When makers shuffle the industry cards

The trend of " do it yourself "(DIY)," free ", digital and collaborative economy, already made it a leading economic alternative. With factories shutdown linked to the Covid-19 health crisis and thinking about ways to produce differently, (creative) makers, their FabLabs, their minds and their 3D printers are more than ever in the spotlight. How to integrate them and what can be their influence or their role on the future of the industry?

Code name : makers for life. Goal ? Design and manufacture in mass a robust respirator for patients with Covid-19. “MakAir” will cost € 1,000 each, or 10 to 45 times cheaper than existing ones, and will be manufactured via 3D printers, based on free plans! Part of the idea of ​​a young engineer from Nantes who wanted to be "useful", the process which has since brought together hundreds of creators and experts (professors, manufacturers like Seb or Renault, engineers, researchers, etc.) has received from thesilver then CEA support. One example among many, which illustrates the ability of makers to produce massively, outside of the classic model.

With an agility to make the most beautiful R&D cells or even startups fade with envy, will the health crisis allow the industry and its factories to be reinvented, thanks to makers?

Where does the maker movement come from and what place does it occupy?

First appearing in the United States in the early 2000s, the movement has since spread around the world. Community and collaborative, makers, or creatives, mix the digital culture of free andopen source, with that of more traditional skills.

Impregnated with Do it Yourself, the current Géo Trouvetou have come together with certain principles and values ​​including:

  • knowledge sharing and learning by "doing";

  • the diffusion files, maps digital ;

  • pooling of manufacturing resources;

  • the creation of collective meeting and working spaces (makerspaces, fablabs, etc.).

Support (forums, blogs, magazines, etc.), the thousands of open workshops and events, such as Maker Faire, also contribute to spreading the maker culture, which some describe as " make change " The maker movement blurs the boundaries between leisure and work, non-market and market, local and global, crafts and industry. It is also clearly mobilized for the general interest and positions the maker movement as a major societal phenomenon, claiming a place in the face of the insufficiency of the current productive system.

Hybrid and multifaceted, with tutorials and short improvisations between developers, exchanges of practices or know-how, makers also attract companies, who do not hesitate to send their engineers or technicians, or even to collaborate on the creation of prototypes or small series the rooms.

When the Covid-19 illustrates the power of makers to federate and industrialize

The Covid-19 crisis and the lack of protective medical equipment are a notable example. Collaborative initiatives and co-development of products for the medical and health sector were numerous, all over the world, from the month of March 2020. The makers rely on their culture of collaboration and open innovation, to decompartmentalize and mobilize the most relevant resources. They “break the industrial codes” to achieve their goal. From the diving mask diverted in respirator to printed valves, distributors of gels contactless or protective visors, the ambition is to meet a need. Quickly. And massively thanks to the collective.

Multiplication of initiatives and online discussion groups, almost instant responses makers and outside official processes have made it possible to provide caregivers with protective equipment and medical instruments. The platform of the Paris Covid 3D Hospitals has given recognition to their unprecedented mobilization, by approving models without patents from open research to distribute them with secure manufacturing and distribution specifications.

" Distributed manufacturing is no longer a theoretical niche, a nice utopia of fablabs (…) It works concretely and door also hope to re-do the world differently ", According to the collective forum of the maker movement. In a recent collective opinion “ Coronavirus makers and fablabs ", The French maker movement highlights the lack of recognition from the authorities, and recalls “ that it appears that the research-certification-manufacturing-logistics chain is still to be consolidated " The maker Lorenzo Pastrana, interviewed by the Arte television channel, recalled the springs of the maker response on the Covid-19, first based on pragmatism:

  • identify resources / skills to find an answer by number;

  • work in response to a specific local need;

  • accept "degraded" mode, with lower technical quality.

The makers mobilized against the Covid-19. © Arte

Are we heading to general interest maker factories?

From its beginnings, the maker movement has blurred the boundaries between crafts and industry. It remains to know the scope, faced with what some observers already qualify as a “giant factory”, when they talk about the current mobilization maker, on the Covid-19. " By exploding the oppositions between design and manufacture, between producer and consumer, between productive investment and civic engagement, makers are paving the way for a production model compatible with urban development models. ", Notes sociologist Isabelle Berrebi-Hoffmann.

Could we then imagine maker factories as one of the societal responses to emergencies but also to the needs of the world to come? Yes, if we believe for example the Fab City project : by 2054, the ambition is to have self-sufficient and autonomous cities, in particular by relying on existing fablabs, and to be created.

A new way of producing: towards collaboration between industrialists and makers?

" The3D printing is one of the digital technologies likely to profoundly transform current production methods and economic models. " In a report on technological innovations, the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (EESC) places the strongest symbol of the maker movement (3D printing, or additive manufacturing) as a lever for major transformations in production methods.

The spirit of the movement is its other great strength, which the industry seeks to capture: at the same time artisanal and innovative, high-tech and low cost, the maker movement arouses lust. Especially since they are " industrialize the DIY approach " To reshuffle the cards of industrial manufacturing? They can in themselves constitute a new "industrial revolution", as Chris Anderson announced in 2010, in his book on the maker phenomenon. What is certain is that the new ways of collaborating and designing "creatives" are spreading massively in the business world. Better: manufacturers have clearly taken hold of the fablabs approach, by launching or contributing to:

  • internal fablabs;

  • makerspaces open to its customers or to startups;

  • techshops;

  • hackatons, etc.

The maker movement clearly imprints its imprint there, to the point of creating inter-company fablabs, emphasizing open innovation. Other manufacturers want to take advantage ofintelligence collective public, as proposed Yes Are Makers, online tutorial platform, during an ideas competition. For some makers, we are witnessing a "fabwashing" that distorts his approach. The fablab federation, which hosted the world fablab meeting last year (Fab14, building resilience), reacted to this.

Between quest for official recognition, influence on new modes of production and defense of a multiple identity and a spirit of limitless openness, the makers have not finished boiling the industry.

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