A Third Industrial Revolution

In the article entitled as “A Third Industrial Revolution”1 the

economist illustrates the dawn a revolution which is brought by

the rise of digital manufacturing. According to my understanding

the central idea of this article is invention of new technologies

like 3D printing combined with a new generation of high-

performing materials

and other

innovations, most of

them already

available nowadays,

will change

dramatically the way

in which products are

manufactured, their

cost breakdown, the

skills required to

produce them. From the article we came to know that the digital

age that we know today continues to shape a new manufacturing

paradigm for the future. For example a machine that could take an

1 http://web.mit.edu/, (2014). The thirds industrial Revolution. [online] Available at:http://web.mit.edu/pie/news/Economist.pdf [Accessed 11 Jul. 2014]

image of a specific product (for example hammer) and reproduce

that product much like a printer reproduces an image on paper.

The process which is followed here is called Additive

Manufacturing. According to the article

“Instead of bashing, bending and cutting material the way it has always been, 3D

printers build things by depositing material, layer by layer.”

In today’s world there are

several companies that have

developed the initial

technology and continue to

develop their overall

expertise in terms of this

technology. The article

gives an example of a hammer

which can be produced with alternative materials that perform and

look like a wood handle and a metallic head.

The article also talks about standardization of production

process. Volkswagen is in the process of standardizing (Modularer

Querbarksten) how they mount engines in all of their models. With

these changes, Volkswagen will be able to produce any of their

automobiles on any of their assembly lines around the world. The

second part of the article is entitled as Back to making stuff.

A skilled person can

contribute more in the

manufacturing process

rather than a machine. In today’s world manufacturing continues

to transform itself by developing and deploying new technology,

innovative tools, and production techniques. The global economy

requires companies of all sizes to look at new ways of doing

business in a highly competitive global market. The central idea

of this part is enhanced technologies will continue to drive

changes in advanced manufacturing. In turn, efficiency gains and

return on investment are easily identified. Companies then begin

to invest into automation and new production techniques.

The article also has an

analysis also has an

analysis of the

boomerang effect of

competitive advantage

in manufacturing in

relation to developed

countries. At the very

beginning we can see

the rise of China as a

world’s largest manufacturer. Then the article has a discussion

on boomerang effect means shift of production back to rich

countries. Moreover, the article contains a discussion of an

alternative scenario analyzing the chances for China to retain

its current manufacturing leadership position in the global

scale.

According to this article such type of changes will bring a

number of important consequences at a social and economic levels

which can be described as follows

1. Increase of mass customization instead of mass production

which will be motivated by the need of taking advantage of

economies of scale

2. An optimum use of natural resources

3. Changes in core factors

determining business

location

The western business

decision makers at present

struggling to hold back the

manufacturing off shoring

process to Asia. One research

of the University of California at Irvine explains the situation

to us more clearly. According to that research labor costs

account for less than 7% of the total retail price in a major

blockbuster electronic product like the new Apple iPad. The most

interesting part is only a quarter of the 33 USD in labor costs

(over a total of 499 USD) are attributable to China, where one of

Apple's main contract manufacturing plants is located.

According to the article

“If China accounts for such a

small share of the over all labour

costs, surely Apple could afford

to make iPads in America? It

turns out that low wages are not

the only attraction. What

Shenzhen has to offer on top is

30 years’ experience of

producing electronics. It has a

network of firms with sophisticated

supply chains, multiple design and engineering skills, intimate knowledge of their

production processes and the willingness to leap into action if asked to scale up

production.”2

In today’s world increasing forces of globalization have

facilitated the shift of

production. This

transformation has been

shifted from highly developed

countries like United States

& other European countries to

growing economic superpower

like India, China etc during

the last several decades. At

the beginning the article

2 http://web.mit.edu/, (2014). The thirds industrial Revolution. [online] Available at:http://web.mit.edu/pie/news/Economist.pdf [Accessed 11 Jul. 2014]

also talks about a technological breakthrough, for instance 3D

printing.

