LOCALISED ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING FOR PRODUCTION (LAMP) This is my vision for using technology to return localised manufacturing in Australia (for those who don't know: the manufacturing industry in Australia has largely gone) and other such western economies. Key reasons are that Aussies cost more to employ, Aussie factories cost more to build and maintain, and Aussie regulations require more expensive environments for employees to work in. The one small point that we do have in favour of making our own stuff is that it doesn't then have to be shipped here, but that's clearly not enough of an advantage (global pandemics aside). RECENT DEVELOPMENTS 3D printing technology has rapidly expanded in recent years, not just with home 3D printers but also with more varied commercial offerings. Plastics can be printed in full colour and very high detail using machines made by such big names as HP Enterprise. Metals can be printed by similarly sized machines, or ones big as a shipping container able to print large items such as bicycles. Glass can even be 3D printed. There has also been a lot of work done with printing electronics. Circuit boards, even electronic components themselves, are able to be printed. Instead of circuit boards, electronics can be embedded in the structure of a device (even 3D printed clothing), perhaps with bare Integrated Circuit dies automatically inserted and bond wires connected during the printing process. 3D printed batteries able to be built as part of a product's case have been demonstrated, as well as 3D antennas with much superior gain to conventional 2D designs. ON-DEMAND MANUFACTURE So where I'm going with this is that current state-of-the-art 3D printing technologies, if they are able to be combined into a single manufacturing operation, have the promise of producing finished consumer products, including complex electronic items, from mostly raw materials. Instead of making individual parts for complex devices currently assembled by low-cost human labor overseas, the whole device can be manufactured in one automated process. Therefore there is no assembly, so far fewer employees and corresponding equipment are required, so less factory area is also required. Furthermore, most material requirements would no longer be specific to individual products. Electronic components (besides some requiring more manufacturing precision like ICs), bearings, springs, could be made to all sorts of specifications from the same raw materials and built right inside the manufactured device where they are required. Minimal re-tooling should be required to manufacture different devices too, eliminating the need for an economy of scale where a sufficient quantity of identical items needs to be produced in order to justify the set-up cost. One sufficiently equipped 3D printer might therefore be able to manufacture the entire stock for a particular store, producing multiple different types and models of products within one day. HARDWARE LIKE SOFTWARE This versatility also enables rapid and specialised development of physical products, akin to the software industry today. By removing the huge chain of traditional production and distribution processes to be replaced with a single manufacturing step, designs are able to be reproduced and customised anywhere, from the moment of their digital publication. This is the feature that has caused commercial use of 3D printing to currently be dominated by prototyping applications - manufacturing single parts of devices to be traditionally manufactured and assembled later, but without the excessive time and expense of setting up conventional manufacturing proceses just to produce an individual test part. But prototyping may be just the humble start of 3D printing's role in manufacturing. Already 3D printing has become popular for adding trivial customisation to products sold to consumers. Custom shapes and colouring of plastic parts for otherwise traditionally manufactured and assembled items. But the real potential lies in versatility of being able to manufacture devices to completely different designs, designs shared on the internet. Instead of just a small collection of models for each type of item being stocked based on availability and popularity, any design publised on the internet from anywhere in the world could be produced to meet local demand. Prefer the old model? Have it made instead. Need a design modified for someone with a disability? Get it from the same place as for regular models, and for a similar price. Need a special tool for your new hobby? Pick it up tomorrow from your local store instead of waiting for it to come from a specialist supplier at the other end of the country. Designs could be licensed from recognised designers who conform to industry standards, able now to endlessly update and customise their offerings akin to software developers. Free open-source designs could be published by anyone and break the hold of closed-source commercialisation in the hardware world, which is currently enforced by the initial investment required to have devices prototyped and manufactured. To buy a device made to a free design, the cost would be just for physical requirements of manufacture, without regard for how uncommon or specialised it may be. THE 'LAMP' ECONOMY The latest developments in product retail is the emergence of Amazon and similar companies. From across the globe products from countless factories (themselves supplied by various distributors of parts that they don't make themselves) and shipped or flown to massive warehouses to be stacked in anticipation of a click from an online shopper. An army of people run around to grab the items and send them out again on a journey through the suburbs, towns, states, to the house of the person who ordered. Meanwhile those items that never recieve their click gather dust until eventually being discarded as worthless. What would such a company look like if they could 3D print products from digital designs themselves? Instead of the thousands of factories from across the globe each sending their merchandise to the one massive warehouse, only a few suppliers, mostly of raw materials, are needed. As production of raw materials is already able to be highly automated and efficient, local industries in Australia still exist and are more competative. The warehouse doesn't need to be huge either, because no longer do all those products need to be inefficiently kept in their assembled and packaged form, but just as material in bulk storage and digital designs in which hold their potential. So it's possible to build more warehouses/factories, and locate them closer to the people buying the products. Then only the raw materials need to be