JOURNAL: The Switch to Local Manufacturing

Here's a think piece that you may find of value:

It is likely that by 2025, the majority of the "consumer" goods you purchase/acquire, will be manufactured locally.  However, this doesn't likely mean what you think it means.  The process will look like this:

1. You will purchase/trade for/build a design for the product you desire through online trading/sharing systems.  That design will be in a standard file format and the volume of available designs for sale, trade, or shared openly will be counted in the billions.
2. You or someone you trust/hire will modify the design of the product to ensure it meets your specific needs (or customize it so it is uniquely yours).  Many products will be smart (in that they include hardware/software that makes them responsive), and programmed to your profile.
3. The refined product design will be downloaded to a small local manufacturing company, co-operative, or equipped home for production.  Basic feedstock materials will be used in its construction (from metal to plastic powders derived from generic sources, recycling, etc.).   Delivery is local and nearly costless.

The switch to local manufacturing is being abetted by the following factors:

1. Ever more expensive energy and raw materials as far as the eye can see, although every time the economy slows, those costs will drop sharply.  This means that the costs of global transport and mass production (overproduction, failed products, etc.) will become too costly to maintain for all but the most valuable and difficult to manufacture products.
2. The collapse of generic demand.  The debt-deflation fueled process of economic collapse has just begun in the developed world.  It will continue for decades as incomes globally normalize (become equivalent in all "connected countries").  This means that the critical mass in demand necessary to support a global production supply chain won't exist in most localities.  Centrally shipped e-commerce will fill some of the gap, but it will be expensive.  As a result, the diversity of consumer products we currently enjoy will fall initially, but will soon be completely eclipsed by a torrential supply of virtual designs for every product conceivable.
3. Local fabrication will get cheap and easy.  The cost of machines that can print, lathe, etch, cut materials to produce three dimensional products will drop to affordable levels (including consumer level versions).  This sector is about to pass out of its "home brew computer club phase" and rocket to global acceptance.

Comments

[no one important]

John,

I liked most of the first parts of Brave New War. Towards the latter parts, you started going off the deep end.

This local/camping/hippie/commune stuff is clearly just plain wrong. It's far, far wrong. You sound like another non-science loon out there, Kunstler.

It is one thing to see and understand and clearly explain the problems in todays world. It is another to suggest you know the solutions. It is yet another to take wildly overconfident guesses at the future.

I think in a few years you are going to regret these posts.

I am unsubscribing to your feed.

[JR]

Thanks for the feedback. A couple of points:

First, "non-science" is a poor label for my work. My work over the past decades has been mostly in technology/science. I've made quite a few successful companies as an entrepreneur, a global reputation as a technology analyst, and helped turn a small hobbiest market into a global force (social software/blogs/podcasts) by being able to spot trends early and exploit them.

Second, I don't claim anything. In my work as an analyst and on this blog, I spot trends and build frameworks to help people think through complex and rapidly evolving environments. I don't request that anyone believe me (in fact, just the opposite, make your own judgements).

Bye, enjoy your life.

[Ed Bryant]

I am curious, no one important, just what you expect? More of the same perhaps? I fail to see the "non-science" looniness of this post. I seems to me that your objections have more to do with your pre-existing political dogma than anything else

Anyway, many of us have had cause to regret some of what we say...as might you.

[Alpwalker]

Here's a link to a video about wildly overconfident loons working to create "China on your desktop". http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome

If their work progresses half as well or as fast as they think, in 20 years we could have a vastly different system of manufacturing and distribution.

[Colm O'Connor]

I can see this working for the easier to assemble goods - childrens' toys and such, even cars, perhaps. But, for anything with a degree of complexity - anything from mobile phones to microprocessors, the cost of the equipment to forge the goods and the skills required will remain both high and scarce.

This will mean that it will still be cheaper to have a few manufacturers scattered across the world that ship these goods worldwide than it will to have a lot of local manufacturers.

Also, while trucking goods 150 miles or so is quite expensive, shipping from Shanghai to San Francisco is comparatively cheap.

[John Minehan]

One word: "Pro-sumption"

Toffler's idea of a "producer-consumer." It is true, but too subtle to be a game changer.

