[CTV News]

…As The Economist magazine noted in a special report in April (“The Third Industrial Revolution”), 3-D computers are already transforming industrial production around the world and, along with other comparable advances, returning the making of high-end things to rich countries.

In his report, Paul Markillie, the magazine’s innovation editor, introduces 3D Systems Inc., a pioneer in three-dimensional computer technology, in a novel way. While he toured 3D’s headquarters in South Carolina, he writes, the company printed him a complimentary gift: a custom-designed, fully usable hammer, “complete with a natty, wood-effect handle.”

Known technically as “additive manufacturing,” three-dimensional printing cranks out finished products in thin layers of plastic ink, thin layer on thin layer. The industry already produces a wide range of goods, ranging from car parts to dresses, that can be altered – reshaped, redesigned – by a keystroke. More complex assignments await. Mr. Markillie quotes a scientist at GE Global Research: “One day we will print an engine.”

Although patented in the 1980s, 3-D printing has emerged as a transformative, commercial technology only in the past few years. For high-end products, it makes assembly lines obsolete and eliminates the usual advantages of cheap labour. (3D Systems, by the way, markets printers for home use, heralding a new era of innovation by Edisonian inventors working in basements and garages.)

The first industrial revolution began in Britain in the 1800s, the second in the United States in the early 1900s. “Now,” Mr. Markillie writes, “a third industrial revolution is under way.” Many remarkable technologies are converging – among them, clever software, novel materials, dexterous robots and miniature, nanotech tools for quick and easy surgery.

With the increasing irrelevance of inexpensive Asian labour, off-shoring has already lost much of its historic advantage…

Two reasons explain the coming industrial renaissance. First, profit-driven invention. Second, technology-driven productivity. China’s achievements in manufacturing notwithstanding, the United States remains the biggest manufacturer in the world with 20 per cent of global production (compared with China’s 18 per cent). Why? The U.S. uses only 10 per cent of the work force that China uses to manufacture roughly the same quantity of goods.

Governments will try to stop the coming industrial transformation, of course. They always have. Progress is notoriously disruptive. As The Economist concludes, however, governments will ultimately fail again – and “leave the rest to the revolutionaries.”

See the full article here: http://www.ctv.ca/generic/generated/static/business/article2426932.html