Extending the product portfolio with ‘devolved manufacturing’: methodology and case studies

Current research by the developers of rapid prototyping systems is generally focused on improvements in cost, speed and materials to create truly economic and practical economic rapid manufacturing (RM) machines. In addition to being potentially smarter/faster/cheaper replacements for existing manufacturing technologies, the next generation of these machines will provide opportunities not only for the design and fabrication of products without traditional constraints but also for organizing manufacturing activities in new, innovative and previously undreamt of ways. This paper outlines a novel devolved manufacturing (DM) ‘factory-less’ approach to e-manufacturing, which integrates mass customization (MC) concepts, RM technologies and the communication opportunities of the Internet/World Wide Web, describes two case studies of different DM implementations and discusses the limitations and appropriateness of each, and, finally, draws some conclusions about the technical, manufacturing and business challenges involved.