Manufacturing
By The Economist
From The Economist
Published: December 10, 2012
Big forces are reshaping the world of manufacturing.
Nov 24th 2012 | NEW YORK | from the print edition
"YOU can carry your own head in your hand," enthuses Bre Pettis, inviting customers to try out a three-dimensional photo booth that will scan their head and then print a miniature plastic version of it as a solid object. This is useful, no doubt, for those about to audition for the role of Zaphod Beeblebrox in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".
Mr Pettis, the founder of MakerBot, a maker of low-cost 3D printers, spoke at the opening of his firm's first retail store on November 20th in New York. It will sell desktop MakerBots, which make things out of plastic, for just $2,200. It is still early days, but MakerBots and machines like them are "empowering people to make the things they want, rather than buy them from factories," says Mr Pettis.
Certainly 3D printing is hot. Some firms are already using the technology, which is also known as additive manufacturing because it involves building up material layer by layer. It can be used to make such things as prototype cars, hearing aids, customised dolls and medical implants. On the same day that Mr Pettis opened his store, GE announced it had bought for an undisclosed sum Morris Technologies, a Cincinnati firm that uses industrial 3D printers (which cost $500,000 or more) to print objects for engineers. Morris will be printing metal parts for a new GE jet engine.
Yet 3D printing is just one of many production technologies and trends which are transforming the way companies will be able to make things in the future. The old rules of manufacturing, such as "you must seek economies of scale" and "you must reduce unit-labour costs", are being cast aside. New machines can print every item differently. More flexible robots are getting cheaper and better at doing all the boring and dirty stuff.
Add to that another 1.8 billion consumers who will join the global marketplace in the next 15 years and "Manufacturing the Future", a new report by the McKinsey Global Institute, has good cause to be optimistic. Demand will grow not only for basic goods (which are typically made in developing countries) but also for the costly, innovative gadgets and high-tech products that rich countries make. McKinsey reckons that rich countries will keep making such products better than anyone else.
Developing countries will continue to increase their share of global production. Measured by nominal value added, by 2010 China had surpassed Japan to become the second-largest manufacturing nation, after America. A decade earlier it was in fourth place. In the same period, Brazil jumped from 12th to 6th and India from 14th to 10th. Britain slipped from 5th to 9th.
As countries get richer, manufacturing tends to account for a smaller share of their GDP. The point at which this decline starts varies (the share usually peaks at 20-35%), as does the rate of decline. In the 15 largest manufacturing economies, manufacturing's share of GDP ranges from 33% in China to 10% in Britain (see chart).
Rich countries' relative position may be slipping, but their absolute manufacturing output is rising quite fast. What has fallen is the number of workers needed on the factory floor. Even though some manufacturing is returning to America and Europe from places where it had been offshored, such as China, this trend will not recreate all the factory jobs that once existed.
The term "manufacturing" nowadays describes a whole range of activities. McKinsey divides it into five categories. The biggest, accounting for 34% of the $10.5 trillion total worldwide manufacturing value-added in 2010, it calls "global innovation for local markets". This includes industries such as chemicals, machinery and carmaking, where constant innovation is essential and high transport costs for heavy goods make it sensible to produce these things close to customers.
The next-biggest, at 28%, is "regional processing", which includes industries such as fabricated metals, food and publishing. For obvious reasons, cakes are baked locally: not just because they go stale quickly but also because local tastes vary. "Energy and resource-intensive commodities", such as wood, paper and petrol, account for 22%; "Innovative global technologies" (chips, computers and medical products) are 9%; and "labour-intensive tradeables" (textiles, clothes and toys) 7%. These last two categories have typically been offshored by rich countries and probably will be for some time.
In the other areas where rich countries compete, there is a dark cloud building. McKinsey sees a fast-growing shortage of people with the skills manufacturers require, particularly as ageing baby-boomers retire. That is why American firms such as Dow and DuPont keep clamouring for better education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Yet the rich world still leads in high-tech industries. In 2010 it ran a $726 billion surplus in goods such as cars, chemicals, drugs and machinery, but it had a $342 billion trade deficit in labour-intensive tradeables.
It's all a blur, really
McKinsey sheds new light on another old saw: is manufacturing superior to services? It is becoming ever harder to tell the two apart, as many manufacturing jobs blur with service jobs. At American "manufacturers", 34% of jobs are service-like, rising to 55% in the global-innovative-technology sector. If one counts the workers in supporting services and those who provide raw materials, total American manufacturing employment was 17.2m in 2010, rather than the official 11.5m. Remove all service-like jobs and it drops to 7.3m.
In the future, McKinsey predicts there will be more jobs for robots. Since 1990 the cost of automation has fallen relative to labour by 40-50% in the rich world, it says. The rise of the machines will continue in rich countries, and they will make inroads into developing ones. Wages in emerging markets are soaring. One Chinese manufacturer is talking of hiring 1m robots. Still, robots need people to build, program and maintain them. Humans have no cause to hold their heads in their hands.
機器人搶走工作 還是救了工作？
2012-11-28 天下雜誌 511期 作者：經濟學人
接下來十五年，全球將增加十八億消費者，意味著製造業仍可持續蓬勃發展。但製造業裡，員工的角色將有所改變。
「未來，你可以提著自己的頭顱趴趴走，」立體列印公司MakerBot老闆佩蒂絲，興高彩烈地告訴客戶。
十一月二十日，做廉價立體列印機的MakerBot，在紐約開了第一家零售店。只要二二○○美元（約六萬四千元台幣）就可以買台機器，在桌上開始列印東西，像是立體的大頭照。
類似立體列印的新技術，正在改寫製造業的遊戲規則。產品不需要由工廠製造，「規模經濟」和「勞力成本」等概念失去意義。例如，美國奇異公司，就用工業級的立體列印機，自己生產噴射引擎的零組件。
這也難怪，國際顧問公司麥肯錫對製造業的未來表示樂觀。新發表的報告指出，接下來十五年，全球市場將新增十八億消費者。他們需要開發中國家生產的基本商品，也需要已開發國家的高科技產品。
開發中國家佔全球製造業的比例持續提升。二○○○年，中國是全球第四大製造國；十年後，它成為第二大。同時期，印度從十四跳到第十名，巴西從十二跳到第六名。英國則從第五滑落到第九名。
國家愈有錢，製造業佔ＧＤＰ比重愈低。十五大製造國中，中國的製造業佔三三％，英國佔一○％。
麥肯錫將製造業分成五個區塊。最大的區塊是「當地應用的全球發明」，佔二○一○年全球製造業附加價值十．五兆美元的三四％。例如化工、機械和汽車業，需要不斷創新，卻因為運輸成本昂貴，適合在當地市場製造。
含食品和出版業的「地區處理」佔二八％，「能源和資源密集的商品」佔二二％，「全球創新科技」佔九％，「勞力密集交易品」佔七％，後兩者大多被外包到開發中國家。
邁向高度自動化時代
已開發國家佔全球製造業的比重減少，但絕對產量卻提升。一○年，高科技產業為他們帶來七二六○億美元的盈餘。
可是製造業帶來的就業機會將會減少。九○年代以降，自動化的成本快速跌落，勞工薪資卻不斷提升。不只是在已開發國家，中國也大量引進機器人。製造業的未來很光明，但是人類的角色，將會變成製造和維修機器人，而非生產商品。（周原譯）
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