Deranged Musings

Before the industrial revolution things were made locally. There were few economies of scale and because of that there was little advantage in producing something is large quantities and then distributing them. It was much more efficient to produce on a local scale in order to avoid transportation costs.

With the rise of industrialization this changed. Over the years the savings in production costs due to economies of scale outstripped the costs of transportation. Today, many things that we buy are produced on the other side of the planet and are transported to us.

But what if it changed back? I ask this because of two things that I thought about. The first is space travel. If mankind ever has a presence in space it may very well be in space colonies. These colonies will most likely be built with materials already present in space. Presumably an orbital mining system and refinery will be necessary. A extremely versatile factory system will also be necessary. So you will be required to be a highly configurable factory. One could imagine a factory with a series of components and a programmed system that rearranges those components in order to create specific devices. This factory would take raw materials and actually create a product (or maybe another factory designed to create that product).

Another thing I thought about was the increasing power of individuals to use technology. Using a CAD system you could, with some automated level of assistance, design a variety of objects such as furniture, clothes, a home, a car, a computer, and so on. The ability to design and customize is becoming more possible and more valuable in a society that can leave people with a need to stand out.

So imagine local factories that had stores of raw materials and locals could create patterns or download them that would get produced by that factory. If you want furniture instead of purchasing something that has been built far away and shipped to you you have it constructed locally by versatile machines.

Will this ever happen? It is a matter of economics and technology. Will it ever be technologically possible? I would have to say yes. It would be a complex task, but theoretically possible. The next question is whether it would be economically viable. You remove many costs such as transportation (I mentioned space above where the transportation cost is very high) and warehousing and you add the value of extensive customization. (Remember that people spend money on buying a different color electronic device.) But you lose the massive savings of economies of scale. Most manufacturing relies heavily on economies of scale and still requires significant human involvement so this seems quite a ways off.

So where will it happen first, if it happens? My guess is books, magazines, and clothes. Books and magazines are very similar to each other construction-wise. It wouldn't be too difficult to imagine a customize publishing system that prints individual books on demand rather then shipping and warehousing them. Clothes also share similar features. Clothes are also very fashion dependent. A system that could customize clothing easily and rapidly respond to fashion trends would seem to have many advantages.

# posted by Will @ 2:43 PM