A Re-industrial Revolution.(Technology Information)

Digital technology will enable a return to the one-of-a-kind manufacturing processes of previous centuries

A lot of manufacturers are excited about customization these days. Everybody wants to get on the "mass customization" bandwagon. But let's take a look at what it means.

"Customization" is rooted in mass production. It means taking an existing product and tweaking it to suit a selected niche market, or even an individual customer. "Mass customization" may involve swappable modules that allow for almost limitless configurations of a product.

But customization does not satisfy customers' needs because it starts with a product instead of a person. Satisfaction comes from starting with the individual and creating a new product specifically for him or her.

This process used to be impractical because the economies of scale of mass production made it far less expensive to manufacture products in huge quantities. But digital technologies are quickly changing this.

Digital technologies will soon provide the same economies of scale to small, local manufacturers. The economy of digital manufacturing comes from the proliferation of technology, instead of from the mass replication of identical products. Digital product delivery will soon allow products to be made economically one-at-a-time for each individual customer, as was done before the industrial revolution.

Start with the Customer