Distributed manufacturing 'revolutionary,' but needs to source funding, finds report

Lux Research analysts evaluated the emerging impact and potential of the disruptive technology. Their findings are detailed in the report: ‘Distributed Manufacturing: The Next Industrial Revolution,’ and summarised below:

3D printing and scanning, CNC milling, and laser-cutting are already DM workhorses. 3D printing, in particular, is poised for more rapid and more powerful disruption in many industries, ranging from simple consumer products to aviation. In addition, more advanced robots costing about $4,000 each have arrived, while printed electronics and synthetic biology are on the horizon.

Currently, thousands of products ranging from trinkets to real cars use DM. Examples include Pebble’s crowdsourced smart watch, Local Motors’ open-source car Rally Fighter, AtFAB’s furniture, and U.K.-based Facit’s custom homes.

However, in order to proliferate, DM needs alternate funding. With traditional venture capital funding declining, besides narrowing to fewer sectors, DM companies will need to tap alternate funding sources, including corporate VCs; conscious capital, or “impact investment;” innovation competitions; and crowdfunding.

“DM is the web browser of manufacturing, with the potential to do to manufacturing what web browsers did to news, music, video, software and other media,” said Mark Bünger, Research Director, Lux, and the lead author of Lux's report, titled, ‘Distributed Manufacturing: The Next Industrial Revolution.’

The report, titled “Distributed Manufacturing: The Next Industrial Revolution,” is part of the Lux Research Autonomous Systems 2.0 Intelligence service.

“If the Internet’s attributes like modularity, distributedness, and open standards can port over to physical things, manufacturing of all kinds of products stands on the top of a revolution as profound as the one that recently razed news, music and software,” added Bünger.