[zwieback]

The Maker Revolution improves our capability to make small-run and custom products, that's what's so great about it.

However, it's far from any kind of industrial revolution. It's also important to point out that rapid prototyping has been a standard tool in most manufacturing disciplines for at least the 20 years I've been an engineer.

Another encouraging side-effect of the Maker discussion is that the new consensus about the advantages of local manufacturing. We've been complaining to our bosses about the loss of manufacturing capability not only because our jobs are going overseas but also because the local knowledge about design-for-manufacturability and the other DFx's are eroding.

When I started my current job we had assembly lines, machine shops, reliability and regulatory labs and a large force of highly skilled technicians. Now it's almost all engineers and the most we can hope for is to build the first 10 prototypes of anything we design.

The "Maker" induced renewed interest in rapid prototyping has caused a subtle shift in the minds of mid and upper management about how far to take local manufacturing before going to CMs in China.