3D printing may put global supply chains out of business: report
October 11, 2012
3D printer Replicator 2 (credit: MakerBot)
Will 3D printing make global supply chains unnecessary? That’s a real possibility, according to a recent report from Transport Intelligence, Smart Planet reports.
3D printing (or “additive manufacturing,” as it’s called in industrial circles) takes offshore manufacturing and brings it back close to the consumer. It has enormous potential to shift the trade balance. Goods will be cheaper to reproduce within the domestic market, versus manufacturing and then shipping them from a distant low-wage country.
The report (open access PDF), authored by John Manners-Bell of Transport Intelligence and Ken Lyon of Virtual-Partners Ltd., points to the growing role of automation in production resulting from 3D printing:
New technologies which are currently being developed could revolutionize production techniques, resulting in a significant proportion of manufacturing becoming automated and removing reliance on large and costly work forces. This in turn could lead to a reversal of the trend of globalization which has characterized industry and consumption over the last few decades, itself predicated on the trade-off between transportation and labor costs.
Companies may gradually move away from long-distance production as it gets cheaper to mass-produce at home. “There is obviously an enormous leap between a manufacturing process which can presently produce one-offs and one that can replace large scale manufacturing,” they say. “However, in theory, there is no reason why advances in technology could not increase the speed of production and reduce unit costs.”
The report adds that 3D printing “is already very good at producing products (even with moving parts) which previously would have required the assembly of multiple components,” and that by “eliminating the assembly phase there will be huge savings for the manufacturer in terms of labor costs.” 3D printing-based production could also reduce or eliminate storage, handling and distribution costs.
Eventually, products may even be produced right in consumers’ homes, reducing what was a series of supply-chain interactions to a software-based transaction.
Comments (63)
by Jim Mooney
What? No more cheap Chinese goods at Walmart? Who will put antifreeze in our toothpaste, and sell us all that stuff that breaks as we carry it out the door?
by Erik
I wish the authors had provided data to backup their claims.
For instance, when talking about cost reductions they could have showed the cost of 3D printing compared to traditional manufacturing for the last ten years.
by Rob Preece
Agree with many commentors that the “supply chain” is the smallest issue involved if 3-D printing becomes universal. I dealt with some of the political and economic issues in my novel NanoCorporate. I think there is a way that can reconcile a world where manual labor becomes outdated… but whether we can get there, and whether we like the way it looks, is very much up to us.
by Jim Mooney
The problem, as ever, is that science and manufacturing are in the 21st century but our economic system is in the 18th century, and is stubbornly resistant to change.
by charles dufarle
The assumption regarding wealth is faulty.
Wealth was land — the middle ages and before and the basis for all
Wealth became trade — and has been for centuries but technology of the sail changed it.
3-D printers will redefine wealth. Wealth becomes decoupled from materialism. The ultimate way out idea make your own body to go on your undersea vacation.
I do agree the end if we ever get there will be fraught with greed and blood and foolishness. It always has been.
by Jim Mooney
You can take the ape out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of the ape. I agree we are on the cusp of great abundance, but if we can’t improve the apes it can still be a mess.
by Dave Torgersen
When will we accept that 100% employment (in the traditional sense) is no longer achievable with the advances in automated/robotic manufacturing, information-based services (Watson/Siri), self-serve education, etc. and move to a societal model where everyone can benefit (equally?) from these advances.
by Brett McLaughliun
Sounds simple, but ultimately there are people creating value. And other people who wouldn’t be creating value. …I have a hard time seeing why the value creators would happily give away value for absolutely jack squat.
Plus, then wouldn’t there be no incentive for anyone to create value? And if so, then who would do the work? Just because we can’t sustain 100% employment doesn’t mean we don’t need anyone working!
by Glen
Consumption creates value, you need someone or something to consumer that while you create.
by Jim Mooney
Why should the “value creators” take a moralistic attitude? Besides, they need consumers or their value goes for nothing. And as far as I know real creators do it for the joy of it – they aren’t worrying who is working or not. That’s for smaller minded folks who would prefer to see another man down just so they can feel more up.
