From the Advisory Board: The anti-handling age
Science fiction is turning into just plain science. And it's around the corner.
By John Usher, Professor and Chairman, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Louisville -- Modern Materials Handling, 1/1/2009
“NO!!” The word comes out of my mouth just as my cell phone comes out of my pocket and hits the concrete sidewalk. A quick check confirms that it still works, but the back cover plate is badly cracked. Hmm, I guess some duct tape would work. I could order a replacement off the Internet, but that will take two weeks and cost a lot of money. Or, what if I just enter a special code on my phone which downloads a 3-D solid model of the part I need (for 29 cents) and relays it to my new Nano-Fab 2020 sitting in my basement?
The machine, which is little more than an ink-jet printer hooked to some canisters of basic materials, starts building my new plastic cover plate, one layer at a time. An hour later, I pop the part out of the tabletop machine and onto my new phone. I am, as they say, good to go.
However, there are a few organizations that are not so happy. Take for example Injecto Inc., which used to make this part for $1.99 and sell it for $6.99. Or how about threePL Inc, which used to store and pick this part for 69 cents? And then there's UPX, which used to deliver it for $7.99 S&H. Don't forget Conveya Inc., which supplied all the conveyors at Injecto. Or Tilton Industries which supplied the tilt-tray sorter at the 3PL. Or Scanyourbox LLC which installed the scanners at UPX. OK, enough!
This scenario is still a ways off, but make no mistake, it will happen. Nobel Laureate physicist Richard Feynman proposed the idea of nanotechnology in a landmark lecture in 1959 called “There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom.” In it, he pointed out that the laws of physics do not prohibit us from actually constructing things one atom at a time.
Today, scientists and engineers are creating a variety of small devices including pumps, gears, sensors, valves and other mechanisms measuring only a few nanometers (1 nanometer = 1 billionth of a meter). In his 2005 book, “The Singularity is Near,” Ray Kurweil lays out a very plausible scenario of the future using well-documented technology growth trends. He shows how, very soon, we will have millions of times more computing power than we have today, and soon after that billions, growing in an exponential pattern. His predictions about the accelerating pace at which technology is headed straight at us are both exciting and chilling.
By harnessing our existing computing power and using it to control and manipulate materials at smaller and smaller scales, rapid prototyping is transforming into direct digital manufacturing (DDM). DDM is closer to reality than flying cars, completely automated factories, entire meals in pill form, and a host of other “crazy” ideas we were led to believe would have happened by now.
I keep hearing that “the future is logistics.” Actually, I think the future is anti-logistics. Once we have the technology to directly manufacture what we need, when we need it, and exactly where we need it, we'll also need fewer warehouses to store little plastic parts, fewer trucks burning millions of gallons of fuel to haul little plastic parts, fewer saws in the Great Northwest to cut down millions of trees to make cardboard boxes to hold the little plastic parts, and so on. The potential of DDM to remove waste throughout manufacturing, storage and distribution is staggering … and the manufacturing and distribution industries had better be prepared.
No one can foresee exactly what the future holds, but it seems certain that new technologies will create unique solutions to our manufacturing and logistics needs. It even seems likely that a huge chunk of our current materials handling, logistics and transportation systems could disappear entirely. What will fill the void? I don't know, but I sure hope it's flying cars.
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