Global Warming Solution: On-Demand Manufacturing

One of our environmental puzzles displaying Earth with a fever!

I believe that things will get far worse environmentally before they get better, I also believe that we are but on the fine cusp of a HUGE fundamental shift in how the glocal economies of this world operate… and desktop on-demand manufacturing is a vital piece towards solving the global warming puzzle.

What is desktop on-demand manufacturing?

Change this question to “what is a desktop printer” to get an idea of how much of a revolution on-demand desktop manufacturing will become and multiply that by ten-fold. Right now, just about every modern product goes through a vast array of middle-men from raw resource to working in your home. Each step along this supply line creates emitions in one form or another, wasted resources and worse, a slight up-selling to generate a profit.

From forest to workshop: Wood Supply Chains

Right now, if you want to buy a piece of lumber from Home Depot, it was first cut by a lumberjack, dragged by a timberjack to a waiting transport carrier, transported to a mill sometimes hundreds of kilometers away, cut into pieces along enormous assembly lines, packaged and put onto a waiting train then off-loaded onto a transport truck then “maybe” to a lumber yard where you drive your pick-up to bring it to your home. That is a heck of a lot of fuel, time and resources wasted isn’t it!

How manufacturing MUST happen in the future

I believe in 50 years, the above scenario will no longer be the status quo, if you want to get a nice wooden desk, instead of all this transport taking place, you would either:

a) order timber directly from a locally run bamboo plantation mill (grows fast, very strong vs hardwoods or softwoods) and once the board arrives at your home, stick it into a machine to that will slice and dice your raw material into the item of your choice (whose plans you bought online from WoodMarvels.com of course).

or

b) order a finished product, flat-packed and shipped right to your home if you cannot afford the upkeep of a desktop on-demand manufacturing unit.

Jobs and companies WILL disappear!

There are already closee to seven billion people on this planet and short of a major epidemic or war to cut our numbers down, we will easily double or triple our global population over the next several decades. What will happen to all the businesses and people who need things to remain the way they are for their livelyhood? Desktop on-demand manufacturing isn’t just for wooden items, it includes complex machinery construction such as cars, trucks… basically ANYTHING you can currently buy at the local department store will be made (and recycled) in a seamless manner when you need it for only as long as you need it. That guy filling-in the shelves at aisle 5 will not be needed, nor will his manager or the friendly cashier for that manner. If you think the job losses NOW are bad, wait till retail shops of all sizes become a thing of the past!

So, when will this fundamental re-structuring of the worlds economies begin?

It already has and will continue to do so at an ever increasing rate. Desktop manufacturing units exist NOW, the use of CNC machines and technologies associated with their function have evolved dramatically and are available NOW. The entire cost of running a manufacturing business has dropped dramatically and is within reach of  the average person right now! How cheap? Well, there are units available for desktop manufacturing for under 5K$! To put this into perspective, laser printers use to be about that price 15 years ago… so it isn’t much of a stretch to say that for a few hundred dollars in the next decade, the same will hold true for desktop manufacturing units.

The future is blindingly bright!

Each and everyday I work on WoodMarvels.com (and my other sites), I feel I am that much closer towards realizing a goal of changing peoples attitudes. The shift from mass-production to on-demand will have huge ramifications socially, economically and geographically. You can either try to fight this change or embrass it with open arms! I can’t wait to wake-up every morning and learn new manufacturing techniques, get more designers to join our ranks and better yet, help in the adoption of on-demand merchandise. The future is nothing but blindingly bright in my opinion!

The Bottom Line

On-Demand is here to stay and needs to be adopted for a prosperous future!