EFFECTS OF 3D PRINTING ON THE WORLD’S LABOUR FORCES

An excellent article entitled “OF LABOUR, UNIONS AND 3D PRINTING - The impact of 3D printing on employment” by the Arbitrage magazine in May of last year, highlights some very interesting areas of discussion, citing “With employment figures still rebounding from post-recession levels, an unlikely new issue has entered the labour debate. Conventional manufacturing uses human labour to chisel raw material down into specific shapes or moulds. And according to the technology entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa, that is an inefficient process.

He told Forbes last year: “The more complex the product you want to create, the more labour is required and the greater the effort” — all of which translates into higher costs. The process of 3D printing flips that convention. Instead of subtracting layers of material from raw input, 3D printing constructs an object from scratch by adding successive layers of thin raw material until the desired shape is achieved. #is means there is no waste by-product and no additional cost to the complexity of an item. Manufacturing with 3D printing can also be cheaper and less time-consuming. This is especially so when the process is employed for one-off projects such as prototypes or experiments with complex geometries. The technology even makes possible the manufacturing of objects which, by traditional means, used to be impossible. These include, among others, complex objects like skeletal structures, human tissue and organs and even the theoretically-impossible Penrose triangle. In January, the Associated Press (AP) reported that “almost all the jobs disappearing are in industries that pay middle-class wages.” The reason for this disappearance: “Those jobs are being replaced...by machines and software that can do the same work better and cheaper.” (ECONOLYST, 2013)

So, do these types of statements point to a brighter future or dimmer future for our work forces that purely depend on a steady income to meet the mortgage, rent or simple food on the table?

A blog on the madameeureka.wordpress.com says that 3D printing practices and changes should actually be encouraged and accepted, saying “The removal of part of the supply chain and human economic activity in producing goods could potentially lead to the destruction of manufacturing industry. This affects not just the direct participants in this industry but also the service sectors that support it. the production of manufacturing tooling could go the same way as magnetic tapes and paper drawings.” as online companies can start-up quickly and easily because they are not inhibited by complicated and costly manufacturing processes. Therefore it is essential that this technology is welcomed and developed in a positive light in order to drive economic change and keep the UK economy at the forefront of innovation, through mobility of up to 38.8% of labour. This allows businesses to thrive in the future having been built on a platform that embraces change. Societal impact of this has to be reduced as much as possible and gradual in order to gain public support, however there is trade-off between the speed of diffusion of the innovation and the mobility of labour away from the declining industries if the 3D printing diffuses.” (MADAMEEUREKA, 2013)

Economic Benefits as outlined by MADAME EUREKA:

ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF 3D PRINTING - IMAGE TAKEN FROM MADAMEEUREKA 2013, 24^h FEB 2014

 

Vivek Wadhwa from the Arbitrate Magazine continues: “The process of 3D printing undoubtedly threatens low-wage jobs both at home and overseas, but it also has the potential to complicate higher-value roles. For example, an inventory manager will be required to have quite different skills and prerequisites based on whether he’s applying for work at a traditional manufacturing firm or at a firm using 3D printing. This inherent threat, along with the recent attention given to 3D printing in the press, may be a signal for labour groups to begin mobilizing a defence.” (ECONOLYST, 2013)

The European Commission has had to sit up and take notice of the impact of 3D Printing and in a recent publication entitled "DIGITAL AGENDA FOR EUROPE" Futurium, the EU outlines the impacts of 3D Printing on the Europe as a whole, as a disruptive technology.

The EU states that “A disruptive revolution, 3D printing will generate a number of challenges for policy makers, for instance:

 

·       The natural instinct of governments is to protect existing industries rather than supporting the agents of change that would destroy them. The ability to rapidly identify the disruptive nature of that revolution and to steer the change in a direction which meets the interest of citizens and businesses will make the difference.

·       3D printing technology, like any other high-tech industry, is very competitive, and the international race for the emergence of global 3D printer champions will be fierce. Already, the biggest 3D printer, 12 meters long, is in China. Industrial and research policies, including in the area of IPR, patents and standards, will have to respond to that challenge.

·       3D printing will render a number of jobs obsolete and will require new skills. Many new jobs will be created outside the plant: IT experts, designers, engineers, logistics experts, marketing professionals etc. Education systems and labour markets will have to respond to these needs.

·       Like any other industry, bottlenecks are likely to emerge, in particular at the level of the new materials which will be required to print increasingly complex goods, including nanotechnologies and genetically engineered bio-materials.

·       Intellectual property for 3D design of products but also personal data for the customization of goods will become even more critical assets, challenging the existing regional and global regulatory systems in place.” (EUROPEAN COMMISSION, 2013)

 

Joe McKendrick, from SmartPlanet blog, that discusses a report on 3D Printing by transportintelligence.com, believes that the new technologies and rapid advancements of 3D Printing could make global supply chains (and in turn the employees) redundant in the near future.

