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Distributed manufacturing

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Distributed manufacturing, also known as distributed production, cloud producing, distributed digital manufacturing, and local manufacturing, is a form of decentralized manufacturing practiced by enterprises using a network of geographically dispersed manufacturing facilities that are coordinated using information technology. It can also refer to local manufacture via the historic cottage industry model, or manufacturing that takes place in the homes of consumers.

Enterprise

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In enterprise environments, the primary attribute of distributed manufacturing is the ability to create value at geographically dispersed locations. For example, shipping costs could be minimized when products are built geographically close to their intended markets.[1] Also, products manufactured in a number of small facilities distributed over a wide area can be customized with details adapted to individual or regional tastes. Manufacturing components in different physical locations and then managing the supply chain to bring them together for final assembly of a product is also considered a form of distributed manufacturing.[2][3] Digital networks combined with additive manufacturing allow companies a decentralized and geographically independent distributed production (cloud manufacturing).[4]

Consumer

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Within the maker movement and DIY culture, small scale production by consumers often using peer-to-peer resources is being referred to as distributed manufacturing. Consumers download digital designs from an open design repository website like Youmagine or Thingiverse and produce a product for low costs through a distributed network of 3D printing services such as 3D Hubs, Geomiq. In the most distributed form of distributed manufacturing the consumer becomes a prosumer and manufacturers products at home[5] with an open-source 3-D printer such as the RepRap.[6][7] In 2013 a desktop 3-D printer could be economically justified as a personal product fabricator and the number of free and open hardware designs were growing exponentially.[8] Today there are millions of open hardware product designs at hundreds of repositories[9] and there is some evidence consumers are 3-D printing to save money. For example, 2017 case studies probed the quality of: (1) six common complex toys; (2) Lego blocks; and (3) the customizability of open source board games and found that all filaments analyzed saved the prosumer over 75% of the cost of commercially available true alternative toys and over 90% for recyclebot filament.[10] Overall, these results indicate a single 3D printing repository, MyMiniFactory, is saving consumers well over $60 million/year in offset purchases of only toys.[10] These 3-D printers can now be used to make sophisticated high-value products like scientific instruments.[11][12] Similarly, a study in 2022 found that 81% of open source designs provided economic savings and the total savings for the 3D printing community is more than $35 million from downloading only the top 100 products at YouMagine.[13] In general, the savings are largest when compared to conventional products when prosumers use recycled materials in 'distributed recycling and additive manufacturing' (DRAM).[14]

Social change

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Some[15][16][17] call attention to the conjunction of commons-based peer production with distributed manufacturing techniques. The self-reinforced fantasy of a system of eternal growth can be overcome with the development of economies of scope, and here, the civil society can play an important role contributing to the raising of the whole productive structure to a higher plateau of more sustainable and customised productivity.[15] Further, it is true that many issues, problems and threats rise due to the large democratization of the means of production, and especially regarding the physical ones.[15] For instance, the recyclability of advanced nanomaterials is still questioned; weapons manufacturing could become easier; not to mention the implications on counterfeiting[18] and on "intellectual property".[19] It might be maintained that in contrast to the industrial paradigm whose competitive dynamics were about economies of scale, commons-based peer production and distributed manufacturing could develop economies of scope. While the advantages of scale rest on cheap global transportation, the economies of scope share infrastructure costs (intangible and tangible productive resources), taking advantage of the capabilities of the fabrication tools.[15] And following Neil Gershenfeld[20] in that “some of the least developed parts of the world need some of the most advanced technologies”, commons-based peer production and distributed manufacturing may offer the necessary tools for thinking globally but act locally in response to certain problems and needs. As well as supporting individual personal manufacturing [21] social and economic benefits are expected to result from the development of local production economies. In particular, the humanitarian and development sector are becoming increasingly interested in how distributed manufacturing can overcome the supply chain challenges of last mile distribution.[22] Further, distributed manufacturing has been proposed as a key element in the Cosmopolitan localism or cosmolocalism framework to reconfigure production by prioritizing socio-ecological well-being over corporate profits, over-production and excess consumption.[23]

Technology

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By localizing manufacturing, distributed manufacturing may enable a balance between two opposite extreme qualities in technology development: Low technology and High tech.[24] This balance is understood as an inclusive middle, a "mid-tech", that may go beyond the two polarities, incorporating them into a higher synthesis. Thus, in such an approach, low-tech and high-tech stop being mutually exclusive. They instead become a dialectic totality. Mid-tech may be abbreviated to “both…and…” instead of “neither…nor…”. Mid-tech combines the efficiency and versatility of digital/automated technology with low-tech's potential for autonomy and resilience.[24]

