Local Motors es una empresa que se las arregla para fabricar coches con sólo 10 empleados. Su último modelo es el Rally Fighter, cuyo diseño ha sido creado cooperativamente por la comunidad de posibles compradores. Este es uno de los muchos ejemplos que han llevado a Chris Anderson, redactor jefe de Wired, a concluir que estamos a las puertas de una nueva revolución tecnólogica de un alcance igual a la que Internet y las nuevas tecnologías de la comunicación han protagonizado en los últimas decadas. La fundamentación de Anderson es sólida y persuasiva:
Transformative change happens when industries democratize, when they're ripped from the sole domain of companies, governments, and other institutions and handed over to regular folks. The Internet democratized publishing, broadcasting, and communications, and the consequence was a massive increase in the range of both participation and participants in everything digital -- the long tail of bits.
Now the same is happening to manufacturing -- the long tail of things.
The tools of factory production, from electronics assembly to 3-D printing, are now available to individuals, in batches as small as a single unit. Anybody with an idea and a little expertise can set assembly lines in China into motion with nothing more than some keystrokes on their laptop. A few days later, a prototype will be at their door, and once it all checks out, they can push a few more buttons and be in full production, making hundreds, thousands, or more. They can become a virtual micro-factory, able to design and sell goods without any infrastructure or even inventory; products can be assembled and drop-shipped by contractors who serve hundreds of such customers simultaneously.
Todo en In The Next Industrial Revolution (Vía)
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