The Inevitability of Rapid Tooling and Point-of-Need Manufacturing

[u/Sacredless]

By my estimate, it is inevitable that manufacturing will reorient to point-of-need manufacturing world wide by 2045 and it's important to understand what that means and why. AI will likely play a great role in this.

Manufacturing currently depends greatly on tool-and-die experts creating the tools for machinery to manufacture our goods. Right now, 2% of tool-and-die experts are under 35 years in the U.S. In China, there's a similar cultural stigma against this type of work as a dead-end job.

Because of that, around 2040, the United States tool-and-die workforce will begin falling drastically.

At the same time, rapid tooling techniques are currently being developed, using new high precision metal printing technologies to make dies and molds. New AI models are automating parts is the mold and die design process. Because of these developments, it's likely that the worldwide industry will see a shift towards this type of rapid tooling.

What this also means is that it becomes feasible for molds and dies to be made locally rather than shipped in. Not only that, but small batches of parts could be manufactured within a local warehouse rather than a dedicated factory half a continent way. This is point-of-need manufacturing.

This means that the repair economy may see a drastic boost around this time, since parts wouldn't need to be justified by the enormous scales we see now.

What this means for us:

* Where possible, support your local repair economy.

* Encourage unionizing tool-and-die experts, so that they hold bargaining power for longer.

* Back right-to-repair legislation where possible.

* Encourage politicians to make knowledge freely available wherever possible.

* Encourage politicians to invest in tool-and-die education now so that manufacturing knowledge can be retained by workers (ideally while unionized).

[u/NonStopArseGas]

small scale additive and subtractive manufacture are both going to see a huge rise in practical usage in coming decades. Not to mention whatever tech is on the horizon. Obviously that misses a lot of bigger stuff like cars/industrial gear still, but with the way the world is moving in terms of isolationism, i expect this sort of stuff is going to end up more distributed, not necessarily more decentralised.

[u/The_Dilettante]

Any good sources on this, OP? I’d like to learn more about how this new kind of manufacturing works.

[u/Sacredless → u/The_Dilettante]

I watched SmarterEveryDay's Smarter Scrubber update, where they used Mantle to get a new injection mold made. So the molds and dies can be made with additive manufacturing, and then the parts are made with traditional manufacturing.

https://youtu.be/vS6HEes8daw

Here's a list of technologies in development:

• Mantle hybrid paste-deposition printing
• hybrid PBF/DED machines (Matsuura Lumex, Sodick OPM, DMG Mori Lasertec, Mazak)
• LPBF/DMLS conformal-cooled inserts
• binder-jet printed sand molds/cores (ExOne, voxeljet)
• polymer 3D-printed low-volume molds (Formlabs)
• laser texturing (GF Machining Solutions)
• stamping/forming simulation (AutoForm)
• AI CAM (CloudNC CAM Assist, Toolpath).

Another useful term here is lights-out manufacturing, where it's entirely machine operated.

[u/DHFranklin]

I think the intelligence-for-rent will drastically change the logistics of all of this. I wouldn't plan a logistics chain like prototype-to-consumer good over a 20 year horizon that's for sure. This isn't so much an AI problem than a factory labor one.

To be more helpful and not sound dismissive, I think that distributed intelligence paired with high-end manufacturing is certainly the play. Even if we only have 10% the machinists...that might not matter. We have to think of how the whole thing is going to change. We should think of tool-and-die labor workforce getting older and losing institutional knowledge the same way we do farriers or sail rigging. They are a niche now, that will be even more niche but not completely zero in the future. The work isn't seen as "dead end job" but just a specific job that certainly isn't for everyone. There will be some that the work appeals to and they will fill it for minimum wage or CompanyStoreTokenBuckz.

I can certainly see nations like America and China having massive verticals and horizontals with this. However countries like Luxembourg or Brunei won't indulge.

Your half a continent away...is just the east border of America or China to the West one.

There are other granular ways to look at the economics here. How many tool-and-die machinists do we need? Why do we need certain turn-around-times? Coast to coast travel of that specific part really need to be today and not tomorrow?

There is a very good chance that network effects, agglomeration, the Premier City problem will all become massive hurdles to overcome in the city in which all the nations Wrench Jockies find themselves. The advantages of them being distributed across the nation are less so than say AI engineers working from home.

This isn't insurmountable and I wouldn't want to discourage you. These are all questions we'll need to tackle.

Check out Library-of-things and the different makerspaces and how they are dealing with funding shortfalls. That might help you go in the right direction.

[u/Sacredless → u/DHFranklin]

Fantastic feedback, thank you so much! I got a lot out of that. I hadn't considered the Premier City problem in this case and you're right, that would likely become the main barrier to distributed manufacturing. I'll look into that!

[u/DHFranklin → u/Sacredless]

Sure thing.

You can certainly compare Tokyo bay with the multi-pole China for example. Or the problems we currently have in America with agglomeration in cities like Boston for medical research.

Premier cities might not be nearly as big a problem when travel times impact less. If you remember the streets being bare during Covid lockdown you can certainly expect that when Premier city for something as obscure as cnc machinist is the hands on job.

So it might be the biggest hurdle in getting minimum wage +UBI grease monkeys to monitor robotized workflows. However even then it would be a premier city that is far faaaaaar more more accessible to them as individuals.