In today’s business

world business

clusters have some

significant roles

and important for

policy makers around

different countries

and regions in the

world. These

clusters are playing

a major role for

economic growth and their evolution probably represents a great

lab for industry regeneration and new business creation

especially through spin-off processes as the majority of industry

clusters, including Silicon Valley, were created. But in the

reality these clusters have already changed significantly in the

last few years. This is because of the following reasons

1. Globalization

2. Consumer’s Behavior and market evolution

The article has an another part which mainly talks about the

manufacturers. On that section the author mainly discusses about

the manufactures

who are

relentlessly working with their manufacturing process and make it

more streamlines and organized. According to the article

“American and European firms have sought salvation in high-end manufacturing from

the onslaught of low-cost producers. That increasingly involves becoming more

inventive with materials.”

In today’s

business world

developing

countries

become more

richer. As a

result they

also want to

make aircraft,

het engines

and high performance sports car. The manufactures also explore

new ways to develop their product. For example the manufacture of

Rolls Royce innovates a unique for one of the parts used in their

cars. According to the article

“For Rolls-Royce, turbine blades are one of those key technologies. The magic that

creates them depends on a deep understanding of materials science and production

technology. When metals solidify after casting they normally contain lots of microscopic

crystals. That would still leave them strong enough for most things, but it is a potential

weakness in a turbine blade. So Rolls-Royce uses a unique system which casts the blade

in a nickel-based super-alloy with a continuous and unbroken crystalline structure. This

ensures there will be no structural defects.”

In today’s world the manufactures not only continuous improve the

product but also they focus on continuous

innovation of the products as well. The

significance of continuous improvement goes

far beyond the quality movement. Continuous

improvement typically mobilizes large

numbers of employees on behalf of organizational

improvement in contrast to large-scale innovation efforts that

often involve only selected experts. The contribution of such

broad mobilization of employees is potentially large. Let’s

consider the example of GE from the article

“One material that particularly interests GE and other manufacturers is carbon fibre.

This is already being used to make the large fan blades at the front of some jet engines.

It is flexible as a raw material, but when a carbon fiber cloth is impregnated with epoxy

resin, shaped and cured, it can be as strong as steel and only half the weight. That

strength comes from the powerful chemical bonds that form between carbon atoms.

The fibers can be aligned in in different directions, allowing engineers to tailor the

strength and flexibility of a composite structure precisely. It is the strength, lightness

and potential saving on manual labour

offered by carbon fibre that makes the

material attractive for a variety of products.”

Due to this technological

innovation now it takes only four

hours to make carbon fiber chasis of a car which is a good

technological advancement in terms of making cars. From the

article I came ot know about the Nanotechnology. This

technological enhancement can actually revolutionize a lot of

electronic products, procedures, and applications. The areas that

benefit from the continued development of nanotechnology when it

comes to electronic products include nano transistors, nano

diodes, OLED, plasma displays, quantum computers, and many more.

The article has given an example of battery how to put promising

ideas into action.

The last part of the article deals with 3d printing technology.

According to the article “Making things with a 3D printer changes

the rules of manufacturing”

The definition of 3D printing has been around for decades, better

known as additive manufacturing. The term additive manufacturing

can be better explained by building an object layer by layer.

The advantage of 3D printers is that it is consumer friendly .

According to the

article technology

has developed to

the point where we

are rethinking

industry.

The next level of industrial revolution is all about drastic

change in the manufacturing industry so that everyone can

participate in this process. The strengths of Additive

Manufacturing lie in those areas where conventional manufacturing

reaches its limitations. The technology is of interest where a

new approach to design and manufacturing is required so as to

come up with solutions. It enables a design-driven manufacturing

process - where design determines production and not the other

way around. What is more, Additive Manufacturing allows for

highly complex structures which can still be extremely light and

stable. It provides a high degree of design freedom, the

optimization and integration of functional features, the

manufacture of small batch sizes at reasonable unit costs and a

high degree of product customization even in serial production.

