It's happening right now, according to Wired's chief editor, Chris Anderson. When
was the last time you saw an army of drafters hunched over tables using
T-squares and slide rules to convert ideas and concepts into meaningful images for
machine operators to convert raw materials in parts for others to assemble into
products?
Well
T-squares and slide rules have given way to computer screens and keyboards. What's more, computers can digitize images into
codes and electronically send them to other machines for cutting, bending,
welding, or shaping raw materials into parts.
Okay, but hasn't this been going on for a while? "The
biggest transformation is not in the way things are done but in who's doing it," according to
Anderson. In his new book, Makers:
The New Industrial Revolution, he describes how individuals, working in
basements and garages, are "using digital tools, designing onscreen, and
increasingly outputting to desktop fabrication machines," and, because
they're the Web generation, they "instinctively share their creations
online."
That wasn't
true in the old days. "Because of the expertise, equipment, and costs of
producing things on a large scale, manufacturing has been mostly the provenance
of big companies and trained professionals."
So, can
anyone be a Henry Ford? According to Anderson, "The digital transformation
of making stuff is doing more than simply making existing manufacturing more
efficient. It's also extending manufacturing to a hugely expanded population of
producers--the existing manufacturers plus a lot of regular folks who are
becoming entrepreneurs."