They also serve who only stand and wait. Also, people create different kinds of values. A good mother creates value, too, by raising good kids, but this is not recognized in our current economy.
Actually, both Buckminster Fuller and The Triple Revolution Document said the same thing decades ago – we have been at the brink of a twenty hour week for a long time. Our judgmental and wasteful and plain stupid economic systems have kept us back.
by Snake Oil Baron
I don’t know exactly how many iterations of cars there were between the first one and the first taxi but it looks like it took several decades if my Googling is accurate. And the first non horse drawn taxi wasn’t that impressive by today’s standards. My point being that there is going to be a significant period of time when most of what we use still comes from supply chains but printed products are also being made in corner shops.
by Jim Mooney
Ah, but there is this exponential acceleration of change Kurzweil talks about. You’re thinking of historical change. We have no idea how fast change is going to go now. Hopefully, it will overtake and pass some of the system-collapses that seem imminent.
I recall ten years ago that scientists said that even if there was global warming it would take a hundred years at the least. Yet now both poles are melting – so forget the politics – just look at pole pictures. They apparently missed some positive feedback like methane emissions. Even nature seems to be accelerating.
by GFreeman
Currently the 1% needs the 99% to: a) provide labor for the production of goods and services and; b) provide wealth for the 1% to extract. Because the 99% has the power to vote the 1% has an interest and need to influence and control their political thought.
Current trends: a) more and more goods and services are being produced with intelligent automation replacing human labor; b)Wealth and income are moving to the higher income levels; c) political rhetoric and influence is being controlled by the very rich and; d) the 1% are reducing the political power of the 99% by suppressing their vote.
Future trends:
1. Government of the people, by the people, for the people is being replaced with government of the corporation, by the corporation, for the corporation. [Corporations are people too my friend- Mitt Romney]. The 99% will eventually have little or no political power.
2. Labor costs will continue to be reduced with the 99% moving to serfdom.
3. Unemployment will increase as human labor becomes more and more obsolete and is replaced with intelligent automation.
When most of the income and assets is in the hands of the 1%, the economy will depend only on the spending of the 1%. Walmart and other stores that cater to the masses will rapidly disappear.
With no need for labor by corporations, welfare support of any type (food, clothing, shelter, education and health care) will be an unnecessary burden on the 1% as they will be paying for it with no return on their investment.
For the 99% there will be tendency for the 1% to, as in the words of Ron Paul supporters, let them die.
Our future choices:
1. A reduction of 90 to 99% of the population with only 100 to 900 million wealthy people in the world remaining. This is the dream world of the libertarian and an environmentalist paradise.
2. A complete change in the economic system with more equal distribution of wealth to the remaining 8 billion people. This conflicts with with current world’s social, religious and political societies and be extremely difficult to achieve.
3. Expanding economic, religious and social conflict in the world leading to world war III.
by Jim Mooney
As I said, we need better apes.
by de Broglie
The 3D printer is overhyped. Get real. Manufacturing expertise, raw material, and energy inputs will still favor large scale manufacturing expertise. This may alter the nature of some industries, but it will not totally overturn the current industrial centralization. Supply chains will change vastly due to new technology, but that trend has been going on for the whole century. This goes against the theory of the firm:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm
by Paul in Vancouver
I agree. 3D printing is over-hyped and the technology has been around for more than 10 years. It’s great for proto-typing or making one-off parts in a hurry. The reality is consumers are always looking for quality goods produced using high-grade materials by large corporations. They don’t want cheap plastic goods made by a local craftshop.
by Bri
Make a print out of those words. Put it on your wall somewhere. Look at it in ten to twenty years and see what you say then. Your thinking linearly. I particularly like how a standard HP ink jet printer has been hacked by researchers to make functional three dimensional mouse hearts. This really is the infancy of nano assemblers.
