A THIRD INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

As manufacturing goes digital, it will change out of all recognition, says Paul Markillie. And some of the business of making things will return to rich countries.

One of the big trade fairs held in Frankfurt, EuroMold, which shows machines for making prototypes of products, exhibits no oily machinery .
Hall after hall is full of clean American, Asian, and European machine tools, highly automated. Most of their operators sit in front of computer screens .
Last November, three-dimensional or « 3-D » printers were on display. They build things by depositing material, layer after layer, a process called additive manufacturing.

Additive manufacturing is already being used to make specialist parts for cars and customised covers for i-phones. Most people probably own something that was made with the help of a 3-D printer : a pair of shoes , produced as a prototype before being produced in bulk, a hearing aid , individually tailored to the shape of the user's ear, or a piece of jewellery .

Volkswagen has a new production strategy called Modularer Querbaukasten, or MQB, also leading to the factory of the future. Thus the German carmaker hopes to be able to produce all its models on the same production line. It should allow its factories in America, Europe and China to produce locally whatever vehicle each market requires.

Factories are becoming vastly more efficient , thanks to automated machines that can « feel » if something is going wrong, together with robots equipped with vision and other sensing systems.
Nissan's British factory in Sunderland is now one of the most productive in Europe. In 1999 it built 271,157 cars with 4,594 people. Last year, it made 480,485 vehicles – more than any other car factory in Britain – with just 5,462 people. As the number of people directly employed in making things declines, the cost of labour will diminish too. All this will encourage makers to move some of the work back to rich