That said, it would be a good idea for cities to keep flexible about industrial zoning. More expensive oil means more local production of heavy/bulky things, all things being equal (although they usually aren't).

[JR]

For high end microprocessors, that may be true. But you can print circuit boards with this equipment (right onto the systems and products you build)....

[andrew]

Sir,

Sounds like the basis of Philip Dick's short story that became the movie "Screamers" or the Star Trek episode with the Alice in Wonderland rabbit (IIRC it was called "Shore Leave")

In this environment, where does specialization of labor come in? Is it a consulting service?

What about energy sources? Presumably this activity isn't going to be consistent due to local environmental energy options. If that is true, how does this manufacturing capability develop? Would only locations near power generating sources be able to manufacture?

[Alpwalker]

Energy may be less of a problem given reductions in cost and increases in efficiency of petro alternatives that will surely occur simultaneously with the evolution of reprap technology. I am more concerned about raw inputs, where they will come from and to what degree they have to be refined or processed in order to be useable by reprap systems. Perhaps bio-plastics or small scale recycling/scrapping could supply very localized needs but it seems to me that traditional inputs (mining, refining, processing, distribution) are still the bottleneck to wider usage of reprap.

Perhaps landfill mining will become more profitable as a result of local reprap operations. The future looks more Mad Max-like with each passing day.

[SJ]

I agree with the comment by Mr. O'Conner. While local manufacturing will work for basic consumer goods and even small electronics, a lot of capital goods and complex systems are still going to require centralized manufacturing. Things like LCD display panels require highly complex manufacturing techniques and infrastructure that isn't efficient to replicate at a local level. Other items such as large power turbines, aircraft and rail engines, smaller items like tractors and trucks, and the very fabrication machines you describe aren't going to be easy or efficient to do even with the fabrication techniques you describe due to the amount of specialized tooling required, long lead times, specialized materials, learning curves involved, etc.

In general, I think this still leaves us with a significant vulnerability as we move toward more resilient communities. While pushing more manufacturing toward a local level will reduce the immediate dangers of disruption, there will still be those key pipelines for more specialized equipment critical to a community in the long term. Sure, a disruption in the supply chain isn't going to immediately destroy a community: we can fab parts and jury-rig trucks and computers at a local level. However, in the long run, unless those supply lines are repaired, a community is going to be in trouble and suffer a technological regression as it runs out of the more complex parts such as key components required to maintain systems for local fabrication.

[David Foley]

Is this perhaps overstating the ease with which raw materials and energy can be transformed? How does one actually derive the plastics, metals, glass and ceramics, and other "feedstock" inputs? Unless we develop a similar local capability for salvage and recycling of the artifacts of our present era, I can't see how, on a practical level, this would really work. Just to keep things simple: can you document how, in actual, tangible steps, a local "fab-lab" would make a wheelbarrow using simple-to-obtain-or-fabricate materials, and local energy sources?

[istewart]

I doubt global or regional supply chains will wholly cease to exist. They will instead become more volatile in terms of availability and quality of product received. The idea of the resilient community, to me anyway, is a hedge against this volatility. Trade what you can, when you can, but if the trucks don't show up to Wal-Mart this week, it's not a big deal.

Another idea along these lines is that we will very likely see consumer preferences shift towards greater durability, especially for important capital goods. The credit crunch has already impacted the throw-away and trade-up model of consumer good sales exemplified by Wal-Mart household appliances and automobile sales practices, and it's only going to get worse. So people will be more and more willing to lay out more money for something that lasts longer. In the area of automobiles, especially, declining quality of infrastructure may force durability to the forefront as a desirable design characteristic. The SUV enthusiasts may have their way after all, although there will be far fewer of them. Here's a fun thought experiment: what will a brand-new Prius look like in 40 years? Will it be as drivable as the 1969 VW Bug I could pull off craigslist for $4,000?

One last point worth considering is that, at least in the areas of microprocessor and automobile manufacturing already mentioned, there exist extensive patent cross-licensing schemes between the major players that serve as a barrier to entry to new producers on a smaller scale, creating an artificial minimum level of capital necessary to enter the market. I think the assertion that such complex manufacturing absolutely must be intensively centralized will need re-evaluation when we see more countries and consumers rejecting the corporate-dominated WIPO regime and better markets for research along open-source lines being developed.

