BEYOND MASS PRODUCTION
Thus an eye-opening analysis of Pentagon spending by the number of end-products purchased came up with the finding I hat, out of $9.1 billion spent on goods for which the number of end items was identifiable, fully 78 percent ($7.1 billion) went for goods produced in lots of under 100 units!
Even in fields where components are still mass-produced in very large quantities—and in some highly advanced industries this is still the case—the components are usually configured to form many different end-products, each of which is in turn produced in short runs.
One need only look at the incredibly diverse vehicles whizzing down an Arizona highway to recognize how the once relatively uniform auto market has splintered into segments, forcing even those technological tyrannosaurs, the auto makers, to back grudgingly into partial customization. The car manufacturers in Europe, the United States, and Japan now mass-manufacture components and sub-assemblies, then plug them together in myriad ways.
At another level, note the humble T-shirt. The shirts are mass-made. But new, cheap fast-heat presses make it economical to imprint designs or slogans on very small batches. The result is a wild flowering of shirts facetiously identifying the wearer as a Beethoven fan, a beer drinker, or a porno star. Autos, T-shirts, and many other products represent a halfway stage between mass and de-massified manufacture.
The step beyond this, of course, is complete customization—the actual manufacture of one-of-a-kind products. And that is clearly the direction in which we are heading: products custom-cut for individual users.
According to Robert H. Anderson, head of the Information Services Department at the Rand Corporation, and an expert on advanced manufacturing: “It will be no harder in the near future to customproduce something . . . than it is to mass produce . . . today… We’rebeyond the modularization stage where you make a lot of modules and plug them together . . . and we’re getting on to the stage of just plain custom production. Just like clothes.”
The shift toward customization is perhaps best symbolized by a computer-based laser gun introduced a few years ago into the clothing.industry. Before the Second Wave brought mass production, if a man wanted a piece of clothing made he went to a tailor or a seamstress, or his wife sewed it. Tn any case, it was done on a handcraft basis, to his individual measure. All sewing was essentially custom tailoring.
184
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430