Okay, let me throw out some more ideas that I just thought up.
We've all heard about DRM (Digital Rights Management). That's when you download your music/movie from some content-provider using special software, and it only allows you to play it for your personal use, and not to pirate it around to all your friends.
Well, imagine if you could redesign supply chain software (like SAP, PeopleSoft, etc) to work through DRM. That means your supply chain software will download the part design from GM/Toyota/Chrysler/etc, and only allow you to print one copy of it on the part-fabbing machine. That way their execs aren't sweating at night, worrying that you've printed out 50 parts for all your friends.
So this would encourage GM/Ford/Chrysler/etc to make their part designs available for you to download and print -- at a price, naturally. But it saves everybody on transportation costs. It saves on stock/supply management, storage costs, floorspace, etc. The concept of "just in time delivery" would simply be reduced to download time from the internet, plus the time it takes to print the part.
If everybody's mainly downloading parts through the internet, then it means fewer heavy transport trucks roaring down the highway hauling parts, and less pollution being generated. It means less overproduction in factories, where they're producing according to a demand forecast, because now you just produce only on demand, when the individual end-user actually asks for it. It means less material wastage during the production process, because you're making stuff out of powder/etc where the excess can be saved and recycled for later re-use. Because you're working with the raw building materials, you then have the additional flexibility of being able to make whatever damn part you want/need, and not get stuck with whatever the local store has to offer. You'll never have to worry about your product being sold out again, as long as there's the raw material available. The supply chain for physical goods would work much more efficiently, and the cost of goods would come down. The economy would be less polluting, the Earth would be cleaner.
So we're talking about all kinds of savings, all the way down the supply chain. These fabbing machines would be like
ribosomes.When your cells demand enzymes and other proteins, do you make them in one central part of your body and then haul them across your bloodstream to the cells? Hell no -- you make the stuff on site locally, inside the very cells in need of those substances. You simply send the raw materials over to the cells, so that they can fab them into whatever they need.
GM/Ford/Chrysler these days are always worried about being driven out of business. Maybe if they were to change their business model fundamentally, and become content providers, allowing people to download and fab stuff on demand, then they could survive and thrive, and turn the tables on their opponents. They could focus mainly on design -- which is what everyone says they're lacking in -- and leave the headaches of manufacturing, labour disputes, etc behind. The aforementioned cost savings by short-circuiting the supply chain could enable GM/Ford/Chrysler/etc to charge a higher margin per part downloaded. They could come out ahead. (How could they be worse off than they are now, losing money and tottering on bankruptcy)
Anyway, just some thoughts.
Edited by manofsan, 15 May 2007 - 03:01 AM.
