Manufacturing is coming back

We are seeing a reverse globalization effect, manufacturing jobs are coming back to the West. And this because there are several benefits of having production in proximity to the R&D and close to the end consumers. You get quick feedback, and you are able to tweak product design and manufacturing appropriately and in a faster way. And innovation in manufacturing and hardware can be transmitted back to product design for evolution and vice versa.

The recent news is that Apple and Lenovo will bring some manufacturing production in the USA:

Reuters: Apple to return some Mac production to U.S. in 2013,  WSJ  Apple CEO Says Mac Production Coming to U.S.,  New York Times In Shift of Jobs, Apple Will Make Some Macs in U.S.

excellent article of Chris Anderson, Mexico: The New China

Some recent articles on this topic:
The Atlantic Mr. China Comes to America

The Atlantic  The Insourcing Boom

my previus blog post on the topic  Why we need manufacturing and the consequences of outsourcing

Hardware is the new software

The New York Times writes that hardware is becoming the new software. In an article titled A Hardware Renaissance in Silicon Valley, we read:

“Although the hardware is not manufactured in Silicon Valley, it is being conceived, designed, prototyped and financed here, usually by small start-ups. What has changed? Each of those steps is speeding up, which cuts the costs and lowers the risks of developing new things. It’s not that software is any less important in Silicon Valley. One reason for the rise of hardware is that it is now so tightly integrated with software.”

Paul Graham writes the essay Hardware renaissance.

3D printing like the Makerbot and Open Source Hardware platforms such as Arduino, Rasperry Pi and Beagle Bone have contributed at reducing the costs and lowering the risks. Things can be tried very quickly at low costs. And a new article on Fortune Time To Invest In Hardware And Manufacturing Startups presents the same arguments.

Chris Anderson has written Makers: The New Industrial Revolution and the new cover of Wired of October shows 3D printing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And when to the mix we add sensors, we have what it is called, the Internet of Things. A good post on smart things is Smart Body, Smart World: The Next Phase of Personal Computing. See also my previous posts smartphones, sensors and the future of medicine, The smartphone revolution and Profits come from selling hardware AND software

And some of the interesting and recent innovations: