Pages tagged manufacturing:

26051202.jpg (JPEG Image, 2282x1397 pixels)
http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2605/26051202.jpg

Info-graphic: consumption of key resources, estimated number of years before exhaustion. Many between 5 and 40 years.
In the Next Industrial Revolution, Atoms Are the New Bits | Magazine
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/01/ff_newrevolution/all/1
Hardware is becoming much more like software.
The door of a dry-cleaner-size storefront in an industrial park in Wareham, Massachusetts, an hour south of Boston, might not look like a portal to the future of American manufacturing, but it is. This is the headquarters of Local Motors, the first open source car company to reach production. Step inside and the office reveals itself as a mind-blowing example of the power of micro-factories.
“In the age of democratized industry, every garage is a potential micro-factory, every citizen a potential micro-entrepreneur 1) INVENT dream up your own. Pro tip: Check the PTO first 2) DESIGN Use free tools like Blender or Google’s SketchUp to create a 3-D digital model of your invention. Or download someone else’s design and incorporate your groundbreaking tweaks. 3) PROTOTYPE desktop 3-D printers like MakerBot are available for under $1,000. Just upload a file and watch the machine render your vision in layered ABS plastic. 4) MANUFACTURE The garage is fine for limited production, to go big, global — outsource. Factories in China are standing by; sites like Alibaba.com can help you find the right partner. 5) SELL Market your product directly to customers via an online store like SparkFun — or set up your own ecommerce outfit through a company like Yahoo or Web Studio. Then haul your golden goose to Maker Faire and become the poster child for the DIY industrial revolution.”
Chris Andersen's latest book outline http://bit.ly/6ty5BX [from http://twitter.com/jamescrabtree/statuses/8357654578]
Launch Your Line
http://www.launchyourline.com/
Launch your line is a platform where you can launch your clothing line, fashion line, fragrance line, footware line, sports line. Anything you wish.
<blockquote> <font color="#595959" size="2" face="Arial">Step 4: Manage your line via the dashboard.</font></strong></td> <td rowspan="2" valign="top" width="47%"><img alt="" src="_layouts/images/Guide_4.jpg" border="1"></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="51%"> <p>From the Dashboard, you can complete every task necessary to launch your line. You can also make it as simple or as complex as you wish… your Dashboard is customized for your needs. Using the Dashboard, you have complete control of all aspects of your business. From your Dashboard you can:</font></p> <ul style="margin-top: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in;" type="disc"> <li>Find a manufacturer</font> </li> <li>Create packaging</font> </li> <li>Create a business entity</font> </li> <li>Create a corporate identity</font> </li> <li>Order affordable graphic design</font> </li> <li>Create a website</font> </li> <li>Create a prototype of your product</font> </li> <li>Find buyers for your line</font> </li> <li>And more!</font> </blockquote>
Explore the world of configurators! — Configurator-Database
http://www.configurator-database.com/
This is the world's biggest configurator database, featuring over 500 web-based configurators.
This site is home to the world's biggest configurator database. Scan over 500 web-based configurators now and follow the up-to-date discussion of these configurators in our blog.
Going It Alone: How to Make Your Stuff In China
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/04/10/going-it-alone-how-to-make-your-stuff-in-china/
industrial zone is not a pretty place. You can’t rent a car, even if you wanted to. There is no public transportation. Pick-ups and drop-offs are pre-arranged with factories. The good news is that the factories love when I visit or, for that matter, when any Westerner visits. There’s a certain hospitality that can be found doing business in China that doesn’t exist to such a great extent in th
4hww
In the Next Industrial Revolution, Atoms Are the New Bits | Magazine
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/01/ff_newrevolution
The door of a dry-cleaner-size storefront in an industrial park in Wareham, Massachusetts, an hour south of Boston, might not look like a portal to the
The door of a dry-cleaner-size storefront in an industrial park in Wareham, Massachusetts, an hour south of Boston, might not look like a portal to the future of American manufacturing, but it is. This is the headquarters of Local Motors, the first open source car company to reach production. Step inside and the office reveals itself as a mind-blowing example of the power of micro-factories.
open source
How to Make an American Job Before It's Too Late: Andy Grove - Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-01/how-to-make-an-american-job-before-it-s-too-late-andy-grove.html
The scaling process is no longer happening in the U.S. And as long as that’s the case, plowing capital into young companies that build their factories elsewhere will continue to yield a bad return in terms of American jobs.
Andy Grove writes interesting/controversial piece arguing for protectionism and other techniques to generate American jobs.
Fantastic piece from the former CEO of Intel on the problems with focusing on profit-margins over jobs. The possible decline of Silicon Valley looks rather similar to the collapse of manufacturing that the UK went through in the late-70s and 80s. The challenge for us is to work out how to recover from that problem.
How it works nowadays: successful companies rarely make what they create.
Startups are a wonderful thing, but they cannot by themselves increase tech employment. Equally important is what comes after that mythical moment of creation in the garage, as technology goes from prototype to mass production. This is the phase where companies scale up. They work out design details, figure out how to make things affordably, build factories, and hire people by the thousands. Scaling is hard work but necessary to make innovation matter. The scaling process is no longer happening in the U.S. And as long as that’s the case, plowing capital into young companies that build their factories elsewhere will continue to yield a bad return in terms of American jobs.
Today, manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is about 166,000 -- lower than it was before the first personal computer, the MITS Altair 2800, was assembled in 1975. Meanwhile, a very effective computer-manufacturing industry has emerged in Asia, employing about 1.5 million workers -- factory employees, engineers and managers. The largest of these companies is Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., also known as Foxconn. The company has grown at an astounding rate, first in Taiwan and later in China. Its revenue last year was $62 billion, larger than Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Dell Inc. or Intel. Foxconn employs more than 800,000 people, more than the combined worldwide head count of Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel and Sony Corp.
Die langweiligen Industrie-Jobs sind doch gar nicht so doof.