References

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  1. ^ Durach, Christian F.; Kurpjuweit, Stefan; Wagner, Stephan M. (2017-09-25). "The impact of additive manufacturing on supply chains". International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management. 47 (10): 954–971. doi:10.1108/ijpdlm-11-2016-0332. ISSN 0960-0035.
  2. ^ Chrisman, Ray. "Enhancement of Distributed Manufacturing using expanded Process Intensification Concepts" (PDF). University of Washington. Retrieved 7 May 2013.
  3. ^ Hermann Kühnle (2010). Distributed Manufacturing: Paradigm, Concepts, Solutions and Examples. Springer. ISBN 978-1-84882-707-3. Retrieved 7 May 2013.
  4. ^ Felix Bopp (2010). Future Business Models by Additive Manufacturing. Verlag. ISBN 978-3836685085. Retrieved 4 July 2014.
  5. ^ Petersen, Emily E.; Pearce, Joshua (2017). "Emergence of Home Manufacturing in the Developed World: Return on Investment for Open-Source 3-D Printers". Technologies. 5 (1): 7. doi:10.3390/technologies5010007. ISSN 2227-7080.
  6. ^ Sells, Ed, Zach Smith, Sebastien Bailard, Adrian Bowyer, and Vik Olliver. "Reprap: the replicating rapid prototyper: maximizing customizability by breeding the means of production." HANDBOOK OF RESEARCH IN MASS CUSTOMIZATION AND PERSONALIZATION, (2010).
  7. ^ Jones, R., Haufe, P., Sells, E., Iravani, P., Olliver, V., Palmer, C., & Bowyer, A. (2011). Reprap??? the replicating rapid prototyper. Robotica, 29(1), 177-191.
  8. ^ Wittbrodt, B. T.; Glover, A. G.; Laureto, J.; Anzalone, G. C.; Oppliger, D.; Irwin, J. L.; Pearce, J. M. (2013-09-01). "Life-cycle economic analysis of distributed manufacturing with open-source 3-D printers". Mechatronics. 23 (6): 713–726. doi:10.1016/j.mechatronics.2013.06.002. ISSN 0957-4158. S2CID 1766321.
  9. ^ "Printable part sources - RepRap". reprap.org. Retrieved 2023-03-02.
  10. ^ a b Petersen, Emily E.; Kidd, Romain W.; Pearce, Joshua M. (2017). "Impact of DIY Home Manufacturing with 3D Printing on the Toy and Game Market". Technologies. 5 (3): 45. doi:10.3390/technologies5030045. ISSN 2227-7080.
  11. ^ Coakley, Meghan; Hurt, Darrell E. (2016-08-01). "3D Printing in the Laboratory: Maximize Time and Funds with Customized and Open-Source Labware". SLAS Technology. Special Issue: Collaborative 3D Printing Technology. 21 (4): 489–495. doi:10.1177/2211068216649578. ISSN 2472-6303. PMC 5380887. PMID 27197798.
  12. ^ Baden, Tom; Chagas, Andre Maia; Gage, Greg; Marzullo, Timothy; Prieto-Godino, Lucia L.; Euler, Thomas (2015-03-20). "Open Labware: 3-D Printing Your Own Lab Equipment". PLOS Biology. 13 (3): e1002086. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002086. ISSN 1545-7885. PMC 4368627. PMID 25794301.
  13. ^ Pearce, Joshua; Qian, Jun-Yu (2022-07-15). "Economic Impact of DIY Home Manufacturing of Consumer Products with Low-cost 3D Printing from Free and Open Source Designs". European Journal of Social Impact and Circular Economy. 3 (2): 1–24. doi:10.13135/2704-9906/6508. ISSN 2704-9906.
  14. ^ Cruz Sanchez, Fabio A.; Boudaoud, Hakim; Hoppe, Sandrine; Camargo, Mauricio (2017-10-01). "Polymer recycling in an open-source additive manufacturing context: Mechanical issues". Additive Manufacturing. 17: 87–105. doi:10.1016/j.addma.2017.05.013. ISSN 2214-8604.
  15. ^ a b c d Kostakis, V.; Bauwens, M. (2014): Network Society and Future Scenarios for a Collaborative Economy. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. (wiki)
  16. ^ Kostakis, V.; Papachristou, M. (2014): Commons-based peer production and digital fabrication: The case of a RepRap-based, Lego-built 3D printing-milling machine. In: Telematics and Informatics, 31(3), 434 - 443
  17. ^ Kostakis, V; Fountouklis, M; Drechsler, W. (2013): Peer Production and Desktop Manufacturing: The Case of the Helix-T Wind Turbine Project. . In: Science, Technology, & Human Values, 38(6), 773 - 800.
  18. ^ Campbell, Thomas, Christopher Williams, Olga Ivanova, and Banning Garrett. (2011): Could 3D Printing Change the World? Technologies, Potential, and Implications of Additive Manufacturing Archived August 15, 2013, at the Wayback Machine. Washington: Atlantic Council of the United States
  19. ^ Bradshaw, Simon, Adrian Bowyer, and Patrick Haufe (2010): The Intellectual Property Implications of Low-Cost 3D Printing. In: SCRIPTed 7
  20. ^ Gershenfeld, Neil (2007): FAB: The Coming Revolution on your Desktop: From Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication. Cambridge: Basic Books, p. 13-14
  21. ^ Mota, C., 2011, November. The rise of personal fabrication. In Proceedings of the 8th ACM conference on Creativity and cognition (pp. 279-288). ACM.
  22. ^ Corsini, L., Aranda-Jan, C. B., & Moultrie, J. (2019). Using digital fabrication tools to provide humanitarian and development aid in low-resource settings. Technology in Society. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2019.02.003
  23. ^ Kostakis, Vasilis; Niaros, Vasilis; Giotitsas, Chris (2023-06-30). "Beyond global versus local: illuminating a cosmolocal framework for convivial technology development". Sustainability Science. 18 (5): 2309–2322. Bibcode:2023SuSc...18.2309K. doi:10.1007/s11625-023-01378-1. ISSN 1937-0709.
  24. ^ a b Kostakis, Vasilis; Pazaitis, Alex; Liarokapis, Minas (2023-06-20). "Beyond high-tech versus low-tech: A tentative framework for sustainable urban data governance". BigData&Society. 10. doi:10.1177/20539517231180583. ISSN 2053-9517. This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under the CC BY 4.0 license.
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