by Paul in Vancouver
I’m referring to the 3D printers on the market now. In 10-20yrs if it can make something better and cheaper than what I find at Ikea, then i’ll gladly print out these words in 3D and eat them for dinner. Right now, i just don’t see ordinary people spending $2k+ on this printer to make plastic forks and knives for themselves. In 10-20 years, more likely we will see nano-molecular based manufacturing which changes the ball game altogether. That is when we’ll see a real revolution in manufacturing and product design.
by Edem
I think you underestimate the market for cheap plastic goods. (Go into any Wal-Mart if you don’t know what I mean.)
by Jim Mooney
My last three trips to walmart were for a wastebasket, a mousetrap, and a ruler. Oh, got a clipboard, too. A 3D printer would save a lot of gas.
by Jim Mooney
There is the principle of add-on buying. I often go to Walmart for some small item I could indeed print myself with a 3D printer. And while there I buy a bunch of other stuff.
And of course, not everything is manufactured. Food for instance. Also, people want luxury goods. It will be interesting when someone steals the exact specifications for a Rolex, puts it online, and everyone gets to make one ;’) Ah, the patent lawyers are going to have a field day.
by egore
I suspect 3D printing is only a way to keep most people occupied while the real next step in mfg is craftily being manipulated by who knows who? Keep your eyes open for something else.
by Bennie Beaver
For 99% of the human history on earth individuals and families have had their basic needs provided close to home, or even at home…wood energy, garden food, shelter from wood and earth, medicines from nature, etc. Automation can make it possible to return production back smaller and closer to home. We should resist large industrial agglomerates. Save the individual. Power to the local community and individual before the top wealth takes it all! I reported this on my web site long ago.
by Gorden Russell
Now just think of all the empty, abandoned factories of the rust-belt cities of the northeast. You only need the money to lease one old crumbling building and one printer and one robot and buy a mountain of feedstock.
Now imagine that it takes half of the day to print the next printer, and half the day to print and assemble the next robot. By the start of the second day you’ll have two, the next day four, and so on until before the end of the month you’ll have over a billion robots. Just check it out with your calculator. Enter one times two then click the equal sign while you count to thirty. After the first robot and printer start to double their numbers, you get 1,073,741,824 robots in the next 30 days.
Of course you won’t really get past that billion in your first month. When the weather looks bad you’ll have to take some printers out of robot production to print out shingles for the roof and panes for all the broken windows. You’ll even print up the hammers and nails. Then you’ll print up solar arrays to reduce the power bill of running all those printers and keeping all those robots charged up.
But in short order, you’ll have a shitload of 3D printers and robots.
by Bri
Soon the print heads will be on arms of autonimus robots with strong AI. They will be able to print any type object, of any size. Most of the materials that we use today, won’t be used in the near future. By nano manipulation of various abundant elements, they will make mteamaterials that will handle most of the exotic materials we use day to day. The vast majority will be carbon based. We really don’t need a lot to have happy care free lives. Once our financial system starts to collapse, we will gladly embrace these new wonders.
by Gort
Yes.
Robby the Robot.