[PRCalDude]

I think Robb is right on with this post. "Fab-at-home" is a growing trend. You can create blueprints to send to a machinist on sites like "emachineshop.com" and other places. CNC lathes and mills keep getting cheaper, and programming keeps moving to higher and higher levels of abstraction.

One point I'd add is that, in keeping with Adam Smith, these trend you describe will represent an increase in productivity and efficiency, which will in turn grow the global economic 'pie' and make everyone richer. Income levels may normalize globally, but that won't necessarily lead to a stabilization in demand or a stagnation in wealth creation.

Just my .02.

[WarLord]

Couple things; Energy will impede global trade to a greater and greater extant. Cost to move raw materials but especially cost to move finished goods will exceed the value of the contents of that big red container - that is a given not a guess!

The ability to DO THINGS will always be worth money ie trademen artisians those with a skillset will be employed even prosper those who know how to shuffle paper not so much

The wrinkle will be when the cost to trade globally in food exceeds the value of food products being shipped... local markets anyone

[dagezhu]

"can you document how, in actual, tangible steps, a local "fab-lab" would make a wheelbarrow using simple-to-obtain-or-fabricate materials, and local energy sources?"

I don't think one would need a fab lab to make a wheelbarrow. A fab lab could make a cell phone. Just about anyone can make a wheelbarrow, given a low hourly cost of labor.

Fab labs are good at making weird little parts that are hard to stock.

Wheelbarrows can be made from just about any part that's in stock - the wrong size can be "kit-bashed." If you've got a 30 cm wheel and you wanted 40 cm, the thing will still do its job.

I can tell you how to make a wheelbarrow, but the MIT Fab Lab site or the RepRap site would probably be of more relevance.

[Al Eggen]

Interesting possibilities but I have my doubts. You still need the big grid – the internet – functioning reasonably well for the related information exchange. You still need some sophisticated manufacturing for some hardware as well as computer related and “smart” stuff. Some of that could come in standardized components assembled locally. My laptop was put together by some guys in Oregon from components – but those were some pretty fancy components.

I have a feeling that we'll be going in the direction of learning how to fix stuff. Cuba, when they lost their oil supply, shows some possibilities. Maybe simplicity and long, maintainable life will become primary design goals. You can keep a 50's or 60's car running a whole lot easier than today's car. My basic Echo (windows open with a crank, doors and ignition with a key, no ABS) would do better that a Lexus. However, it still needs its computer and assorted sensors to keep running and they are not fixable.

These considerations apply to all kinds of stuff. Our older Xantrex DR modified sine wave inverter survived many years of thunderstorms; our newer, much more sophisticated, pure sine wave SW Plus (no field serviceable components) had a circuit board wiped by fairly close lightning that came in on a phone line which had no direct connection to the computer.

People who can fix stuff will be in demand!

[The Dark Avenger]

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/magazine/16-11/ff_openmanufacturing?currentPage=all

A circuit board for the masses: the Arduino microcontroller.

Check this out," Massimo Banzi says. The burly, bearded engineer wanders over to inspect a chipmaking robot—a "pick and place" machine the size of a pizza oven. It hums with activity, grabbing teensy electronic parts and stabbing them into position on a circuit board like a hyperactive chicken pecking for seeds. We're standing in a one-room fabrication factory used by Arduino, the Italian firm that makes this circuit board, a hot commodity among DIY gadget-builders. The electronics factory is one of the most picturesque in existence, nestled in the medieval foothills of Milan, with birdsong floating in through the open doors and plenty of coffee breaks for the white-coated staff. But today Banzi is all business. He's showing off his operation to a group of potential customers from Arizona. Banzi scoops up one of the boards and points to the tiny map of Italy emblazoned on it. "See? Italian manufacturing quality!" he says, laughing. "That's why everyone likes us!" Indeed, 50,000 Arduino units have been sold worldwide since mass production began two years ago. Those are small numbers by Intel standards but large for a startup outfit in a highly specialized market. What's really remarkable, though, is Arduino's business model: The team has created a company based on giving everything away. On its Web site, it posts all its trade secrets for anyone to take—all the schematics, design files, and software for the Arduino board. Download them and you can manufacture an Arduino yourself; there are no patents. You can send the plans off to a Chinese factory, mass-produce the circuit boards, and sell them yourself — pocketing the profit without paying Banzi a penny in royalties. He won't sue you. Actually, he's sort of hoping you'll do it.

