My first book, Threes, was available for a time in print. The process was print on demand. Print and bind one new book each time one book was ordered. It has and will continue to transform the publishing industry. So will e-books or digital versions of the same.
In fact the digital revolution when expressed as digital manufacturing represents the third wave of the industrial revolution that began in Great Britain during the 18th century and progressed to the United States as a second industrial revolution with the introduction of the assembly line.
In some ways this third industrial revolution, the digital one, reverses the mass production orientation of the assembly line. It makes the manufacture of some items personal, customized, even unique, to the buyer or maker.
“As manufacturing goes digital, a third great change is now gathering pace. It will allow things to be made economically in smaller numbers, more flexibly and with a much lower input of labor, thanks to new materials, completely new processes such as 3D printing, easy-to-use robots and new collaborative manufacturing services available online. The wheel is almost coming full circle, turning away from mass manufacturing and towards much more individualized production. And that in turn could bring some of the jobs back to rich countries that long ago lost them to the emerging world,” writes The Economist in 2012.
In the end the real benefit of digital manufacturing may be the jobs that remain in the hands of those who created the process.
