DESKTOP MANUFACTURING
When I first mentioned desktop publishing seven years ago, I was
considered a kook. Two years ago when I wrote about desktop video,
people showed interest. A year ago I spoke about stereo lithography
and they applauded. Today, almost everyone knows "something is
happening". But they're not sure what.
Get ready for desktop manufacturing. Since I now have surgicallyimplanted synthetic vision and since artificial or virtual reality is
almost upon us, why not desktop manufacturing?
Here is how it works. My column a year ago described how computer
created designs can be electronically transferred to a box, a machine
that converts the designs and driven signals, to pass through a laser
beam that "cures" a liquid plastic inside the "box" and converts the
on-screen design almost immediately, into a solid, three-dimensional
object. It originally was designed to make models of a product
quicker than those made by the earlier partially computerized
process.
Right now on my computer console stands one of the first samples from
that machine, a perfume bottle for Avon Products.
Hundreds of products have been zapped out during 1991 and 1992 as
"models".
The system has come a long way in 12 months, but time is compressing,
so what used to take five years can now take, with the latest technology, less than a year. What used to be done with one machine to
make models, can now be done with a single computer, hooked up to 10,
a hundred, or a thousand such machines. This is desktop
manufacturing. In other words, workerless factories. Another recent
column described workerless construction, whereby a robot builds
office, apartment, hotel or hospital buildings non-stop, year-round
with only two human computer controllers riding in a control tower
atop the rising building. Aftershock: The controlling computer, like
those in any roboticized factory -- can be in Washington, Brussels
or Tokyo.
This means that old-style jobs are obsolete. Single worker companies,
task forces, small, owner-operated companies will be the financially
viable units of tomorrow. This will provide horrendous problems for
governments. No longer will the major portion of government revenues
come from major corporations.
Governments will have to deal with thousands of small, almost
insignificant companies, those that in total provide the wealth of
the country.
With modern communications and ultra-smart manufacturing equipment
able to operate almost on its own intelligence, the whole concept of
manufacturing takes on new meaning. The value of software today is
rapidly surpassing the value of hardware as we have known it in the
past. Software is usually provided by knowledge workers working
alone or in very small teams. When perfected and after research and
development costs have been written off, profit margins sometimes
reach levels approaching 75 percent or higher. It only takes seconds
to duplicate any knowledge program and the computer floppy discs cost
only pennies.
As Toronto futurist Robert Russel says "Jobs are going the way of
slavery, serfdom and indentured labor."
Such monumental change has never been known before. As this steamroller of change charges forward, remember that if you do not become
part of the steam-roller, you will become part of the road.
* * *
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