Friday night – the software defined supply chain

Ahhh , the end of a very interesting week.. I managed to stay here all week even though I was supposed to be both in China and Russia at the same time. The last three days I’ve stayed up most of the night attending a very interesting set of meetings in Shanghai.. I went to bed as the sun was coming up last night with my head spinning with ideas.

I woke this morning just in time to watch my friend Paul Brody present a piece of work called ‘The Software Defined Supply Chain” at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) . I watched it sreaming live from Russia.. it had been delayed because the previous speaker, Russian President Vladimir Putin (!!!!) was late !

At 10:18 on came paul..

Paul and my friend Veena P have been working on for nearly 8 moths. I’ve been working with them all along and was so proud to see Paul role out the message. .. And its an important message.. Behind all the hype on technologies like 3D printing , robotics and open source hardware is an even more amazing transformation that is occurring in the supply chain. That is the process where parts from multiple sources come together to create the complex objects we use every day..Whats happening is that the supply chain is going digital…. just as things like music, movies and books have given way to digital files, .. the physical objects around us are beginning their existence as 1’s and 0’s in cyberspace.. The implication are huge..

Consider the implications of the fact that it will no longer be cheaper to build small parts for things like washing machines in low labor cost geographies and then ship them to across the world..for assembly and cosnumption.. There are huge implication to the way things will be made, how much they will cost.. and the environmental impact of making things.. There are some surprises there in the study.. for example, it’s not always ‘greener’ to make objects using digital manufacture. What is clear, hoever is that the cost of persoanlizing things. ie. makign objects that suit special needs of an application or individual are goign to come way down. it’s going to open up completely new markets for folks wh design things, build things, repair things, etc..

The whole report will come out in next couple of weeks.. and will be availabe for anyon e to download..When it does, I’lll share it here.. In the mean time, here’s a small preview of the work that Paul gaeve a few months back..

I’m very excited to have been involved.