 

“The report states that 3D printing ‘is already very good at producing products (even with moving parts) which previously would have required the assembly of multiple components,’ and that by ‘eliminating the assembly phase there will be huge savings for the manufacturer in terms of labour costs.’ 3D printing-based production could also reduce or eliminate storage, handling and distribution costs. Eventually, products may even be produced right in consumers' homes, reducing what was a series of supply-chain interactions to a software-based transaction.” (MCKENDRICK, 2012)

 

MOVING THE GOODS OF THE WORLD - IMAGE TAKEN FROM MCKENDRICK 2012, 21st FEB 2014

 

ARBITRAGE states that “The global manufacturing industry is now beginning to address and wrestle with the disruptive potential of 3D printing. But it’s impossible to pinpoint the precise moment when it began to turn mainstream — or at least more affordable to the general public.

 

On the supply side, costs of 3D printers — both consumer and industrial — have dropped to more affordable levels. On the demand side, there have been numerous changes in the global economy over the past decades that have given companies reasons to reconsider the technology.

 

For one, labour costs are consistently rising even in low-wage countries like China. The global recession, moreover, has inspired a political pressure on companies to create jobs locally.” (ARBITRAGE, 2013)

 

With the 2 largest world economies currently fighting it out for world domination, Forbes Magazine are even declaring “The End of Chinese Manufacturing and Rebirth of U.S. Industry”, all down to rising wages and US advancements on areas such as 3D Printing.

 

“By offering subsidies, cheap labour, and lax regulations and rigging its currency, China was able to seduce American companies to relocate their manufacturing operations there. Millions of American jobs moved to China, and manufacturing became the underpinning of China’s growth and prosperity. But rising labour costs, concerns over government-sponsored I.P. theft, and production time lags are already causing companies such as Dow Chemicals, Caterpillar, GE, and Ford to start moving some manufacturing back to the U.S. from China. Google recently announced that its Nexus Q streaming media player would be made in the U.S., and this put pressure on Apple to start following suit.

 

But rising costs and political pressure aren’t what’s going to rapidly change the equation. The disruption will come from a set of technologies that are advancing at exponential rates and converging.

 

These technologies include robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), 3D printing, and nanotechnology. These have been moving slowly so far, but are now beginning to advance exponentially just as computing does.  Witness how computing has advanced to the point at which the smart phones we carry in our pockets have more processing power than the super computers of the ’60s—and how the Internet, which also has its origins in the ’60s, went on an exponential growth path about 15 years ago and rapidly changed the way we work, shop, and communicate.  That’s what lies ahead for these new technologies.” (FORBES, 2012)

 

But will of the work that government agencies, such as Enterprise Ireland and FÁS, all be in pain? Only time will tell if 3D Printing creates or destroys jobs for the ordinary worker…

 

ARBITRAGE 2013;

"The Economic Impacts of 3D Printing", madameeureka.wordpress.com 2013. Retrieved: 20th Feb. 2013 from; http://www.arbitragemagazine.com/technology-2/on-labour-unions-and-3d-printing/

ECONOLYST 2013;

"OF LABOUR, UNIONS AND 3D PRINTING - The impact of 3D printing on employment", econolyst.co.uk 2013. Retrieved: 20th Feb. 2013 from; http://www.econolyst.co.uk/resources/documents/files/Article%20-%20May%202013%20-%20Arbitrage%20magazine%20-%20The%20impact%20of%203D%20printing%20on%20enployment.pdf

EUROPEAN COMMISSION 2013;

"DIGITAL AGENDA FOR EUROPE", ec.europa.eu 2013. Retrieved: 20th Feb. 2013 from; https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/futurium/en/content/3d-printing

FORBES 2012;

"The End of Chinese Manufacturing and Rebirth of U.S. Industry", forbes.com 23^rd July 2013. Retrieved: 22nd Feb. 2013 from; http://www.forbes.com/sites/singularity/2012/07/23/the-end-of-chinese-manufacturing-and-rebirth-of-u-s-industry/

MADAMEEUREKA 2013;

"The Economic Impacts of 3D Printing", madameeureka.wordpress.com 2013. Retrieved: 24th Feb. 2013 from; http://madameeureka.wordpress.com/the-economic-impacts-of-3d-printing/

MCKENDRICK 2012;

"3D printing may put global supply chains out of business: report", Joe McKendrick, smartplanet.com Oct 9^th 2012. Retrieved: 21st Feb. 2013 from; http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/3d-printing-may-put-global-supply-chains-out-of-business-report/2019