According to the article

“Freed of the constraints of traditional factories, additive manufacturing allows

designers to produce things that were previously considered far too complex to make

economically. That could be for aesthetic reasons, but engineers are finding practical

applications too. For example, fluids flow more efficiently through rounded channels

than they do around sharp

corners, but it is very difficultcult to

make such channels inside a solid

metal structure by conventional

means, whereas a 3D printer can

do this easily. 3T RPD, a British

firm that offer additive-

manufacturing services, printed a

gearbox for a racing car with smooth

internal pathways for hydraulic oil instead of drilled-out right-angle bends. The box not

only allows faster gear changes but is some 30% lighter, says Ian Halliday, the firm’s

chief executive. A Boeing F-18 fighter contains a number of printed parts such as air

ducts, for similar reasons”

According to Abe Reichental, 3D Systems’ chief executivehe 3d

printer is about personal manufacturing .

The last part of the article deals with collaborative

manufacturing. Collaborative Manufacturing is a strategy by

which all appropriate individuals and organizations – both

internal and external to the legal enterprise – work together.

The article comes up with an example of Quirky. According to the

article

“Quiry comes up with two new consumer products a week. It works like this: a user

submits an idea and if enough people like it (as on Facebook), Quirky’s product-

development team makes a prototype. Users review this online and can contribute

towards its final design, packaging and marketing, and help set a price for it. Quirky

then looks for suitable manufacturers. The product is sold on the Quirky website and, if

demand grows, by retail chains. Quirky also handles patents and standards approvals

and gives a 30% share ofthe revenue from direct sales to the inventors and others who

have helped.”

Collaboration between companies is not a new idea. In its

simplest sense, it is not much more than working closely together

toward mutual objectives. In fact,

collaborative manufacturing can be

defined as sharing information

between business processes across

internal or external partners in

the value chain network.

The article comes up with another

example of Shapeways. It was

founded in the year of 2007 and

after that shipways has shipped

750,000 products. Shapeways’ users upload their designs to get

instant automated quotes for printing with industrial 3D-printing

machines in a variety of different materials. The shapeways is

good example of collaborative manufacturing.

“Easy online access to 3Dprinting has three big implications for manufacturing, says

Peter Weijmarshausen, Shapeways’ chief executive. Shapeways had covers for iPads on

sale just four days after Apple first launched the device in 2010. Second, the risk of

going to market falls to almost zero because entrepreneurs can test ideas before

scaling up and tweak the designs in response to feedback from buyers. Some

Shapeways products go through

20-30 iterations a year. And

third, it becomes possible to

produce things that cannot be made in other ways, usually because they are too

intricate to be machined”

The last part of the article talks about automation.

The new decade of manufacturing process will consist of the

Robots as well as the humans. The central idea of this paragraph

is as follows:

“Many of the new production methods in this next revolution will require fewer people

working on the factory floor. Thanks to smarter and more dexterous robots, some

‘lights out’ manufacturing is now possible. Yet manufacturing will still need people, if

not so many in the factory itself. All these automated machines require someone to

service them and tell them what to do. Some

machine operators will become machine-

minders, which often calls for a broader range

of skills. If people on the factory floor or in

workshops are provided with easy-to-use robots

they can become more productive, says Rodney

Brooks.”

Implications of third industrial

revolution on business environment:

If we go along with the history of industrialization we can see

that the first revolution began in 18th century when working

from home were replaced by the cotton mills.

After that the second revolution happened in the early 20th

century, with the introduction of the production line and mass

production pioneered by Henry Ford. According to my

understanding of the article of economist this two revolutions

help the people of the world more richer and more urban.

1. Businesses become more automated than before: One of the

major implications of the thirds industrial revolution is

that it has made the business process more automated than

before. In today’s world businesses are now driven by the

capabilities of highly versatile robots and new aut omated

processes such as digital three-dimensional printing. Side

by side the industrial robots have entered into a higher

phase of mechanization. At past, the robots were expensive

to use and not risk free. But in the new age of third

industrial revolution these robots are more user friendly

and affordable.

Example: Baxter, a second generation robot designed and made

by Rethink Robotics, is easy to teach and aware of humans.

He will slow down his movements when he senses a person in

his vicinity and speed up to his normal pace once they have

moved away. Baxter costs about $22,000 which makes him

affordable to small companies and even to individuals.