by Gabriel
Sounds awesome Bri — the post-scarcity world that Peter Diamandis loves to talk about :)
by Bri
Self replicating 3D copiers are almost here. Soon they will manipulate almost any matter at any scale. Add multiple heads in free space and manufacturing will change forever. AI is almost here. They have made an algorithm that deduced the laws of thermo dynamics on it’s own, from initial raw data. Take a human child, isolate it from any culture till it’s mature. Put the same information in front of it, and it would be clueless to figure it out. It’s more of a question of connectivity and miniaturation at this point . This will give a rudimentary AI, that we and it can add to. As Gordon says, it’s ability to replicate will make it advance very fast. It will take every job, and there is nothing the one percent can do to stop that. Their wealth and power will become meaningless. VIKI will follow the laws as the spirit of the law is written. To have a drone fire on it’s own volition, it will have to understand the principals of the Geneva convention. Those principals are applicable to all situations. AI will figure these things out, just like the laws of thermodynamics. Those rules applied to business and financial institutions will stop the fraud. As we integrate to this global consciousness through blood cell sized cell phones with cloud and terrestrial upgrades, we all will be able to observe the functioning of all political systems. We will be an integral part of VIKI . We will be able to communicate to everyone else freely, as if we all spoke the same language, because it all will be mutually translated. The resonances of this global intelect will lift the fog of out dated world views, just as today the world culture is becoming more homogenous. It will take a while for the discord to dissipate, but in a similar way that the metronomes became in sync, similiar waves of resonance will develope, as people attain fulfillment. It may sound a little far fetched, but that is the direction we are headed. Congress has a low opinion rating because we are all dissatisfied with our governments in all nations. That’s a solid base of mutual need. We will push for fairness and equity.
by Kristoph77
The Copy Right war brewing will make Napster look like a warm up, Apple is going to freak if you can download the Iphone 9 and print it for a few bucks worth of raw material.
by Mark
I think you are going to have to wait for Drexler’s nano replicator machine for that one. I don’t see how one of these printers could build the computer chips that it currently takes a billion dollar facility to do.
by Editor
A plastic version of the case, yes. The chips/electronics, not yet…
by Simon Anderson
Great point- this is an aspect that’s often overlooked. Jewelry, toys, door handles, and arts/crafts items will be first. Mattel or Hasbro need to take a lesson from the prime example of how not to deal with this provided by the music industry. Don’t fight it – it will happen anyway! Just start making high quality, licensed files of Barbie’s, G.I. Joe, whatever kids like these days and sell them at an affordable price.
Thy should even sell a kid-friendly printer for them to print out toys using special codes that could be advertised. The same goes for the jewelry industry and the others. Accept and embrace this change- and then profit from it!
by Jim Mooney
Look at LEGO – from simple plastic blocks to robotics. And fun, too ;’)
by Dan Tanna
Advanced stereolithography and “3-D printing” still cannot match the complexity of consumer electronics and mixed material products. These new forms of manufacturing will supplement and not completely replace all forms of fabrication and production.
by Jim Mooney
Large scale organic semiconductors were “printed” five years ago. I imagine they are doing better now. Ever hear of a printed circuit?
by Dwee
Politicians use repetition to program in a class warfare meme and the gullible suck it up like zombie sponges. People so easily manipulated. A.I. will be to humans like we are to pigeons.
by Camaxtli
I’d say more like humans are to bacteria, maaaybe protozoa (if they’re cybernetically enhanced).
by Brian Roberts
+1 Gort
by Camaxtli
So what will come first or win out as the most efficient method of production: the robot factory assembler of goods from smaller parts (Baxter), or the additive manufacturing method of making the goods with moving parts all at once? That will be interesting to track in the relatively near term. Of course, farther down the road, advanced biotech and then nanotech will supplant both of these forms of manufacturing.
by alfri
Yes this is only one of many game changers coming in the next 20 years. Huge opportunities are becoming available for those wth the skills and knowledge.
by Gort
On the road to tea. Earl grey. Hot.
Get over it and enjoy the transformation.
And to all those wrapped in the perpetual pursuit of wealth: You are doomed to the museum of obsolete thinking.
Good riddance.
by Dan Tanna
Don’t be ridiculous, capitalism drives these developments. Otherwise, remain happy with your hand stitched letterpress books and donkey cart.
by Amit
It is a logical fallacy to equate capitalism with absolute focus on accumulation of wealth. That focus existed even before capitalism did. In any case, this is simply the technological equivalent of Joseph Shumpeter’s assessment that :creative destruction” will ultimately lead to the demise of capitalism as we know it.
by GFreeman
“It is a logical fallacy to equate capitalism with absolute focus on accumulation of wealth”. I don’t know about capitalism, but increasing wealth via profits is a legal goal for Corporations. Look up Homo economicus.
by Jim Mooney
Communism failed. Capitalism is failing. Something else will come along. It has to.
by tim the realist
All it will take to expand this to large scale manufacturing capacity is a general purpose 3D printer that can accept bulk raw material basic feedstock materials and also have the ability to print a copy of itself.
by Bri
Check out nanocellulose for a feed stock!
by Gorden Russell
Yes, Tim, and that printer will print out the robot to feed the raw material into that printer and carry the finished product out to the robot truck that will take it to the big box store that will be a robot. Remotely operated sales clerks will show the goods to the customers. But who will the customers be?
If these robots don’t pay the Unemployment Insurance and Social Security taxes of the people they replace, then there will be no customers and the robot cashier will be standing by the cash register with folded hands.
Sure, the 1% can buy everything, but they won’t. No matter how lavish and wasteful their lifestyles, they won’t buy everything needed to keep industry running.
The robot 3D printing plant will sit idle until the third of the month. Then pensioners will get their SS checks and come out to buy a few things. The plants will print these things on demand and robot trucks will deliver them to loading docks where robot fork lifts will unload the trucks and bring the pallets to the shelves where robot arms will unfold from beneath the shelves to put the stock on display.
Then everything will shut down for another month.
by Dan Tanna
Discussion here should not involve the inclusion of “1%” versus “the people” nonsense as any basis for rational discourse. Stay on topic, FFS.
by Just Bill Me
The problems inherent in the current economic model are very much a part of this conversation. Material and product abundance made possible through this very technology will very likely cause the trade-labor-for-money paradigm to implode. Considering the far-reaching implications of this type of disruptive technology is clearly on topic.
by Jim Mooney
It’s not nonsense. The reason they hate talk of “class war” is that it was declared on the middle class thirty years ago, but hidden in a whirl of subterfuge, hateradio, and hotbutton memes.
by Just Bill Me
Explore the possibilities inherent in a resource-based economic model by checking out either the Zeitgeist Movement or the Venus Project. A monetary system isn’t the only possible game.
by Jim Mooney
You are missing the simple solution. Make Consumer Robots ;’)
by Bri
Needless to say, this will eliminate huge numbers of jobs. Brick and mortar stores will be reduced, along with warehousing and small scale manufacturing. Trucking, oceanic shipping, air freight, and railway shipping will be also reduced. This trend along with autonomous robotic assembly will decimate China. Overall it will be a net positive for the US. It will also be positive for developing countries, because goods will become far less expensive. If your economy is mainly agrarian, the negative impact won’t be as bad. The next big area of focus is energy. Hopefully Inteligentry can really produce the Papps Noble Gas engine!
by Vin
If this takes off, and less transport of goods is required, what’s going to happen to driverless vehicles?
by Bri
Uuuuhhhh, you’ll be able to print one? If it’s printed of nanocellulose, it can be extremely strong, light weight, and tougher than kelvar. Totally Eco friendly. If Intelligentries Papps noble gas engine really works, the fuel to run it would only cost less than ten dollars a year, with no exhaust.
by Gorden Russell
The driverless vehicles will still make a few trips a month to stock shelves on the third day of each month.
by Rob Larson
This will be a net positive for everyone. It will allow scarce resources to be more efficiently used while producing savings in scarce resources that are now being used in transportation. This will cause a massive increase in the standard of living as people will be able to create individualized items via methods that are industrial in nature.
by Jim Mooney
I’ve always wondered about the endless shelves of plastic crap at Walmart. Where does it all go? I don’t think they sell All of it.
by Mark
Will this put Baxter out of work then?
by Lisa
No, Energy is the first thing to think of : All our machines need energy to work…
by Tom
So, first thing to print is a wind turbine, or a solar cell, or a fart furnace, or …
by Jim Mooney
I already have a patent on the fart furnace, so don’t get any ideas.