3D printing also known as additive manufacturing is about to further disrupt manufacturing and supply chains. There will be many ethical considerations as this changes the difference between the nature of physical and digital items copied from LM13 below but there will also be improvements in agility, rapid prototyping and production and fewer costs from labor and wasted material. Of course the diminished requirement for labor will also affect society (business-society-IT) triangle.
There is a fundamental difference between Physical entities and Information*.
Physical items:
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- Wear out
- Are replicated at the expense of the manufacturer
- Exist at a tangible location
- When sold, the seller no longer owns the thing
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Information in contrast:
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- Never wears out, (though it can become obsolete or untrue)
- Can be replicated at virtually no cost without limit
- Exists in the ether
- When sold, the seller still retains the information, (This ownership provides little value if the ability of others to copy it is not limited)
- Often costly to produce, but cheap to reproduce, therefore pricing is set to recover the sunk cost of its initial production and is typically based on the value to the consumer.
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Comparison of the economics of things with the economics of information. Philip Evans and Thomas Wurster, Blown to Bits (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2000).
3D Scanner Fax
Building a house in 20 hours for $4000
NASA’s plans for 3-d printing in space for part fabrication… finally… the “Star Trek Replicator” – 🙂
China’s proposed large… very large 3-d printer
Computer World’s evaluation of personal 3-d printers with embedded video.
Ultimate Disruption