2. Increased output of business does not guarantee more jobs:

The output capacity of a

business increases due

to automation process.

But side by side it is

also true that it does not guarantee any new jobs. It is

becoming possibl e to automate almost every aspect of the

industrial machine. This has certainly brought efficiency

in the business. As there are more out put and more

production capacity in the business it does not provide more

jobs due to the process of automation.

3. Usage of Computer aided programs are increasing: Another

important of third industrial revolution is that usage of

computer-aided design software is increasing day by day in

different aspect of the

business. There is a wide

variety of software online

that is easily

downloadable and can be

used to design and develop

products, as well as

simulate how the products

would work in real life. This s peeds up the process of

prototyping and helps to reduce production costs; instead

of producing various physical models of the product, a

businessman can make the modifications online and only send

the final version of the product which has been tested in a

simulated online environment, into production.

Example: The Mars Rover (a vehicle designed to drive on

Mars) was first produced as a digital prototype to test

because its developers could not test-drive the vehicle on

Mars. With the vehicle in digital form, they were able to

simulate how the Rover would work in the Martian environment

and make any necessary amendments to the vehicle’s design

online before building the final version that actually went

to Mars.

4. New materials are becoming available: Another important

implication on business of the third industrial revolution

is that it has created an opportunity to develop new

materials for business. According to the article we have

seen the use of carbon fibre. This material is already being

used in airbuses and is becoming increasingly popular with

car manufacturers. Car bon fibre is a light and also

stronger than steel. The purpose of using carbon fibre is

probably preferable to making changes to the car’s engine in

order to meet strict CO2 regulations.

Another development is a US initiative to create a Materials

Genome similar to the Human Genome Project. The idea is to

create a database of material properties so that – instead

of spending laboratory time coming up with a new material –

the genome can tell you which materials will be suitable

for your product based on the properties you need the

product to exhibit.

5. Online manufacturing services are growing: In the new of

third industrial revolution you need to manufacture a

product is a laptop and computer-aided design software,

which can often be downloaded for free. Once you have

created your product online, you can send it off to a

number of service centers to do the rest of the work;

someone will be able to print it, someone else ca n look

at potential patent problems for you and someone else can

advise on the necessary electrical certifications.

6. New production processes are emerging: In the new age of

industrial revolution new production processes are emerging

day by day. We have already learned about 3D printing from

the article. To explain the working process of 3D printer it

works as a ’glorified

glue-gun’ which

effectively ‘glues’

successive material layers

together to build the end

product (this ‘glue’ is

actually molten plastic,

the same material that Lego is made out of). With the

design of the product onscreen, anyone can click ‘print’

just as you would with a 2D document. The computer software

then transforms the image onscreen into a series of digital

‘slices’ or cross-sections and sends a description of that

first slice through to the printer. The glue-gun in the

printer then makes the outline of that first slice on the

build-tray (a platform on which the object will be printed).

When the second slice of the digital image arrives at the

printer, the glue-gun adds more glue to produce the next

outline until the final product has been printed into a

solid object. More sophisticated 3D printers, some of which

use different processes, can produce items in a wider range

of plastics, ceramics and metals. This is a new production

process which are emerging.

7. Economies of scale is no longer counted: With the help of

3D printing items can be modified online and then it can be

reprinted without costly re-tooling of large machines

concerns about spreading these costs over a large number of

items become obsolete. 3D printers cost a fixed amount to

set up and so whether one prints one item or numerous

different iterations of it, the cost stays the same for

each additional item.

8. Rapid prototyping: Rapid prototyping is an another effect

of 3rd industrial revolution. At

past to make a proto type of the

product, the production engineer

needs to get back to the factory

and rapid proto typing is possible.

But now especially for smaller items, products can be

reprinted faster than it would take to go back to the

factory floor and re-equip an industrial machine to create

another version of the product. New technology

allows for a quicker turnaroun d when items need to be

altered, which in turn helps to speed up product

development.

9. Less raw materials : Another implications of third

industrial revolution is that with the help of additive

manufacturing it provides greater material saving.

