Do you think this technology will catch on? Will it replace the way factories work? If so, how should business, education and
government adjust to the new situation, one which, according to this writer,
will mean even fewer jobs and higher qualifications for them?
In my opinion this technology will undoubtedly catch on eventually, provided that no notable faults are found. It will probably first be used to produce larger objects and probably develop to making very little things into a lot of detail. The only, quite important question I have about this is, whether the products that are made via 3D printing can be made of any material, such as metal. Since I find this unlikely, it will mean that a lot of components and products will still need to be made manually if they are out of metal, such as car components. When this technology is finally implemented, it will change factories completely. I agree with the author in saying that the factories will be nothing like what they are now with almost no people working in them. Whether you think this is good is one's personal opinion, but I think that it is better if the factory is less efficient with actual people working there.
ReplyDeleteThe way governments and educational institutions should react is clear. It will be necessary for a lot, lot more people to pursue higher education including university if they want to get any job at all, even that of working in a factory. I am not quite sure whether a technological advance in this direction is what the world really needs at a time when the worlds total population is rising so much faster than the amount of workplaces. But again, the future is the future and it is unpredictable, so in the end this technology might never appear to such a scale that it would threaten peoples employment.
The concern about work places mentioned here, is indeed, of great importance. While new jobs may emerge, such as 3D – printer technicians and manufacturing workers, I highly doubt these would suffice to meet the disbalance, that would be crated from the loss of factory jobs. However, it is still too soon to accurately predict whether that will, in fact, be the case or not.
DeleteConcerning your doubts about the viable printing “inks”, I don’t think the printers would be required to be able to print out metallic objects in the future at all, actually. High-density polymers, fire-proof plastic and what not has been developed over the past few years. Plastic is the new steel. I doubt there will be substances, which we would be unable to replace with a type of plastic, in the future.
I completely agree with Sam, since I share the idea of this technology catching on in the near future. However, I don’t think that the 3D printing will be used for printing large objects first since it is always better to start with smaller things in case something isn’t working properly in the trails. There would be less “waste” of the material. Though, I am not saying that it might not develop into a state where it would create large objects. After I read Sams question I also started thinking about the material used for the 3D printing. Maybe even think layers of metal could be used or other harder material in the form of a thinner smooth layer. I don’t think that the factories will become nothing because this technology s not yet that developed to discuss whether it will or will not replace factories. So, as Sam said “ future is unpredictable” we will only then see whether this 3D printing develops to such an extent to replace other technologies or not.
ReplyDeleteI do not think this technology will catch on so early and in a larger scale, that we would have to worry about the future of people employed in factories. Honestly, it seems very unrealistic to me that such customization would prevail over cheap manufacturing processes. I cannot imagine the amount of resources which would have to be used to finance the transformation, and then the manufacturing itself. The customization would increase the supply and the amount of wasted raw materials. Not only would the employees have to be retrained, but it would also mean a rise in the average wage rate. The increase generally comes with the higher educated personnel.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I believe these technologies have been here for a while now. I think it is the huge vehicle components made of metal that have started the segment, and still lead the field. These are designed in computer softwares by specialized engineers, and then built or carved out of big chunk of raw materials in automatized machines. As I learned from the article, now they do this for smaller plastic components as well.
Even though I claimed the technology will not catch on early, it might eventually succeed in a distant future. If this were to happen, the economic implications would be enormous. Since the manufacturing processes require skilled and therefore better paid workers, the production would move back from countries such as China or India to Europe and America. Apparently, the number of workers would significantly decrease compared to current figures.