[onus]

JR,
I'm with the wheelbarrow guy.
If things turn out the way you speculate; Myself and about 100 other people in the entire STATE I live in will be the only people who can do anything!
The complexities of SLA/FabLab/CNC etc, will be far beyond the reach of the folk 'round here. They will be happy with a house, Air conditioner, TV, Food and beer. They will never need or want nifty locally made gadgets. Farming tools and Vehicles will be the most complex items operated by your average guy. Big community items: MRI, large scale R.O. Water filtration or DeSal operations, Sewage treatment, radio systems for emergency use, etc. could not be made locally could they?
I'm not against being empowered because I can understand technology, but I just dont see it the same as you in this respect.
Oh... Far from non-science, you may be too-science. Most people still dont know what a podcast is... They are not going to be too comfortable operating SLA/Fab gear.

[Marcelo]

I think there will be some local manufacturing (inkjet/laser printers might be considered a very early example of that, home- and office-shifting the manufacturing of what was in fact the first mass industrial product, the printed page), but also a lot of highly centralized capital-intensive manufactures. You can home-fab circuits, but not microchips --- at least within the current technological paradigm, there's no Internet, no computers, and certainly no computer-controlled fab gear, without billion-dollar chip fabs.

Of course, if technological manufacture breaks down you can always try to scavenge and repurpose increasingly rare and valuable pre-peak hardware, but that's hardly sustainable in the long term.

[Colm O'Connor]

>For high end microprocessors, that may be
>true. But you can print circuit boards with
>this equipment (right onto the systems and
>products you build)....

Yes, this is true, but there is a broader trend away from microelectronics towards just making all electronics equipment a mini computer and stuffing everything into the software. That makes local production + consumption difficult for electronic goods at least (although you might be able to just import the microprocessor, which is difficult to build and fabricate the rest locally, which is not).

However, this 'difficult to build' quality can apply to almost any very high quality goods - if you buy the best boots made by the best manufacturing processes, chances are they won't be made locally.

[Gunnar]

Fabs are not "non-science" quite the opposite actually. Always liked the Bruce Sterling meme - "how about we just email a water pump to a village in Africa thats never had clear water?" print the sucker out in a fab.

http://www.fortus.com/Success_Stories.aspx

It won't take til 2025 either. Machines and materials are getting real cheap, real fast (some low end models are under 10k already). The rest is just software, and we are pretty good at that ;-P

[ric]

Hi John -

Your description of this local manufacturing "process" implies that the internet of 2025 will be as geographically widespread, accessible, and unregulated as the internet of today in order for these billions of plans to be freely distributed/modified. Also, you imply that the microprocessor-controlled fabrication machinery and 3D CAD/CAM software that will implement the downloaded standard-file-format plans will be easy to acquire, set up, and operate. John Michael Greer over at The Archdruid Report makes a good case for the internet of the future becoming less and less available as we slide down the back of Hubbertʻs peak, and for many of the same reasons, he also seems to think that complicated software-controlled machinery requiring silicon-based microprocessors will be hard to come by for most people and communities in an energy-constrained future.

Question for you and the rest of the commenters / visitors. How gracefully do you think your local manufacturing "process" degrades if available technology becomes less complex? (I guess think MITʻs D-Lab vs. Fab Lab.)

[namhenderson]

We will all be fine. Things will just be a bit more like Cuba...

[dagezhu]

"Big community items: MRI, large scale R.O. Water filtration or DeSal operations, Sewage treatment, radio systems for emergency use, etc. could not be made locally could they?"

Water purification can be done with sunlight and glass.

Sewage treatment can be done according to the Humanure Handbook.

Radios take a bit more work, but they are definitely doable.

