RE: RPMI Symposium 2000

From: Brock Hinzmann (bhinzmann@sric.sri.com)
Date: Fri Jul 23 1999 - 23:43:24 EEST


 Marshall wrote: You have a classic chicken-and-egg dilemma.

In RP&M, you have what is called, in one currently popular business book,
a classic Innovator's Dilemma. To the extent that RP fits into the mass
production business model, it will likely remain a marginal technology,
enabling incremental cost reductions and cost avoidances, some of which can
be documented by the current financial accounting system.

However, to the extent that RM is a disruptive technology, it needs to be
taken out of the hands of the line managers and put into a skunk works
somewhere, to serve that currently modest set of customers that want or need
customized products. It takes a far-sighted CEO to recognize to attack
and even destroy your own current business model. Perhaps GE has such a CEO.
I've got a couple of other clients that think that way. The problem is,
it's something that does not make any sense, from a short-term profit
perspective. Why invest in a technology that makes products more expensively,
less accurately, out of materials that are limited in performance? Because
in ten years or twenty years, it will eat your lunch.

Brock Hinzmann

 Tom Richards wrote:
>Hello All,
>
>Marshall Burns wrote to reginald.ponder@marc.gatech.edu regarding their
RP&M
>symposium in early 2000. All RP people should visit
>http://rpmi.marc.gatech.edu and weigh-in. Marshall's statement included
the
>following:
>
>"If you happen to agree with what I'm saying, that doesn't mean that you
can
>solve the problem by directing your promotion of the conference to CEOs,
>lobbyists, and entrepreneurs. Because, by and large, those groups do not
yet
>have any idea that fabbers are a phenomenon worth paying attention to.
You
>have a classic chicken-and-egg dilemma. The purpose of your conference
is to
>raise the consciousness of America about the fabber future, but to get
>attendance you need to find people who are already believers."
>
>Marshall Burns' insightful comments make sense to me: CEO's,
Professionals &
>Entrepreneurs had better become aware of what could happen.
>
>I would like to see a plenary session built around a possible or
probable
>emerging TENSION between two kinds of MANUFACTURERS of widgets, and the
>parts for widgets: A) Organizations (companies) vs B) Individuals
(fabbers
>or cottage industries), as they might soon be competing for production
of 1)
>prototypes, 2) early economical production quantities at minimum
investment
>by consumers and 3) full-scale production quantities, of either I) Same
>Design from OEM's, catalogs or dealers or II) Custom Designs or Reverse
>Engineerings per order. It could become a classic struggle over
distribution
>channels. Given the rapidly emerging internet communications and market,
I
>would bet on a new paradigm to emerge and prosper, of B) producing 1,2 &
3
>of II, if RPG+M people do their jobs well. Canny CEO's themselves might
well
>apply the new paradigm within their organizations.
>
>Best Regards, Tom Richards, Metallurgist
>
>
>
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