Mass Customization & Open Innovation News

Conference invitation: 3rd International Conference on Rapid Manufacturing (RM) to be held at Loughborough University on July 9 and 10

Rapid Manufacturing, also know as direct, digital, generative manufacture or additive fabrication, is one of the most exciting emergent technologies available to mass customize today. RM uses 3D Computer Aided Design (CAD) data to directly 'print' or 'grow' parts in a variety of polymeric, metallic, ceramic and organic materials. When fully implemented, it allows almost unlimited variety at no extra variable cost. Old paradigms of optimizing between switching and inventory cost will go away. While the potential of these technologies have been discussed since years, only very recently a larger scale of commercial application has begun.

The most exciting application of rapid manufacturing, in my perspective, is its enabling role for user manufacturing (previous postings on the topic). A new generation of rather cheap machines is coming to the market now promise to replicate the development we had in the printing industry: Form large printing presses to large laser printing systems to the desktop printer. The same may happen to manufacturing. From large centralized factories to decentralized plants to a factory on your desk.

The International Conference on Rapid Manufacturing (RM) is the world's only conferences focused on this trend. Organized by some core members of our mass customization community, the Rapid Manufacturing Group at Loughborough University in the UK, the conference focuses solely on the application of 'end use parts', made using additive layer manufacturing technologies.

The past events have been attended by over 150 delegates and speakers from around the world. The event provides a two day showcase of invited speakers, including the very best in both academic RM research activity and commercial RM applications. The event also plays host to a parallel technology and materials exhibition supported by leading RM systems vendors exclusively for conference delegates.

The program is divided in an academic and a business stream. Topics presented in the business track include:

- Developing a business case for customized RM
- RM for the home based market
- Ultrasonic Consolidation
- Developing intellectual property in RM product
- Pushing the boundaries of RM consumer products
- The socio-economic benefits of RM
- DMLS for high performance RM applications
- Quality management in RM using non destructive testing

The conference further will cover process and materials issues, design opportunities, management and organizational issues and industrial applications, making the conference of relevance to engineers, designers and business managers, as well as academics and researchers and RM materials and system developers.

For more information, registration, and the full program, please go to http://www.rm-conference.com/index.htm

Ultimate Customization: Design and Deliver - a new project that examines the next era of mass customization

A guest article by Daniel Eyers from the Cardiff University Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre (CUIMRC). CUIMRC is a new center at Cardiff University in the UK. In this post, Daniel describes about the mission and research at this center.

Imagine the opportunities that exist when the freedom of design opportunities afforded by Mass Customisation can be realised using innovative Rapid Manufacturing technologies, where one-off custom manufacturing is the norm, not the exception. As these technologies mature and become increasingly accessible to end-users, will this enablement of Mass Customisation be achievable? If so, what will be the effects of customised demand for business when compared to traditional Mass Production?

Cardiff University Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre (CUIMRC), funded by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council, is the UK’s leading research centre in the field of sustainable manufacturing R&D. Ultimate Customisation: Design & Deliver is a new project that examines the concept of Ultimate Customisation, the next era of Mass Customisation. Ultimate Customisation will involve much greater personalisation, where customers actively take part as co-designers and thus contribute to the value creation. The project aims to understand the viability of Ultimate Customisation using advanced manufacturing technologies such as those associated with Rapid Manufacturing. In this project we explore the possible implications of Rapid Manufacturing within a consumer facing environment, challenging traditional mass customisation production economics and disrupting existing commercial logistics, distribution and marketing paradigms.

Our previous consideration for Mass Customisation of logistics (through the McCLOSM study) demonstrated the implications for businesses in customising both logistics and manufacturing, and now that this project approaches its conclusion, the Ultimate Customisation: Design & Deliver project will continue to examine the implications of Rapid Manufacturing technology.

Considering the current status of knowledge, we have found that extensive literature exists for Mass Customisation, and separately, Rapid Manufacturing. However, as a result of rising individualism of consumer demand together with the technological improvement of Rapid Manufacturing, we believe these concepts will increasingly be implemented together in the short term. Despite numerous companies actively engaged in this field, as yet the body of knowledge analysing the overall topic has as yet received little research attention.

As a research centre, CUIMRC aims to help industry through creating greater understanding of the complex interrelationship between economics and environmental and social factors in developing a truly sustainable business. Our approach to research is to actively engage closely with our research partners and their associated supply chains in order to get an impartial, first hand viewpoint of their particular situation, while also allowing us to maximise the relevance and usefulness of our research outputs. Industrial secondments in which our researchers spend time embedded within host organisations have proven an extremely useful mechanism in this respect. We engage with stakeholders on several other levels, ranging from their participation in surveys and focus groups through to collaborative partnerships on individual projects and strategic input to the consortium through representation on our Steering Group.

The Ultimate Customisation project involves a number of collaborative industrial partners embarking on Rapid Manufacturing-Enabled Mass Customised production and through case studies and modelling approaches, we are exploring both demand and supply management implications arising from Mass Customisation. For the organisations involved in the project, our research aims to provide a clear understanding of both their present and prospective supply chains through ‘what-if’ simulations of futuristic business models for Ultimate Customisation. Additionally, from these assessments we can also assist in the optimisation of processes to directly benefit their business. The collaborative partners represent a cross section of industry, including highly experienced designers and manufacturers with capabilities both for rapid manufacture of customised products and traditional mass production.

During our research we anticipate making a number of Ultimate Customisation publications based on our research findings, many of which will be linked to our industrial collaboration. A warm invitation is extended to any individuals or organisations wishing to become involved with the research or receive project updates/dissemination information to register their interest with us.

Contact for more information Daniel Eyers (eyersDR@cf.ac.uk) or Hartanto Wong (wongH@cf.ac.uk).

New Blog on Mass Customization and Rapid Ranufacturing and how this will influence the design profession

We dont do retro is the personal blog of Matt Sinclair, a designer based in Helsinki. I first met Matt on the MCPC 2007 conference and then again last week on a workshop in Helsinki, and he does REALLY interesting work on user co-design.

