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The potential for revolution in the manufacturing sector

At its heart, this chapter presents a story about the future of manufacturing. This story is based on predictions about the future. Specifically, that (1) increasingly firms of all sizes will have access to high performance computing capabilities that will enable sophisticated modeling and simulation, (2) additive manufacturing will become commercially competitive across a wide range of industry sectors and will support the use of multiple materials, and (3) new business models that rely on IT will reduce the administrative overload of bidding, winning and delivering products and services. Together these combine to favor localization of manufacturing rather than today’s more centralized, economies-of-scale production models. A fourth trend – a rise in the number of hobbyists who become producers of one-off and small lot products – will change the definition of a “manufacturer” and may, in fact return manufacturing to the garage. An information-technology driven transformation in the manufacturing sector is inevitable.