Why generative design will change the way we make products
By: Burkhard Schwab
Tags: Manufacturing, Articial Intelligence, Product Development, Product Design, Design

The preceding discussion was under the tacit assumption that equipment and algorithms are owned by a designer and manufacturer of products. Increasingly, another model of how to manufacture at scale is moving into the spotlight: Equipment-as-a-Service [3].

The X-aaS revolution has brought immense savings to companies and allowed to outsource whole business units once deemed critical. Maybe the most impactful development is Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), the practice of not owning servers and other computer infrastructure and moving much of the company IT into the cloud. Apart from this standard practice, manufacturers have been largely unaffected by the outsourcing of equipment.

Increasingly, EaaS has become an intriguing idea for small and medium size manufacturers that cannot or do not want to bind capital in the form of equipment and materials. The reason is that these manufacturers prefer to stay agile and unencumbered. They want to be able to respond rapidly to changing market trends. Buying or even leasing equipment is an unnecessary burden for these companies, which is why new schemes involving the renting of machine time are emerging. China is leading the efforts to supply equipment on a pay-per-use price model, although just like in IaaS, pricing is still a contentious question.

Equipment-as-a-Service is especially attractive when combined with the possibility to test new technologies for production. Companies that have no experience with additive manufacturing, but are interested in using the technology, do not need to buy an expensive metal alloy printer to get started. They can rent their time on already deployed and configured equipment without having to worry about the upfront cost of purchasing equipment or the service and maintenance cost afterwards.

A combination of these technologies allows an intriguing model of the future of manufacturing to take shape.

Algorithmically generated product designs, prototyped and manufactured on EaaS manufacturing equipment also has another interesting component to it: It allows the large scale production of physical goods by companies and startups that are not in the traditional manufacturing sector. Especially large manufacturers should be aware of this development, as it could mean an unexpected impact on their market share and a disruption of their business model.

Further development of design by algorithm will make it possible to turn hand-drawn sketches into products. A combination of the described technologies will allow individual designer to do a sketch-to-3D model based product development approach. Blueprints, specifications and 3D shapefiles can be sent directly to EaaS providers to produce the product in batch sizes that would be prohibitive for larger manufacturers. Even better, products like these could be customized by the consumer before being made to order, thus decreasing waste and increasing sustainability of the manufacturing process.

While 3D printing seems a natural candidate for such a “citizen’s product development and manufacturing” pipeline, it is by far not the only option. Traditional processes can be used just as well, but usually they need a larger level of expertise regarding materials, restrictions, and capabilities of the process thus increasing the need for specialized knowledge about the manufacturing process on the side of the product designer.

As intriguing as this model of the future is, it remains to be seen whether such a development and manufacturing scheme can succeed against the highly optimized industrial processes that are common nowadays.

# Endnotes

[1] StyleGAN

https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2019/2/15/18226005/ai-generated-fake-people-portraits-thispersondoesnotexist-stylegan

[2] 3D from 2D

https://interestingengineering.com/nvidia-researches-created-ai-that-turns-2d-images-into-3d-models

[3] Equipment-as-a-Service

https://www.bain.com/insights/choosing-the-right-pricing-model-for-equipment-as-a-service/