His blog mainly concerned with mass customization and rapid manufacturing, which are the areas he researching for his PhD at Loughborough University in the UK. But you’ll also find information about other subjects that interest him - lead user innovation, open source design and industrial design in general (Matt also wrote one of the most extensive MCPC 2007 reviews)!

His Ph.D. is titled "An investigation of the feasibility of product architectures to facilitate consumer-created designs in the consumer electronics industry, using rapid manufacturing technologies as an enabler"

While he expects not to be ready before Summer 2010, his early thoughts already are quite interesting:

"Rapid Manufacturing (RM) is defined as the direct production of finished parts or products, most often utilising one of a number of 3D printing technologies. ... The most important difference between rapid manufacturing technologies and traditional mass manufacturing technologies such as injection moulding is the absence of tooling. This has a number of important implications. One of the common features of mass manufacturing processes is that the means of production require substantial initial investment, however once in place the cost of manufacturing a single part or product (relative to the initial investment) is negligible. It is therefore a basic principle of mass manufacturing that as the number of parts produced increases, the cost of production of each individual part decreases. This inevitably leads to uniformity, since even small design changes require significant reinvestment in tooling.
...

Mass customisation offers the possibility of designing for niche markets, in small production runs, but it will be impossible for a designer, or even a design team, to be an expert in all these niches. Designers will therefore need to accept the necessity of inviting consumers to take part in the design process, even to design their own products. Furthermore, rapid manufacturing reduces the level of technological expertise required to design functioning parts. It is therefore likely that consumers will begin to design and produce their own products whether officially sanctioned by a brand or not.

The purpose of the traditional design process is not just to impose a uniform aesthetic however, it also refines and rejects on the basis of ergonomics, durability, integration with other products and systems, cost etc. These are all areas in which the designer’s expertise is the best tool to resolve the conflicting demands of a product brief. To make sense of the potential for multiple product variants which mass customisation offers, my hypothesis is therefore that the task of the industrial designer will in future be to create modular product architectures which define and limit the parameters of any possible design."

Go to Matt's blog here: We dont do retro

Zapfab: User-generated content meets 3D Printing

A new Ponoko-alike company is coming from Manchester in the UK! Zapfab Ltd is a user manufacturing start up that offers a new way of delivering individualized, customized products. As other companies in this field, they are combining the creativity of user-generated content with the power of 3D Printing (fabbing).

In a press release I got today, the company is described as follows:

"User-generated content is ubiquitous throughout the internet, from weblogs to YouTube videos. Zapfab builds on this trend, by providing a website where users can easily generate unique designs for 3D objects.

3D Printing is rapidly gaining ground as a way of creating real, physical objects from 3D design data. Zapfab provides an easy way to access this technology: Once you have generated a 3D design you can choose to have it 3D printed: Zapfab will 3D print the design and deliver the finished object to you.

The Zapfab website has two main areas: the Design Catalog and the 3D Customizer. The Design Catalog contains all the designs on the site and is a repository like Google's 3D warehouse. The 3D Customizer is where the customizing takes place: Each design can be customized in different ways: color, size, pattern, etc. and the 3D Customizer contains simple controls for each of the options. So, once a user has customized a design, she can save it back into the catalog for other people to see. And then they in turn can customize and build on her design.

“We see three main groups of users for Zapfab.com,” said Julie Wood, Zapfab Director, in the press release “First, we have made the 3D Customizer really easy to use, so that anyone can create a unique, customized design in just a few minutes.

Second, there are a range of users with 3D modelling skills, who will be able to upload their designs to the site; and we aim to make it easy for them to add customizations to those designs.

Third, users with programming or scripting skill will be able to create new, highly-customizable designs. And all the designs, from the simplest to the most complex, are customizable through the same easy-to-use 3D Customizer.”

At the moment, Zapfab’s Design Catalog contains over 100 customized designs, ranging from bowls to boxes and bangles. All of the designs can be 3D printed “as is”, or freely customized. It is a nice, but at this stage not too creative collection of things. But I hope to see much more activity on their side, and given that they are located in Europe, I also will try this service by myself in the next weeks and let you know about my experiences.

Research Project Presents Custom-Fit Motorbike Helmet

A recent survey revealed that many motorcyclists have problems in finding a perfect fitting helmet. Mass production cannot solve this issue. Today, partial personalization is done by offering the consumer the choice between with different paddings. But a new manufacturing philosophy is needed to produce a fully customised helmet, perfectly formed to the geometrical features (=head) of a user.

Research from the Custom-fit Project, funded by 6th framework program of the EU, offers a solution: fully personalised helmets at a cost effective rate. The starting point is the 3D scanning of the rider’s head shape, using a laser scanner developed by Custom fit partner Human Solutions. The scanned surface model represents the reference point from where adaptations are made on a standard design, resulting in a helmet design, perfectly shaped to the rider's head (carried out with a specialised CAD tool from the project partner Delcam).

Finally the customised part of the helmet, the liner, is manufactured using a new Rapid Manufacturing machine (a Power Printing Process tool developed in the project by DeMonfort University) which builds the product layer by layer with a high productivity by sintering polymeric powders specifically selected for the new process.

The main issue with custom helmet is safety. While the custom production offer large advances with regard to comfort due to better fit, the safety prepositions of a laser sintered product are still open. To improve this factor, the customised helmets use the same amount of expanded polistyrene that is used in standard and certified helmets (this material is principally responsible for the function of shock absorption). Moreover, some special customisation of the mechanical characteristics of the customised liner should increase safety level, for example lowering the tendency of the helmet to be pulled off the head during riding.

The project has also dealt with the reorganization of service and delivery, by studying a new way to interact with customers form the moment they start the order process, where the head needs to be 'scanned', to the point in which the customised helmet is delivered. All modification to the supply chain have been studied. Initially the rider/customer will probably face an increase in price and delivery time to have a Custom Fit helmet. Nevertheless they will be rewarded by being the owner of a unique, custom-made helmet, not only more comfortable but safer as well.

Context: Custom-Fit is an industry led project to investigate the possibility of moving towards knowledge based manufacturing and customised production through integration of knowledge in Rapid Manufacturing, Information Technology and Material Science. I am serving as a scientific adviser of the project. Funded under the Sixth Framework Programme, the project involves 30 partners from around Europe. The aim is to create a fully integrated system for the design, production and supply of individualised products. It has targeted product for implementing the new technology, including motorcycle seats, helmets, implants and prosthesis.

Ponoko: Design Contest and Latest Press on User Manufacturing Enabler Ponoko

Ponoko (see earlier report) gave one of the favorite presentations at the MCPC 2007 in Boston. The company is a perfect example of user manufacturing. Nic from Ponoko just informed me about their 10-day design challenge series, running from today until March 10. Each day, they ask for designs within a special category.

Being a small company, prices are not that big, but it will be lots of fun and it seems to be an easy way to test Ponoko. The Ponoko crew also can fill its assortment of user design with this project -- and thus, even if you do not win, chances are that other people like your design and you can sell it though their on-demand manufacturing system. The winner gets $1,000. 10 get $300. 25 get their designs made for free ...

For more details on the contest, go here.

Ponoko also got plenty of press in the last weeks, here is a review:

The New York Times – Tinkering at Home, Selling on the Web

The Economist – Bespoke Manufacturing – I made it my way

BBC News – The shape of things to come

Wired – (multiple articles)

MIT Technology Review – Automated Custom Manufacturing

TechCrunch – (multiple articles)

Engadget – Ponoko now live to make, market your gizmo

TrendWatching – 8 important consumer trends for 2008

Treehugger – (multiple articles)

Industry Study on State of Rapid Manufacturing and the Future of Production

EOS, a leading manufacturer of laser-sintering systems, recently presented a market study on the state of laser-sintering technology for production tasks (called rapid manufacturing, e-Manufacturing or also fabbing). These technologies have been used pre-dominantly for prototyping tasks in the past where they allowed experimentation to a much higher degree. But their real economic impact comes from their role as a manufacturing technology, allowing custom manufacturing with no switching cost. It is now starting to compete with conventional casting technologies.

Rapid manufacturing delivers end products, functional parts and tools directly from CAD data. A laser heats and melts powdered plastics or metals layer by layer, until the build is complete and a final product can be taken out of the system. Whether it is jewelery, clothes, lamps, chairs or functional parts for components that are being manufactured, laser sintering and similar generative manufacturing technologies enable the creation of products with highly complex and filigreed structures and forms that are unthinkable geometries for conventional series production – and each piece can be customized at no additional cost.

EOS is, according to its own statement, the world-leading provider of this technology with revenues in laser-sintering of 59.7 million Euro in 2007, an increase of 14 percent compared to the previous year. This number shows that the market still is very small compared to the multi-billion market of traditional production equipment.

On the recent EuroMold Trade Show, the company conducted a survey among industry experts about the future of manufacturing. Is individualized series production from CAD data going to prevail in the future? And which technologies will drive this type of production? The answers on this survey have been published in a recent press release.

While no information is given on the number of respondents or any basic statistical validity, and the study obviously is biased due to its originator, here some quotes from the press release which address some questions I often get from readers of this blog:

33% of the respondents believe that individualized production with laser-sintering is already market-ready, while 37% predict the establishment of the technology in the market within the next three years. The rest anticipate the establishment of rapid manufacturing within five years, with only 4% seeing a lag of ten years.

According to the survey, rapid manufacturing is driven by the general mass customization trend. Both industry and end consumers increasingly request individually manufactured products, creating a potential demand for mass customization of those products. And this is exactly where rapid manufacturing comes into play: 28% of those interviewed said that the trend towards individualized series production is the most important factor for the success of the technology.

Nearly a quarter of the interviewees saw greater “cost savings compared to conventional technologies”.
22% judged that rapid manufacturing will overtake traditional technologies due to “shorter product life cycles”.

But rapid manufacturing with laser-sintering also faces a number of challenges: 29% of the interviewees called the limited choice of materials as the greatest barrier to implementation of rapid manufacturing technology.

Interestingly, respondents felt that the main difficulty is not so much the emerging technology itself, but rather a lack of knowledge and openness in the industry. Approximately a quarter of the respondents judged the “lack of know-how in the industry” as a hindrance. Companies are yet not aware about the technology or lack the capability to change their design and production processes in such a radical way.

Finally the interviewees were asked for their predictions about production methods 20 years in the future.
A clear majority (63%) forecast the broad establishment of mass customization in the Western world. 21% even believe that end customers will have their own mini-factories and produce their own products with rapid manufacturing. About 9% of those asked went so far as to remark that, in 20 years time, manual manufacturing will only take place on the PC.

Context:

- My previous posts on rapid manufacturing
- EOS site with case studies and more articles
- 3rd International Rapid Manufacturing Conference 2008 in the UK - I will speak there as well!

User Manufacturing Trendwatching Report

Trendwatching, a large trend research network, has recently published its annual briefing on the main trends for 2008. Among them is my favorite new topic, user manufacturing (other terms for the same idea are desktop manufacturing, manufacturing as a service, fabbing, ...). Named "MIY – Make it Myself" the Trendwatching crew is naming user manufacturing as the next big thing in user-created content.

"[user generated content]" is a mainstream trend now, one that keeps giving, with millions of consumers uploading their creative endeavors online, and tens of millions of others enjoying the fruits of their creativity. User-generated content, at least in the online world, has grown from a teenage hobby to an almost equal contender to established entities in news, media, entertainment and craft."

