a million sellers indicate that the popularity of makerspaces would increase more.
The tools that are transforming the world of manufacturing are 3D printer, computer numerical control (CNC) machine, laser cutter, and 3D scanner. 3D printer build up objects, layer by layer while CNC use a spinning tool to cut or grind away material. The vision for 3D printing is quite grand and could work on scales as small as biology and as large as buildings.
Entrepreneurs in the makers movement can take advantage of crowdfunding to finance their innovation. One such crowdfunding web site is Kickstarter which provides funds as presales to entrepreneurs so that they won't have to raise venture capital or take out loan from banks. While seeking funds in Kickstarter, one may also be doing market research in the sense that backing for the project may translate to proof of approval of your idea by the masses.
To convince readers about the advent and growth of new industrial revolution, author draws examples of successes from web revolution era where communities of programmers were able to create Linux operating systems and many other open source projects including Firefox web browser. Author does a good job in building his case by analyzing the new industrial revolution in terms of various factors – the capabilities that were developed from the web revolution; flow of capital in crowdfunding sites; and flow of venture capital that would collectively drive maker projects.
Author does a great job in weaving personal stories to drive his points and building the case for his thesis in the book. Since the stories are his personal it creates a stronger voice that is effective in convincing the readers of author's viewpoints. The main viewpoint of this book is that a new industrial revolution is starting which will blur the line between physical goods and digital goods and where the power of the web will make it possible to manufacture physical goods. Just like Web 2.0 revolutionized digital production on the web by the masses, similarly those technologies and experience will help drive the new industrial revolution.
This book is a must-read for students, managers and for those who would like to understand the current developments in technology that are going to transform the world of business and manufacturing.
