Capital Idea to save on Labour

The industrial landscape balances between the supportive forces of capital or labour. Things are tipping toward capital. Last decade after the tech bubble popped, was called the jobless recovery. But hindsight says it was more a debt binge, on non-productive capital. Thats to say we imported domestic durables from Asian countries with low-cost labour, and little government regulation.

Labour is still king in certain industries like clothing and footwear. In fact China is losing to even lower labour cost sources like the Philippines and Thailand. Burma is going to see enormous growth in the coming years, with firms taking advantage of the dirt poor that are ready to work.

But this era is seeing the rise of the small-scale robot. Affordable Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines, 3D Printers, robotics, give the industrialist command over a flexible production line, that can turn out prototype and duplicate product very quickly.

Many of the crowdsourced projects in the design and technology category on kicstarter.com are from entrepreneurs looking for the capital needed to buy tooling, to up production rates of their prototype gadget. And the price of entry is not that high for the kit that would enable production in the thousands.

The fall of USD has been a boom for local manufacturing. Its allowed many to bring their manufacturing home, in a low worker configuration. Machines with a low number of technicians managing them can produce components with high tolerances necessary for a new level of quality. Many manufacturers are having difficulty finding the skills necessary to fill these jobs. Worker incompetence can cost firms dearly, a new level of attention to detail is necessary.


Bringing R&D and production departments together allow the synergy necessary to shorten the cycle of production changes. Allowing a product to evolve faster. This is a slingshot to innovation. Traditionally the firm that imports, wears a large inventory, thus prolongs the iteration of a product. In some cases will need to discount the remaining stocks, when the next shipment is due to arrive. Small scale manufacturing gives the owner the freedom to innovate, and keep margins high on a just-in-time schedule.

Many have been burned by outsourcing, everything from whole production runs out of spec, to firms competing against illegal runs of their own stolen intellectual property. Larger firms are going to a hybrid model, having separate designed components outsourced across a number of different manufacturers. This provides some insurance against the many levels of theft.

Some suggest the 3D printer will change the face of manufacturing, but economies of scale, and efficient supply chains are still cheaper, for the moment. But the idea of digital delivery of products to your personal 3D printer are not outside the realm of possibilities. This era of manufacturing, may be the bridge to that future.