These consumers expect to be able to create anything they want as long as it is digital, and to customize and personalize many physical goods with traditional mass customization offerings. The next step in this evolution will be their desire to transfer digitally designed products into real physical goods as well.

Trendwatching is expecting that "MIY | MAKE IT YOURSELF (and then SIY | SELL IT YOURSELF) becomes increasingly sophisticated in the next 12 months".

As references, they refer to old friends which have been covered in this blog before:

# New Zealand-based Ponoko (which works like a Zazzle for 3D objects, see my original article on them here)

# Fab Lab Bcn (Barcelona) is part of the worldwide network of Fab Labs, an initiative of MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, and provides a laser-cutter, water jet, 3D printer, mini-mill and other machines for participants to use. One of Fab Lab's initiators is Neil Gershenfeld, professor at MIT and author of FAB: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop.

# The Desktop Factory 3D printer, with a list price of USD 4,995, uses an inexpensive halogen light source and drum printing technology to build robust parts from composite plastic powder, layer by layer. Desktop Factory envisages that within three years, Desktop Factory's 3D printers will be affordable for home use.

# They also mention the Swedish design group FRONT and their Sketch Furniture project. This trio materializes freehand sketches of furniture into real options. Very nice, very expensive with a chair starting at USD 10,500 per piece.

The last section of their trend report is very important to read, something that I always mention in my presentations on the limitations of user manufacturing:

"Now, we're not saying every consumer is going to design and manufacture his or her own furniture or appliances. Rather, MIY is yet another piece of the participation puzzle: enabling those consumers who feel like it to call the shots, bypassing traditional players. In future briefings we’ll address the implications of what this choice – being able to consume ready-made or create their own versions of anything and everything – will mean for the behavior and expectations of younger generations."

Context:
- The orginal Trendwatching report

- My original report about user manufacturing and my definition of this idea

- My earlier report about Ponoko (more here).

- My earlier report about the low cost 3D printers

- If you can read German, Jochen Krisch had many excellent postings on user manufacturing in the last months, a very good staring point is his recent listing of all 3D printing services on the web.

- A very good starting point also is press reports of Z-Printer, a manufacturer of 3D printers used to make custom objects.

MIT Technology Review on Ponoko: "Ponoko wants to give customers the tools to design and sell whatever they want."

Last week, Michael Gibson published a very nice analysis on Ponoko in the MIT Technology Review. I wrote about this company before, and the article has a nice summary of the recent developments of this user manufacturing start up.

Gibson writes:

"For most companies, product design and development is a long process of trial and error, involving, among other things, in-house designers, committees, timed product releases, and, ultimately, customer feedback. Until a product sells, or if it doesn't sell, it takes up costly shelf space in either stores or warehouses.

But by letting individuals dream up, make, and then sell unique products on demand, Ponoko is attempting to eliminate the product-development wing. Ultimately, it hopes to eliminate the need for a centralized manufacturing plant as well, by recruiting a large enough community of digital manufacturers--people scattered around the world who have 3-D printers, CNC routers, and laser cutters. Moving the site of production as close as possible to the point of purchase will reduce the need for long-distance shipping.

"Just as personal computing went from the mainframe to the desktop, and the result was distributed desktop computing, we see the same trend occurring with digital manufacturing, as it moves from the warehouse to the desktop," says Derek Elley, the chief strategy officer for Ponoko."

At the end of the article, Gibson quotes Phillip Torrone, a senior editor at Make magazine, who tried Ponoko to create a custom stand for his iPhone:

"They did everything that was required for me to get my product," Torrone says. "Their tutorials are fine; the templates were good examples. Pretty much, they did everything right. Now the question is, is there a demand? How much money does a company like this need to make to stay afloat?"

Ellery's answer is that, eventually, Ponoko's revenue will come entirely from digital services, not from manufacturing fees. The company intends to develop six revenue streams, including ad sales and commissions on design purchases."

For more analysis, head to the full article.

Ponoko and related services, and the corresponding business model, are the theme of my upcoming webinar with Pure Inisghts. More information here!

Webinar: The Next Gen of Mass Customization: User Manufacturing, Instant Companies, and Customer Co-Creation (Nov 29, 2007 on your desktop)

How a new infrastructure is enabling consumers to become instant manufacturers – and your future competitor -- 10% discount for MC&OI Blog readers

I am coming back to your desktop. After the large success of an earlier webinar on mass customization, London based Pure Inisghts is organizing a second webinar on the theme, this time around my new favorite topic of user manufacturing.

The topic: We are used to have a networked laser printer on every desk in our office and in every home, enabling us to print documents on the spot which a few decades ago demanded a specialized manufacturer. The same may be happening with the production of many other goods. Today new production technologies ("fabbing") and advanced design software allow average users to produce almost everything – on their own desk. Welcome to the factory in your kitchen.

This session will discuss the upcoming user manufacturing trend, a development that recently is taking shape in larger scope and scale: User manufacturing refers to a public available software, manufacturing, and distribution infrastructure that enables creative users and customers to design, build, and sell own creations to a larger public – without the traditional investments in setting up a business. User manufacturing supplements – or substitutes – mass customization strategies which many companies have implemented. It also may become the most efficient strategy to serve the long tail of variants in many industries.

Consider Spreadshirt, one of the world's largest producers of graphic t-shirts. This company just allows everyone to create an own assortment of designs, and then sell this assortments in highly targeted retail outlets, online and offline, to a small market segment the user knows best. Thus, Spreadshirt does not have to predict the long tail of heterogeneity of fashion products, but just focuses on allowing users to create and sell this assortment by their own.

User manufacturing is enabled by three main technologies: (1) Easy-to-operate design software that allows users to transfer their ideas into a design. (2) Design repositories where users upload, search, and share designs with other users. This allows a community of loosely connected users to develop a large range of applications. (3) Easy-to-access flexible manufacturing technology. New rapid manufacturing technologies ("fabbing") finally deliver the dream of translating any 3-D data files into physical products -- even in you living room. Combining this technology with recent web technologies can open a radical new way to provide custom products along the entire "long tail" of demand.

