Transforming from being led by professionals and specialized agencies to being accessible to everyone

The new era of manufacturing will be an era of national creation. The modern manufacturing industry requires professional knowledge, equipment, and a large amount of investment, so it has always been a field engaged by large companies and professionals. The digital transformation of product manufacturing is not only about optimizing the existing manufacturing industry, but also expanding the scope of the manufacturing industry to a large population. Both manufacturers and ordinary people participate. People use digital technology and rapid prototyping technology to design products and make models themselves. The emergence of 3D and 4D printing technology has brought manufacturing to the desktop of ordinary people. Through the internet, creativity can be shared and disseminated online. Potential entrepreneurs and inventors no longer need to rely on large companies to achieve production and manufacturing. If they are willing, anyone can pass on design solutions to manufacturing service providers; You can also use powerful digital desktop manufacturing tools such as 3D and 4D printers to manufacture your own products.

The manufacturing industry is in the process of transitioning towards digitization. To this day, we still mainly live in the real world composed of physical objects, and the digital revolution is basically limited to the screen. In the future, the maker movement will deepen the integration of online intelligence with the real world, shift the business internet model to manufacturing, and overturn traditional manufacturing. Numerous individual manufacturing will merge into national creation, promoting the vigorous development of the new industrial revolution, and opening a new page for the global manufacturing industry. The overall trend of the manufacturing industry in the 21st century is not the disappearance of leading enterprises in the industry, but the disappearance of the monopoly of leading enterprises in the industry. Large enterprises with a large number of employees still exist, while there are also a large number of small companies specialized in meeting the personalized needs of consumers, and the pattern of the manufacturing industry will undergo a fundamental change. It is worth noting that some developed countries have proposed the concept of reindustrialization, whose surface meaning is to bring back the transferred manufacturing industry, while its deep purpose is not to return to traditional manufacturing, but to develop a digital manufacturing industry that everyone can participate in. Digital manufacturing will pose a serious challenge to traditional manufacturing, with developing countries taking low-cost labor as their competitive advantage being the first to bear the brunt. Focusing on improving the level of digital manufacturing and promoting mass entrepreneurship and innovation will be the only way for the transformation and upgrading of "Made in China".

Transition from mass customization to personalized production

In a sense, the history of human social production is the history of continuous innovation and creation. As people's material and cultural needs continue to be respected and met, the manufacturing industry will also move towards the era of personalized production.

The manufacturing industry will cross the stage of mass customization. In the early stages of human society, there was a small amount of customization, which lasted for nearly 3000 years. The Venice Shipyard, which began in 1500, marked the beginning of a standardized production phase for humanity, with interchangeable parts (standardized parts) becoming a fundamental feature of monopolistic industries such as textiles and machinery in the 19th century. In 1910, Ford Company built the world's first factory for mass production of automobiles in Highland Park, a suburb of Detroit, using the interchangeable parts system to manufacture standard products on a large scale, which marks that mankind has entered the stage of mass standardized production. In the early 1970s, companies represented by Toyota Motor Manufacturing Company combined mass production with customization, creating more direct connections between customer needs and products. The diverse needs of customers were well met, marking the beginning of the mass customization phase for humanity. With the continuous development of digital technology, the stage of mass customization will gradually become the past tense.

Personalized production will become the mainstream of manufacturing development. At the beginning of this century, the manufacturing industry began to enter the stage of personalized production. Compared with the small amount of customization in early human society, personalized production has no essential difference in meeting people's differentiated needs. But it is not a simple regression of early small customization methods, but a "negation of negation" based on different technologies. In the personalized production stage, the key to driving the development of the manufacturing industry is no longer products, but to meet people's internal needs. Observers predict that around 2040, 3D and 4D printing technologies will develop to a mature stage. When 3D and 4D printing technology becomes a fundamental component of production, the era of personalized production in the manufacturing industry has truly arrived. Scientifically grasping and adapting to this trend of the times is a key link in the smooth transformation and upgrading of "Made in China".