Fascinating article about Bosch (https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601502/boschs-survival-plan/).
A couple of things that popped out:
- Factories are turning into computers. The interconnections between machines, originally a human task, is now a machine task. In 20 years, a human on the shop floor may be as ridiculous as humans swapping out transistors in an x86 processor.
- Data-driven optimization is getting faster. A core fallacy of data-driven product design is that it can drive new products. However, the use of analytics can make existing products more efficient. The use of pre-existing wireless networks will allow devices to communicate with home base very efficiently, coupled with factory floors that can be optimized faster, this has tremendous implications on product life-cycle.
- Humans who rely on brawn or physical stamina are losing value fast.
- There is an interesting singularity when the entire manufacturing pipeline when 3d printing and data-driven design and fully automated factories intersect in a meaningful way. Factories will be able to retool instantaneously to meet instantaneous demand and insight.
The world of yesterday is going away so fast, the only question is whether we will survive to get there.
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