User manufacturing builds on the notion that users are not just able to configure a good within the given solution space (mass customization), but also to develop such a solution space by their own and utilize it by producing custom products. As a result, customers are becoming not only co-designers, but also manufacturers, using an infrastructure provided by some specialized companies.

The webinar will discuss recent trends and case examples of the user manufacturing trend. We also will compare the business models of companies which are building on the user manufacturing trend and which implement and operate the underlying infrastructure ´for creative users to become manufacturers.

Planned session outline:

- A short review of conventional mass customization thinking

- Which recent trends and developments enhance these strategies and how mass customization is related to “The Long Tail” phenomena

- What is user manufacturing, and which trends does this strategy support?

- What are the components of an infrastructure that supports user manufacturing?

- A review of business models of established companies and recent startups which already successfully benefit from the opportunities of user manufacturing

- A discussion of the major challenges and open issues in this domain

- Session wrap-up: Idea for further action

To register, please go to http://www.pure-insight.com/webinars/mass-customization-next-generation and use promotional code aix (case sensitive!) wenn registering for a 10% discount.

Note: You also can download the webinar after its initial live broadcast – but only when joining live, you can interact and ask direct questions.

All further information can be found here.

Context information

- If you prefer to see the content of this webinar in action, a seminar on Fabbing and User generated Manufacturing in Essen, Germany, provides a great opportunity on Nov 22.

- My earlier posts on user manufacturing

- Article in CNN online on the fabbing trend

- Article in New Scientist on the fabbing trend

- Article in Make magazine on how to use a fabbing device

Rethinking Business: Products of tomorrow: Fabbing, personalization & custom manufacturing (Essen, 22. Nov 2007)

A VERY interesting focused event on the new world of fabbing, laser sintering, user manufacturing, and how to make business with this will take place in Essen (Germany) on Nov 22 afternoon & evening. Hosted by Z-Punkt, an innovative trend consultancy, and taking place in the Zeche Zollverein, a spectacular industrial location, the conference promised to become a real eye-opener and point of discussion.

For more information on the theme, have a look on this previous blog post: I will host a webinar on the same topic of user manufacturing on Nov 29 in case you cannot travel to Essen, Germany, for this event.

For a list of all speakers and the detailed program, please download the event flyer.

The event will be in German language, so all the following announcements are in German language as well.

Erfahren Sie, wie neue Materialien zu Innovationstreibern werden und warum der 3D-Druck das Business revolutioniert. Die Konferenz "Rethinking Business #02. Produkte von morgen" findet am 22. November 2007 auf der Zeche Zollverein in Essen statt. Themenschwerpunkte: Neue Materialien und individuelle Produktion.

Und noch mehr Informationen zum Thema finden Sie in einen Interview mit Frank Piller auf dem Z-Punkt-Blog.

Drucken wir in ein paar Jahren unser Geschirr jeden Tag frisch aus unserem persönlichen 3D-Drucker aus? Und werden die Fallschirme der Zukunft aus Nano-Spinnfäden gefertigt? Wie neue Materialien die Produktwelt von morgen prägen und welches Innovationspotenzial in einer individualisierten Produktionsweise steckt – das diskutiert Z_punkt im Rahmen der Konferenz „Produkte von morgen“ am 22. November 2007 in der Zollverein School of Management and Design in Essen.

Die zweite Veranstaltung im Rahmen des Konferenzzyklus „Rethinking Business“ setzt den Fokus auf „Neue Materialien und Individuelle Produktion“ – und schlägt dabei die Brücke von der Vision zur Praxis. Der nach dem Open-Source-Modell „fab@home“ für 2.000,- Euro gebaute Prototyp eines einfachen 3D-Druckers geht während der Konferenz live in Produktion und vermittelt den Teilnehmern einen Eindruck von den zukünftigen Möglichkeiten einer Fabrik im Taschenformat: Mit einem für Endkunden erschwinglichen 3D-Printer könnte das Ausdrucken von Alltagsprodukten nämlich bald flächendeckend zu Hause möglich sein.

„Uns beschäftigt im Rahmen der Rethinking-Business-Reihe die Frage, wie die Wirtschaft der Zukunft funktioniert. Dieses Mal interessieren wir uns für die Produktwelt. Wir fragen: Wie sehen die Produkte der Zukunft aus? Wie werden sie entwickelt und hergestellt? Und wie müssen sich Unternehmen aufstellen, um intelligente Materialien und individuelle Produktion als Innovationstreiber zu nutzen“, sagt Andreas Neef, geschäftsführender Gesellschafter von Z_punkt.

Darauf muss die Wirtschaft vorbereitet sein – wie einst beim Siegeszug des Personal Computers. Dr. Matthias Lüken, Produktentwickler bei Henkel, und Dr. Sigurd Buchholz, Technologieexperte bei der Bayer Technology Services GmbH, berichten aus der Industrieperspektive über Anwendungsmöglichkeiten und Innovationspotenziale einer individualisierten Produktionsweise.

Weitere Infos:
Rethinking Business #02. Produkte von morgen

22 Nov 2007, 16:00 - 21:30 Uhr at Zollverein School of Management & Design, Essen

http://www.rethinkingbusiness.de

Programm-Flyer und Anmeldung online (Studenten können für nur 50 Euro teilnehmen !)

Info: Silke Schneider (schneider@z-punkt.de)

Bikers Want Customized Motorcycle Seats, Custom Fit Study Finds

Motorcyclists are in favor of customizing their motorcycle seats according to their body geometry. A survey on customization of motorcycle seats carried out as part of the European funded project Custom-Fit, found that 81% of the survey respondents support the idea of a customized seat.

The Custom-Fit project is investigating new techniques for customizing a product based on Rapid Manufacturing (RM). The project is supported with almost 10 millions Euro by the European Community and is one of the largest projects in the area of customization (Disclosure: I am a member of the project’s scientific advisory board).