Example: In the aerospace

sector, a titanium part

would typically begin as

a solid block of titanium

which would be cut down

to the necessary size and

shape required for a

particular part. A large

portion of the titanium block would then be discarded as

unnecessary and useless for any other manufacturing work.

However, the additive manufacturing process (which includes

3D printing) involves building layer upon layer of material,

so the part can be produced to exact specifications, without

wasting any material in the process.

Implications of third industrial revolution on different sectors:

The third industrial revolution has some effects on different

sectors of business. For example

On healthcare sector: The healthcare sector is an obvious place

where mass customization would be valuable, given the varying

and unique needs of its clientele.

Example: Items such as hearing

aids are already being produced

through an additive manufacturing

process which allows for

customization of the aid so that

it can perfectly fit into the

wearer’s ear. There are also a

number of companies working on how to print body parts. At the

moment, it is primarily implants and artificial limbs that are

being printed, but printing living tissue is becoming

increasingly possible. Currently it is only small skin grafts and

bits of blood vessels that can be produced, but in time it may be

possible to produce biological parts that can be used in drug-

testing instead of using mice.

The aerospace and automotive industry: The lighter, stronger

materials that have been developed,

as well as the potential for

significant material and time savings

using additive instead of reductive

manufacturing processes, is clearly beneficial for producers in

these industries. Indeed NASA recently announced the successful

testing of a 3D printed rocket part. This particular part would

typically be made from 115 individual components that would be

welded together. Using 3D printing, NASA was able to print it as

two components instead. NASA even has plans to put a 3D printer

in the International Space Station so that astronauts can easily

produce spare parts as needed while in space

History of Industrial revolution in Bangladesh: The industry

sector was severely damaged during the war of liberation in 1971.

Replacement and rehabilitation cost estimated for the industries

were estimated at taka 291 million of which taka 223 million was

estimated for public sector enterprises . 3

On the year 1972 the public sector started with the following

industrialization

72 jute mills with production capacity of 79,200 tons.

44 textile mills with production capacity of 13.4 million

pounds.

15 sugar mills with production capacity of 169,000 tons.

2 fertilizer factories with production capacity of 446,000

tons.

1 steel mill with production capacity of 350,000 tons.

1 diesel engine with production capacity of 3000 barrels.

3  Newagebd.com, (2014). Industrialisation in Bangladesh: uneven growth over time. [online]Available at: http://www.newagebd.com/detail.php?date=2012-05-07&nid=9411#.U8LFupSSzfI [Accessed 13 Jul. 2014]

1 ship building yard (Khulna dock yard).

According to my research and study the industries which have made

noticeable progress are

1. Ship Building

2. Automobile Assembling

3. Oil Refinery

4. Insulators and Sanitary Wares

5. Telephone Equipments

6. Electrical Goods

7. Vegetable Oil

Implications of third industrial revolution on Bangladesh: Being

a developing country Bangladesh has not achieved that much

advancement in terms of the third industrial revolution which are

happening now around the globe. But it is also true the

international community has a good interest on Bangladesh and as

a result Bangladesh is looking forward to experience the change.

Recommendation for Bangladesh:

According to my study and research the following recommendations

I would like to give in terms of third world industrial

revolution in Bangladesh.

1. The government of Bangladesh should formulate a good

industrial friendly policy.

2. Entrepreneurs who are working in root level should be

properly patronized and nurtured so that their innovation

can contribute in the upcoming industrial revolution for

Bangladesh.

3. Bangladesh should focus on development and research instead

of commercialization of the products.

4. One of the promising sector of Bangladesh, RMG, should come

forward to adapt the new technology of third industrial

revolution . This will help to reduce accidental death.

5. Government can patronize the jute industry by giving subsidy

on the use of modern machinaries and can also provide

training to jute cultivators and also to those who worked in

jute industry before so that they can cope with the

industrial revolution.

6. The youth of Bangladesh has a great potential to utilize the

technological advancement of third industrial revolution.

Their potential should be addressed and nurtured properly

from the very beginning of their academic level.