Distributed manufacturing could be the next industrial revolution, says report

Distributed manufacturing (DM)—local, small-scale, rapid design and production—comes from the ability to engineer and make few parts as cheaply as many, rather than high-volume, centralized manufacturing. Currently thousands of products from trinkets to automobiles use DM. However, it's not the answer for every product, and its impact will depend on economics and the demand for flexibility, according to Lux Research, Boston.

“DM is the web browser of manufacturing, with the potential to do to manufacturing what web browsers did to news, music, video, software, and other media,” said Mark Bünger, Lux Research director and the lead author of “Distributed Manufacturing: The Next Industrial Revolution.”

“If the Internet’s attributes like modularity, distributedness, and open standards can port over to physical things, manufacturing of all kinds of products stands on the top of a revolution as profound as the one that recently razed news, music, and software,” he added.

According to the report, 3-D printing and scanning, CNC milling, and laser cutting already are DM workhorses. 3-D printing, in particular, is poised for more rapid and more powerful disruption in many industries from simple consumer products to aviation. In addition, more advanced robots have arrived, while printed electronics and synthetic biology are on the horizon.

The report also notes that DM needs alternative funding. With traditional venture capital funding declining, besides narrowing to fewer sectors, DM companies will need to tap alternate funding sources, including corporate venture capital, conscious capital or “impact investment,” innovation competitions, and crowdfunding.