transported across the country, and the inefficient transport of manufactured products only needs to happen within the local community, also with the option of people picking things up immediately themselves. Instead of an army in each warehouse, employees are spread out amongst the community in local warehouses/factories, manufacturing and distributing just the items that cater for their specific local demand. With this approach, a lot of the of the dependence of Australia and most other western countries on foreign governments and economies to supply physical goods is gone. Also there is far less reliance on fossil fuel powered ships, planes, and trucks, now needed mainly just for the much more efficient transport of raw materials in bulk. At the same time, consumers receive more convenience and far more choice with the products available for them to buy locally. EMPLOYMENT One issue with this plan is that while it brings manufacturing back to Australia, 3D Printing does this largely by replacing the need for human jobs. While operation and maintenance of the machines offers some potential for new employment, it would not be the same manufacturing industry that left us before. Nevertheless it is worth remembering that this industry has already gone, and 'LAMP' offers a more economically and ethically beneficial alternative to the current replacement of Australian workers with underpaid foreigners overseas in unsafe working environments. ENVIRONMENT The disadvantage of 3D printing complex products as completed units that don't require assembly is that they also can't be pulled apart for repair or recycling. In the past this may have lead to significantly more waste and a shorter product life-cycle. But today, as with manufacturing jobs, this battle has been lost already. Devices are designed to be assembled, but often with little or no consideration to disassembly or repair. Information and parts required to repair electronics are now very rarely available, and items of all sorts are generally recycled just as mixed materials because disassembling them to separate their individual parts and materials is too difficult to be economically viable. Assembled consumer goods and devices are already treated as sealed, solid, objects, there's not much to be lost now from making them so. One advantage of the on-demand ability of 3D printing is that unwanted stock is not likely to be produced in quantity. The local demand for individual items can directly determine which ones are manufactured in advance of being ordered. As such the problem of over supply, that can cause so much waste, is largely eliminated. REPRAP A 3D printer that can produce consumer electronics might in theory be able to produce a 3D printer itself. This is in fact the core motivation behind the RepRap project, from which was born the recent home 3D Printer industry, to design a self-replicating machine: https://reprap.org/wiki/RepRap While some of the most recent designs have managed to use a majority of 3D printed parts in the structure of the machine, there is only so much they can do while limited to building with the single material of plastic. Their difficulty is a focus on designs that are cheap and easy enough for individuals to build for their own use. The technology behind developments for printing other materials such as metals, glass, and the ingredients for electronic components, is very expensive, precise, and often proprietary. Initially 3D printers combining these technologies will be far too expensive for individuals, and probably more complex than the manufacturing ability of models targeted at manufacturing consumer electronics. Such machines within the reach of the RepRap project are probably much further away. CONCLUSION This is not purely about technology. It's about a change in thinking about how products are made and distributed. In fact it is a return, in part, to our economic structure as it was before industrialisation - when local craftsmen made their products in low volumes to serve the needs of only their local community. A blacksmith, candlemaker, cobbler, knew the 'public' designs shared within their trade and could choose and adapt them to meet the specific needs of local customers. A few such businesses have continued, particularly in the fashion industry which is now beginning to adopt machines for 3D printing textiles and completed garments. But the technical complexity and variety of wares bought for a modern household has gone far beyond the potential of manual craft. Only now is it becoming possible that machines replace craftsmen not by producing individual goods in one large factory, but a variety of them locally in the community. The tangled global web of manufacturing and distribution that has been built around huge centralised facilities might soon begin to unwind as 3D printing technology restores a distributed, local, manufacturing economy. REFERENCES I've read a lot more related to this application of 3D Printing, but these are some links that I can find quickly [read: I remembered to bookmark]: Conductive metal inks help Draper develop 3D printed electronics for IoT market http://www.3ders.org/articles/20170913-3d-printed-electronics-helping-ma-engineering-firm-draper-embrace-iot-market.html German scientists using ViscoTec print heads to 3D print multi-material electric motor parts http://www.3ders.org/articles/20170922-german-scientists-using-viscotec-print-heads-to-3d-print-multi-material-electric-motor-parts.html University of Pennsylvania engineers 3D printed transistors made from nanocrystal inks http://www.3ders.org/articles/20160408-university-of-pennsylvania-engineers-3d-printed-transistors-made-from-nanocrystal-inks.html BotFactory announces Squink upgrade that lets you 3D print multi-layer PCBs http://www.3ders.org/articles/20160427-botfactory-announces-squink-upgrade-that-lets-you-3d-print-multi-layer-pcbs.html New 3D printed graphene super batteries by Swinburne researchers will last a lifetime http://www.3ders.org/articles/20160726-new-3d-printed-graphene-super-batteries-by-swinburne-researchers-will-last-a-lifetime.html Functional 3D prints with circuits now possible with Continuous Composites' multi-material CSM 3D printer, print speed up to 1200 ipm http://www.3ders.org/articles/20160804-continuous-composites-3d-printing-with-rapid-multi-material-csm-3d-printing-of-copper-fibers-and-epoxies.html Electroloom Mini 3D clothing printer creates seamless, wearable fabric in under 20 minutes http://www.3ders.org/articles/20160307-electroloom-mini-3d-clothing-printer-creates-seamless-wearable-fabric-in-under-20-minutes.html Wikipedia - Printed Electronics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printed_electronics - The Free Thinker, 2020