Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
11. Personal Manufacturing in the Digital Age
David A. Mellis
“From my point of view, the greatest developments to be expected of technics in
the future … will not be, as we are usually led to think, in the direction of uni-
versalizing even more strenuously the wasteful American system of mass pro-
duction: no, on the contrary, it will consist in using machines on a human scale,
directly under human control, to fulfill with more exquisite adaptation, with a
higher refinement of skill, the human needs that are to be served…. Much that is
now in the realm of automatism and mass production will come back under dir-
ectly personal control, not by abandoning the machine, but by using it to better
purpose, not by quantifying but by qualifying its further use.”
—Lewis Mumford, Art and Technics (1952)
Digital technology is enabling new alternatives to industrial production. Computer-aided
design (CAD) tools encode objects as information, allowing their designs to be freely
shared online—the practice of open source hardware. Digital fabrication machines turn this
information into objects, allowing for precise, one-off production of physical goods. A
variety of sophisticated off-the-shelf electronic components enable complex sensing, actu-
ation, communication, and interfaces. Together, these technologies enable individuals to
produce complex devices from digital designs, a process we can think of as personal manu-
facturing.
Because open source hardware involves treating physical objects as digital information,
it suggests that we may be able to apply principles and practices from other kinds of online
collaboration to the design of hardware. Open source software, Wikipedia, and other digital
artifacts incorporate the creativity of many different individuals working without the direc-
tion of markets or firms, a process known as peer production. It works because the means
of production of digital goods—computers and software—are widely distributed, the Inter-
net makes communication and coordination efficient, and the work can be divided into
pieces that individuals can choose to work on based on their own interests, needs, and abil-
ities. The extent to which peer production can apply to hardware will shape the extent to
which this approach can provide a viable alternative to mass production for the technology
in our lives.
To make electronic devices amenable to these peer production approaches, we need to
design with them in mind. This process yields devices that look very different than ones
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