Given a hyper-motivated techie it's easy to produce proof-of-concept systems. Because many people are not technically inclined, they would prefer to beg, borrow, or steal an imported radio rather than spend a few hours making one locally.

"How gracefully do you think your local manufacturing "process" degrades if available technology becomes less complex? (I guess think MITʻs D-Lab vs. Fab Lab.)"

A meaningful answer requires community-specific information. For example, in the Philippines and Pakistan, poor, illiterate gunsmiths can make serviceable weapons out of low-grade materials, because they are motivated. In Canada, people with much more money usually jump through the hoops to get a gun legally or else just do without a gun, because they aren't motivated.

So it all depends on motivation. If Achmet watched his sister get raped, Achmet will be motivated to learn enough chemistry and electronics to make bombs. If Achmet has nothing to do but pray five times a day and watch TV, Achmet will not be motivated.

Warfare is the obvious case, but this applies to all human endeavors. If Achmet's sister Miriam may not care about improvising IEDs, but she might be motivated enough to improvise an IUD. It all depends on motivation.

[BlueMoonChimneys]

It seems that the deeper implications of powerdown, and the social disruptions that accompany it, are not grasped here. Energy and social cohesion are not the only items that are going to suffer collapse. We are approaching the limits of many foundational resources for a technological civilization, particularly metals, but also topsoil... even highly motivated techies need to eat. Of course, you could recycle, but nearly every solution mentioned above is embedded in a hard-to-shake assumption that our energy-dense civilization will become less available, so to speak, not that it will actually cease to function. When the depletion of energy and feedstocks reach a tipping point, high-tech solutions will become less and less possible, not just less and less centralized, regardless of motivation. It takes a while to grasp the implications of a loss of energy density.

Things will become more like Cuba, for a while, but not for long. Cuba exists in an energy-rich world and this leaks into Cuba and improves the conditions there. We will not be surrounded by energy rich nations when the entire global human project starts powering down. In the Great Depression... I mean the one before WWII, not this one... the world was energy-rich, the US was swimming in oil, and that made recovery possible. We are not far from the time when there simply will not be enough energy to run the huge server farms that support the tubes of the internets, etc., and as computers break down they will be fixed and scavenged just so many times before they are useless. At least in the part of the US I live in the Grid is above ground and much of the local Grid runs through forests, exposed to the slings and arrows of outrageous Nature. There will come a time when it will no longer be economically feasible to repair the hundreds of miles of downed cable after a storm and at that point desktop 3D printers will be paperweights.

Those of us who are "First Worlders" have lived our whole lives swimming in essentially free energy. This makes it very difficult wrap our minds around how profoundly this affects our basic assumptions of what is possible.

Entropy rules.

[Michel Bauwens]

Dear John,

While I find your scenario quite convincing, I must disagree with your very first premise that people will by buying designs. Rather you should expect them to be in line with the already emerging patterns in the open software and hardware worlds: people will share their designs in open design communities, but they will eventually pay for adaptation, and certainly for the resulting local products. Paid designs will suffer the same fate as the RIAA and Hollywood through piracy, it's not realistic to rely on a mechanism that requires either repression or sabotage of the hardware and software.

[dagezhu]

"We are not far from the time when there simply will not be enough energy to run the huge server farms that support the tubes of the internets, etc."

Have you been following the developments in solar panels lately? In sunny Taiwan, we're seeing bullish growth in solar panels.

The USA has *lots* of coal. If the USA were highly motivated, they could convert it to liquid fuel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel

The rest of the world might have to ask Tina Turner to put on chainmail stockings and teach them how to use methane.

[dagezhu]

I was talking to an engineer about desktop manufacturing today and I gave the example of my shirt. If I had a RepRap and a FabLab I probably wouldn't want to weave my own cloth, build a sewing machine, and learn how to sew with a sewing machine. I *might* machine a replacement needle, or make a big darning needle suitable for my clumsy masculine fingers. I *might* machine replacement parts for existing sewing machines.

The point is that fabrication is not assembly, and skills like sewing don't happen automatically. So local manufacturing doesn't mean automatic prosperity. It *might*, however, encourage the growth of a craftsman/artisan class, which seems like grounds for hope.

