how micro factories can reimagine manufacturing natraj shanker tedxoshkosh

Imagine a world where next to your favorite local restaurant is a micro-factory that produces – on demand – items that you need in your daily life. What if you could simply interact with the micro factory via an app where you send your design, scan or specification for the product you desire, and one or many of those items are made for you when you need them. Prior to the industrial revolution, products were manufactured much like this, by craftspeople like blacksmiths, cobblers, tailors, bakers, and many others, right at the place where these goods were needed. With the dawn of the industrial revolution, and in times since, that model was replaced by distributed and multinational manufacturing, with all of the complexities and risks wide-spread supply-chains bring. This talk postulates that with new technologies already available, the principle of "manufacture as close as possible to the need" can return local manufacturing to modern times, and elaborates on tactics and technologies that can make micro-factories happen, and the opportunities and advantages they generate. An evangelist for the micro-factory concept, Natraj is retired after a lengthy career in a wide variety of engineering and manufacturing leadership capacities. He started his career with General Motors/EDS and worked on plant automation projects as a functional lead and project manager. He became part of EDS Consulting and worked on just-in-time and Kanban projects for GM parts manufacturers. He later joined Rockwell Automation as program manager for global supply chain, then moved on as Director of IT Process Excellence. Leaving Rockwell Automation, Natraj started his own consulting practice and worked on critical projects for a wide variety of clients. He then joined Adobe as project manager and later program manager for implementation of Adobe's marketing cloud solution. During the COVID pandemic, he started a small venture to make and ship 3D printed custom novelty products for the local market and extending the market using Etsy. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx