[animal_spirits]

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.

[hef19898]

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.

[jaredmclaughlin]

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.

[hef19898]

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...

[jaredmclaughlin]

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.