As explained in the previous posting, RM allows parts to be manufactured directly and automatically using 3D computer-aided design (CAD) model. The new technique will enable consumers to buy products that are built to the exact requirements of the consumers. A motorcycle customized according to body geometry is one of the products which the project is investigating. Other possible applications of the new technique include prosthetic sockets, helmets, mandible implants and knee implants.

The survey was recently carried out by Loughborough University in UK, who is a partner in the project, and received 3200 responses from motorcyclists worldwide. In the survey, majority of the respondents owned a motorcycle and do not share their motorcycle with another person. Although only half of the respondents said that they had experience of discomfort from their motorcycle seats, but majority felt the discomfort during long distance travelling. In addition, more than half of the respondents are willing to pay a premium for the customized seat and many were willing to wait longer.

Professor Richard Hague, Head of the Rapid Manufacturing Research Group in Loughborough University, said: “These initial results show that there is wide support for customised goods – even if initially they are more expensive and take longer to produce.” (Note: Richard Hague chairs the Rapid Manufacturing Track at the MCPC 2007 conference!)

The next phase in the project will be to investigate the technical practicality of designing a motorcycle seat based on the scan data of the consumer’s body profile. Research on how to obtain the body geometry has already started and the project is is now working on defining a “comfort map”, which is a combination of the pressure map and the discomfort zones.

This result is used to identify the area on the seat which needs to be redesigned and the new seats will be testes on motorcycles. At the same time, the management issues involved in providing a customization service for motorcycle seats have also been studied. The project has identified the possible ways to offer the service to the consumers and is studying the supply chain implications of introducing such a service.

Context:

- More results from the Custom Fit project will be presented in several talks on the MCPC 2007 @ MIT !

- Custom-Fit is an industry led project to investigate the possibility of moving towards knowledge based manufacturing and customized production through integration of knowledge in Rapid Manufacturing, Information Technology and Material Science. Funded under the Sixth Framework Program, the project involves 33 partners from around Europe. The aim is to create a fully integrated system for the design, production and supply of individualized products. It has targeted product for implementing the new technology, including motorcycle seats, helmets, implants and prosthesis. Project homepage: http://www.custom-fit.org/

Rapid Manufacturing for Mass Customization: Good Report in DESIGN NEWS Analyzes Recent Development

Joseph Ogando, Senior Editor of DESIGN NEWS, a trade publication, recently published a great feature article on “ Rapid Manufacturing's Role in the Factory of the Future”.

It reports on the use of laser sintering and similar direct manufacturing technologies not just to make prototypes but also to turn out production parts. It’s a practice that goes by many names — including rapid manufacturing, direct digital manufacturing, solid freeform fabrication and low-volume-layered manufacturing. All of the names refer to the use of additive fabrication technologies, which were initially intended for prototyping, to make finished goods, instead. Rapid manufacturing is considered to be one of the main enablers of mass customization of the future.

The report has a number of nice case studies and analyzes the main challenges or rapid manufacturing:

The biggest barrier in the coming years is seen with regard to materials. Some additive parts simply don’t measure up to their molded, machined and cast counterparts when it comes to tensile and other mechanical properties. … Another material issue involves freedom of choice. With additive technologies, engineers currently have to settle for a limited materials line-up. But as the article shows, the scope of applicable materials is fast growing.

A second barrier is seen in the persistent lack of design data. “it’s not so much that current prototyping materials have some shortcomings as the fact engineers have no way of knowing exactly what those shortcomings are.” The article cites a lack of long-term creep and environmental data for additive plastic parts and fatigue data for metals as the most glaring examples of this data deficiency. But rapid manufacturing observers expect more and more data will become available as direct digital manufacturing becomes more popular. In the meantime, large OEMs with stringent manufacturing requirements have worked to develop their own property data.

A third barrier quoted in the report are the capabilities of the existing machinery. Making good production parts every day ups the ante on process repeatability, quality control, throughput and reliability. “Today’s additive fabrication systems aren’t completely ready for prime time. They’re still primarily prototyping machines that you can coax into working as manufacturing systems”´, an industry expert is quoted in the report.

But despite these limitations, the article comes to a positive conclusion:

“With all these factors weighing against direct digital manufacturing, you might wonder, why bother? But, these additive systems already offer design benefits that can offset their manufacturing limitations.

For one, additive machines can produce complex part geometries without regard to conventional manufacturing limitations. Additive fabrication methods based on powder metal beds, for example, can enable parts with interior cavities and features that could not be machined or cast — at least not in an economical one-piece part. ... The upshot of all this design freedom, and the benefit most cited by advocates of direct digital manufacturing, is parts consolidation.

How long will it take for engineers to recognize the design benefits associated with additive processes? Todd Grimm, a consultant to the rapid prototyping industry, thinks it could take 10 or even 20 more years given the current lack of familiarity with additive machines and the technical barriers associated with the machines themselves. …

For a handful of applications, though, the future is now. The best known and highest volume direct digital manufacturing niche has, so far, involved applications where mass customization plays a role. 3D Systems’ Reichental points to the hearing aids as one example and also says RM machines have seen use in the production of casting tools for Invisalign braces. And as the additive machines in general become more capable, … they’ll play a stronger role in other kinds of customized medical and dental devices whose geometry is tailored to the requirements of individual patients.”

Context:
- Read the full article here: Joseph Ogando, Rapid Manufacturing's Role in the Factory of the Future, Design News´, 26 July 2007

- Other reports on rapid manufacturing in this blog.

- Browse the program of the MCPC 2007 to explore talks and presentations on rapid manufacturing during the conference.

User Manufacturing and Crowdsourcing in New Zealand: How Ponoko enables creative users to create, manufacture, and sell digital products online

Ponoko is a user manufacturing platform based in Wellington, New Zealand, where anyone can click to make, buy and sell digital products. Users upload designs, Ponoko manufactures them for them using rapid manufacturing technology, and send the result to users. If they like and approve the result, users then can start to sell their designs (and products) to others using Ponoko’s online shop and distribution system. And as in many ventures, the initiator of the business was a frustrated user who could not buy what he wanted to fulfill his needs. After reading about the idea of personal fabrication by Neil Gershenfield at MIT, a business was born.

I asked Dave ten Have, Ponoko's founder and CEO, to describe how the company was founded and what the team wants to achieve. With the help of Steven Kempton , Ponoko’s chief blogging officer, the following guest article came in:

Ponoko was founded on the idea that making or buying individualized products shouldn't be so complex, time-consuming and at a high cost, both financially and environmentally. It should be an enjoyable experience, where you can focus on the design and not be overly limited to what resources, materials or tools you may or may not have or know about.

The idea for Ponoko came from software entrepreneurs Dave ten Have and Derek Elley, both of whom have made a number of things where each experience left a sour taste. A particularly disappointing project was Dave's experience in designing some wall art - a skateboard shape made of dark rich wood with mother of pearl inset designs. This small project took way too much time than Dave had anticipated – two years in fact. It took an incredible amount of phone calls and emails to multiple parties (mostly engineers who didn't have an interest in creativity/art). In the end, it cost a huge amount for an unpleasant making / buying experience – and when it turned up, it was wrong and had to be sent back. The worst part was having to go through the horrid process all over again. (You can see Dave's personal blog for pictures). After this and other disappointing experiences in making individualized projects, they founded Ponoko.

Encouraged by the rise of the Internet connected 'creative-class' along with smarter, faster, smaller and cheaper digital manufacturing hardware (laser cutters, CNC routers and 3D printers that connect to your everyday PC), Dave and Derek formed a plan to solve these problems. They started with the premise that the personal computing and the personal manufacturing industries have strong parallels, realizing that one day everyone will be able to create and make any product from their own home. This led to the idea of mass-individualized products created by the Web community and made on a globally distributed network of manufacturing hardware controlled from any PC.

Today's product making and distribution model is financially and environmentally unsustainable. It's also under pressure to digitize like the music and video industries have. Because today's 100-year old product making and distribution system is so ingrained into our every day lives and delivers so much benefit, problems are not so obvious. But when was the last time you made something?

Making products today does not come easy – some major problems exist:

* Making and delivering (individualized) products is a time consuming, complex and expensive process. This pain does not fit well in a world that is increasingly in demand for instant satisfaction from mass personalized and customized products at low cost.

* Product making and distribution is cost prohibitive for new entrants without relatively deep financial reserves. This is stifling mass creativity of real products and the progress of humanity on unimaginable fronts.

* Low cost mass production and global distribution relies upon using lots of cheap energy and labor. But these two resources are running out.

* Product making and distribution is a major contributor to the global warming problem (according to the WRI, perhaps 20% of the problem). Being environmentally unsustainable, the increasing 'carbon currency' costs also make the current model financially unsustainable.

* Finding individualized products is very difficult and buying such products is a time consuming, relatively complex and expensive burden. Why is there no easy to find supplier of low cost personalized products?

These pressing problems illustrate that a new product making and distribution process is required. Our solution is made possible given the rise of the Internet connected 'creative class' along with digital manufacturing hardware (laser cutters, CNC routers and 3D printers that connect to your everyday PC), and production materials.

The idea of Ponoko is to address these challenges and to deliver the future of product making and distribution to the mass market, today. Ponoko shall deliver the following benefits:

Less risk. On-demand design and manufacture is made possible, so work does not need to be commenced until a consumer makes a purchase. And because product designs can be sold to a large global audience from day one, pay back periods can be shortened.

Lower costs. With Ponoko, creators can now ship digital product designs with the click of a mouse, not physical products requiring a pocket full of cash. This is Apple iTunes for products, but with YouTube style user-generated content.

Instant scalability without cost. Ponoko's distributed manufacturing model means the creator's cost and time frame to manufacture a product for 1 customer is the same as for 1 million customers. Creators can sell millions of products on-demand at 'no' extra cost.

Increased control. Ponoko is specifically designed to provide end-to-end visibility & control over the entire product making and distribution process.

Less complexity. By connecting creators direct with consumers, the traditional supply chain complexity involving a manufacturer, distributor, wholesaler and retailer is eliminated.

But also for consumers, the system has a number of benefits. The main advantage are low cost individualized products. Because no physical product exists until purchase, product design collaboration makes it possible for everyone to co-create and personalize 'almost anything' they need & want. As adoption increases, prices for Ponoko's design-to-order and made-to-order commodity type products will become unrecognizably low.

We are in beta phase at the moment, so if you're interested to find out how this all works and to help us make it the best making/buying experience you've had, please sign up.

Context:
- Ponoko Blog
- Previous posts on the user manufacturing trend
- Neil Gershenfield on personal fabrication

CNN on User Manufacturing and Fabbing Your Products at Home

Dean Irvine from CNN Online reports in a recent article on a new project, Fab@Home, that wants to provide a machine that can make anything, even itself -- and this in the comfort of your home. What sounds like the dream of a science fiction author is a device developed at Cornell University by Hod Lipson, Assistant Professor at Cornell's Computing and Information Science department, and Evan Malone, a PhD student.

Lipson and Malone's machine is different to conventional rapid manufacturing technologies in several reasons: First, it can use a number of materials, from plastics to metals with a low melting point. "This makes them useful for making parts or components, but not for making complete systems. We're aiming to make integrated systems, including circuitry and sensors," Lipson is quoted in the article.

Second, the machine is not a proprietary technology, but open source machinery.

DIY fabbers have been able to download plans on how to make their own Fab@Home devices from the web site and are able to build it using off-the-shelf components for around $2000, or buy a kit for $3,000. The machines can then be run from software on a desktop computer. Unsurprisingly the current model is more rudimentary than professional rapid prototyping machines.

Lipson: "Since the machine has been out there people have been experimenting with all sorts of materials including food. We've seen a lot of chocolate, cheese and peanut butter-based creations. This might not be the way the machine is used in the future, but it just goes to show how adaptable and open the creative impetus it is."

Lipson thinks that digital fabrication is currently in a similar situation to that of computers in the 1960s, but instead of kits in the hands of enthusiasts and boffins, the fabbing machines can be developed by creatives across the world thanks to the Internet, freeware and open source software.

"It's a project that will be perfected and improved thanks to the online community of designers and creatives. Getting it into the hands of the people is very important. All the software and components are open source so can be changed or modified according to what people want," he said.

While the machine still is in its early stages of development, the article comments on the potential impact of such a machine. This discussion fits into the vision of user manufacturing. In some quotes in the article, I am saying (please excuse this shameless act of self-promotion):

Piller: "It's hard to say if [Fab@home] will be in everyone's home in the next 20 years. It might follow the same trajectory as the laser printer. Who predicted that nearly every home would have one of them 20 years ago? What is certain is that in the long run it's sure to transform the manufacturing process, big companies won't have to focus so much on economies of scale. ... [For consumers], you won't have to wait for products. It will be similar to being your own publisher online, but with an enormous scope of what you can produce."

And how about replicating some Prada shoes or Aquascutum cuff links, Irvin asks in his article. Well, just look on Google Sketch-up and its repository of 3D designs. you will find an amazing number of reverse engineered IKEA furniture here.

"Already people are customizing designs of existing products, like Ikea furniture, using designs tools and these types of machines. It's small scale now, but if this becomes big, then Ikea are going to step in and say:'Hey, you can't customize our designs.' [But] if they're smart then they'll put these machines in their stores," said Piller.

And the basic idea of the IKEA business model of self assembly would become one of self-design (modification) and self production.

Read the full article here: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/04/26/fs.fabmachine/

Context: - The CNN article refers to a fabbed ladies shoe that is wrongly credited to my group. I wrote about the first laser sintered shoe in this blog, but its inventors and designers are Marc van der Zande from TNO Science and Industry and Sjors Bergmans from Concept Design who developed the shoe in a joint EU-funded project called CEC-made shoes.
- Another nice article about the project.

The next customization trend: Gadget Tattoos -- and how you easily can participate

I was pretty busy with my university job in the last weeks, and so I missed this really interesting story that Springwise reported last week, but that has been around some weeks longer. It is a nice example for this blog as it perfectly mixes its two main trends: mass customization and open (source) innovation:

Adafruit offers custom laser etching of laptops, iPods, phones, cameras and more. Among the hip tech set, laser etching is a next step--somewhere after stickers and custom Timbuk2 laptop messenger bags—focusing on personal flair on top of a laptop, not just it screen (how cool is that: synchronize your desktop image with your laptop case).

Adafruit currently operates in New York and is planning to set up a location in San Francisco early this year. Customers can have a small gadget etched for USD 30, and a laptop for USD 100. Bulk rates and services are available to businesses. To open such a business, is not too difficult: Just get an etching machine, some training and let the crowd come. And it is even easier.

Adafruit is a company with an open source business model: It freely shares its business model with other entrepreneurs interested in setting up a customization shop. The company was launched by Phillip Torrone, senior editor of Make magazine, and Limor Fried. The laser etching machine used by Adafruit is an Epilog, priced at around USD 20,000 and capable of doing highly detailed etching (1200 dpi). If a group of interested etchers organizes in a group to buy the machines in a larger batch, they should be able to make a head start by getting the machine's price down.

So f you're interested in setting up your own laser etching business, contact Adafruit at laser@adafruit.com.

More information:
Video: one.revver.com/watch/122276
http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-6143072.html
http://www.techmeme.com/061212/p70#a061212p70

User Manufacturing: Amazon's Next Twist: Will the Online Retailer Become a Key Enabler of User Manufacturing?

User manufacturing as an alternative model to mass customization – and how this can become the next big trend of user-driven value creation

User manufacturing is an alternative (or supplemental) idea to mass customization, building on the notion that (some!) users are able not only to configure a good within the given solution space of a manufacturer, but also (at least partly) to develop such a solution space by their own. And then transfer their individual creations in a product.

Consider a PC: Most of us are now used to the idea to mass-customize a PC using an online configuration toolkit as, e.g., Dell offers it. Here you can just select what the manufacturer has already provided. Indeed, a main task of a configuration toolkit is to exactly ensure that a custom configuration meets the pre-developed manufacturing specs and design of the producer.

But there are also some more extreme users that really build their own, very custom PCs. They do not just configure what a manufacturer has done, but really craft very individual PCs (see the projects at pimprig.com to see what I mean). In this industry, the actual manufacturing is not too difficult, as PC architectures are modular and build to be interchangeable. But you still need some skills and dedications to do so.

Here now the idea of user manufacturing starts: I have included this within the last year or so frequently in my talks and lectures, but have not blogged too much about it yet. But this posting is the start of a series of articles to formulate this idea better:

User manufacturing (perhaps there is a better term?) is a business model were users (customers) are becoming not only co-designers, but also manufacturers, using an infrastructure provided by some specialized companies.

[Update] User manufacturing is enabled by two main technologies:

(1) Easy-to-operate design software that allows users to transfer their ideas into a design without much experience in how to operate a CAD software. eMachineshop's software is a good example for this (see below). Eric von Hippel called this tools "toolkits for user innovation": Think of mass customization configurators with a much broader solution space.

(2) Easy-to-access flexible manufacturing technology. New manufacturing technologies, first of all rapid manufacturing (e.g., laser sintering or 3D printing) enable users to transfer their ideas into concrete objects -- even of they are no pure digital products. Laser printers made publishing possible for anyone (combined with DTP software to design the stuff). Similarly, future manufacturing technology will make the manufacturing of ph