Personally I would rather be a skilled craftsman than a barista or "sandwich artist."

[dagezhu]

By the way, Metafilter is covering doomster J.M. Greer and his prediction that resilient communities are doom, doom, DoOOOOOooooOOOMMMed.

http://www.metafilter.com/83160/The-Wealth-of-Nature

DooooOOOOOOoooooM.

It's so much more fun to complain that nothing will work than it is try actually try to make something work.

[ric]

Thanks dagezhu for your reply with the example of Filipino and Pakistani gunsmiths.

In response to another one of your comments, I think you misunderstand JMGʻs feelings towards the concept of "resilient communities" as espoused by John Robb. In the essay to which you link, Mr. Greer is not criticizing the concept of "resilient communities" in general, rather he is criticizing the idea of high-tech/alt-energy lifeboat communities (where community members will be able to maintain current first-world standards of living and prosperity throughout the long descent). In fact, I would say J.M. Greer is in close agreement with John Robb on the concept of "resilient communities" as a successful strategy for groups of humans in industrialized countries to survive and thrive during the power down. (please see pages 187-190 of the paperback edition of JMGʻs "The Long Descent" for his description of factors that will help communities survive "the deindustrializing world of the near future.")

[JR]

Some temporary bug with typepad.com, when I try to leave a comment.

Yours,

Antti

The comment I tried to leave follows:
-----

What about "printable electronics", see e.g. these articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printed_electronics

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20090220/166054/

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/HONSHI/20070215/127780/

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20090311/167009/

I wonder to what level the prices of these kind
of machines would drop, if there were sufficient demand:
http://www.dgi-net.com/Homepage_DGI_Eng/product/product_list.aspx?cd1=3&cd2=1

And how simple they could get? I have understood
that the researchers started with off-the-shelf
inkjet printers. And how complex circuits
one could eventually print? (Depending of course
on the resolution of the machines.)

---

Moreover, the incumbent silicon based electronics
are not showing any sign of getting rare:

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcontroller#Volumes
quoted:
-----

About 55% of all CPUs sold in the world are 8-bit microcontrollers and
microprocessors. According to Semico, Over 4 billion 8-bit
microcontrollers were sold in 2006.[3]

A typical home in a developed country is likely to have only four
general-purpose microprocessors but around three dozen
microcontrollers. A typical mid range automobile has as many as 30 or
more microcontrollers. They can also be found in any electrical
device: washing machines, microwave ovens, telephones etc.

------

So, microcontrollers will not be in short supply
any time soon. Of course, after a hypothetical
doomer-grand-collapse-of-the-whole-technological-civilization it might be harder to find/construct an appropriate programming device and the knowhow how to reflash a random microcontroller scavenged and desoldered from an innards of your old car.

What about "printable electronics", see e.g. these articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printed_electronics

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20090220/166054/

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/HONSHI/20070215/127780/

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20090311/167009/

I wonder to what level the prices of these kind
of machines would drop, if there were sufficient demand:
http://www.dgi-net.com/Homepage_DGI_Eng/product/product_list.aspx?cd1=3&cd2=1

And how simple they could get? I have understood
that the researchers started with off-the-shelf
inkjet printers. And how complex circuits
one could eventually print? Probably not
desktop CPU's, but at least simple microcontrollers?

---

Moreover, the incumbent silicon based electronics
are not showing any sign of getting rare:

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcontroller#Volumes
quoted:
-----

About 55% of all CPUs sold in the world are 8-bit microcontrollers and
microprocessors. According to Semico, Over 4 billion 8-bit
microcontrollers were sold in 2006.[3]

A typical home in a developed country is likely to have only four
general-purpose microprocessors but around three dozen
microcontrollers. A typical mid range automobile has as many as 30 or
more microcontrollers. They can also be found in any electrical
device: washing machines, microwave ovens, telephones etc.

------

So, microcontrollers will not be in short supply
any time soon. Of course, after a hypothetical
doomer-grand-collapse-of-the-whole-technological-civilization it might be harder to find/construct an appropriate programming device and the knowhow how to reflash a random microcontroller scavenged and desoldered from an innards of your old car.