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0 pointsanimal_spirits2y ago0 comments

I think this is an interesting take and something I've been relatively close to personally. I have a family member who owns one of those 100k Brother CNC machines, a robotic arm and some vice clamps and is starting a small manufacturing business with it out of his garage. While this isn't something that an average American can do, it can allow distribution of manufacturing to places that don't need a 500 acre lot, and with more small time manufacturing operations popping up competing with each other, can bring down the price of creating purely made-in-America products.

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hef198982y ago

Mass manufacturing is cheap because of economiea of scale, that means large volumes. The best a small shop can achieve, and that can be highly profitable if done right, is small batches, prototyping or serving as a sub-contractor for the big ones.

None of which actually drives final product prices dibe, and is already done extensively.

jaredmclaughlin2y ago

This is only true with the current level of technology adoption. The economic lot size will trend towards a single unit as technology adoption improves.

hef198982y ago

There is no technology that makes lot size one economically viable so. TPs has it as a goal, but hardly ever achieves that.

And even then, we talk about the lot size of one production order. Economies of scale apply to the overall output of a plant, not individual production orders...

jaredmclaughlin2y ago

This is actually going to go the other way. Too many people did this. The median job shop size in the US is 9 people. The capital equipment is very inefficiently utilized and the industry is generally technologically behind. It will soon consolidate around the firms that can apply technology effectively.

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0 pointsanimal_spirits2y ago0 comments

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hef198982y ago

None of which actually drives final product prices dibe, and is already done extensively.

jaredmclaughlin2y ago

This is only true with the current level of technology adoption. The economic lot size will trend towards a single unit as technology adoption improves.

hef198982y ago

There is no technology that makes lot size one economically viable so. TPs has it as a goal, but hardly ever achieves that.

And even then, we talk about the lot size of one production order. Economies of scale apply to the overall output of a plant, not individual production orders...

jaredmclaughlin2y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse