What is redistributed manufacturing?

[sharmarval]

Relates to the discussion on 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing Design Resources and Links:

This is a topic to discuss redistributed manufacturing. Feel free to add.

Summarised/paraphrased from a separate publication:

“The trend towards centralised, global supply chains has significantly reduced the manufacturing capacity of Western countries. Ever-increasing labour costs abroad, high transportation costs, sensitivity to global production trends (material costs spikes), increased risk, complex supply chains, all combine to reduce resilience for Western producers, making centralised approaches to manufacturing unappealing. These issues, in-part, have given rise to an interest in RdM. RdM is also stimulated by industry 4.0, which sees digital technologies (additive and subtractive desk-top manufacturing technologies), smart factories (factories of the future), intelligent devices and cyber-physical systems converging to give rise to a new industrial revolution.”

The UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) have published a report documenting a workshops it held on defining RdM as well as funding a number of projects on the topic:

Redistributed Manufacturing in Healthcare

Recode Network

Future Makespaces in Redistributed Manufacturing

Redistributed Manufacturing for Resilient Sustainable Cities

Redistributed Manufacturing Wordpress

EMF also just published a report on circular economy and intelligent assets, which is very relevant to the topic.

EU platform on factories of the future.

Distributed manufacturing: Scope, Challenges, Opportunities

The Factory Everywhere: The Present and Future of Distributed Production

[Lars2i]

Could this also be called “decentralized” manufacturing?

Or are there strict differences between the concept of “decentralization” and “redistributed manufacturing”.

I am asking, because I think for me “decentralization” is a key argument for Open Source in context of Circular Economy. And that is the word I am using at the moment. If we have synonyms here would be good to know.

---

When I talk about “decentralized” i mean, that the production can happen independently from specific companies (and therefor their facilities). No “central” chief.

But the description you posted would also work if a company is still in charge - maintains power through IP. So RdM is not necessarily tied to an “Open” approach - at least not from the “product owners” perspective.

[sharmarval]

Yup, you are right @Lars2i I think RdM probably can be closed.

The term RdM is used because the concept of distributed is already pretty well defined.