* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Monday, June 2, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Rising stars: Young classical musicians surging on social media – Yahoo

    Meet the Next Generation of Classical Music Sensations Making Waves on Social Media!

    Devin Harjes Dies: ‘Manifest’ & ‘Boardwalk Empire’ Actor Was 41 – WyomingNews.com

    Tragic Loss: Devin Harjes, Star of ‘Manifest’ and ‘Boardwalk Empire,’ Passes Away at 41

    Why Starz Entertainment Stock Soared Today – The Motley Fool

    Unpacking the Surge: What Fueled Starz Entertainment’s Stock Explosion Today!

    Unveiling the Enigmatic: First Looks at Destruction and Puck in ‘The Sandman

    Jackie Chan Reveals This Family Member ‘Never Watched’ The Whole Of Any Of His Movies – Yahoo

    Jackie Chan Reveals This Family Member ‘Never Watched’ The Whole Of Any Of His Movies – Yahoo

    Mavs CEO holds firm on new arena, entertainment district in Dallas – Dallas News

    Mavs CEO Stands Strong on Vision for New Arena and Entertainment District in Dallas

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Prosecutors accuse men of exporting U.S. military technology to China – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

    Men Charged with Illegally Exporting U.S. Military Technology to China

    ROLAND’S NEW WIRELESS TRIGGER TECHNOLOGY, PORTER & DAVIES ON TOUR, NEW 64 AUDIO ASPIRE UNIVERSAL IEM MODELS, WAVES FREE PLUGIN PACK – Modern Drummer Magazine

    ROLAND’S NEW WIRELESS TRIGGER TECHNOLOGY, PORTER & DAVIES ON TOUR, NEW 64 AUDIO ASPIRE UNIVERSAL IEM MODELS, WAVES FREE PLUGIN PACK – Modern Drummer Magazine

    This giant microwave may change the future of war – MIT Technology Review

    Revolutionizing Warfare: The Impact of a Game-Changing Giant Microwave

    Bajeed Pattan Joins Forbes Technology Council as Innovation Leader – PRWeb

    Bajeed Pattan Takes the Helm as Innovation Leader at Forbes Technology Council!

    Lafayette Regional Technology Council – Tech Leadership That’s Homegrown and Future-Focused – Discover Lafayette

    Lafayette Regional Technology Council – Tech Leadership That’s Homegrown and Future-Focused – Discover Lafayette

    Drone technology demo in Cambria County showcases future of lifesaving medical deliveries – local21news.com

    Revolutionizing Healthcare: Drone Technology Takes Flight for Lifesaving Medical Deliveries in Cambria County

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Rising stars: Young classical musicians surging on social media – Yahoo

    Meet the Next Generation of Classical Music Sensations Making Waves on Social Media!

    Devin Harjes Dies: ‘Manifest’ & ‘Boardwalk Empire’ Actor Was 41 – WyomingNews.com

    Tragic Loss: Devin Harjes, Star of ‘Manifest’ and ‘Boardwalk Empire,’ Passes Away at 41

    Why Starz Entertainment Stock Soared Today – The Motley Fool

    Unpacking the Surge: What Fueled Starz Entertainment’s Stock Explosion Today!

    Unveiling the Enigmatic: First Looks at Destruction and Puck in ‘The Sandman

    Jackie Chan Reveals This Family Member ‘Never Watched’ The Whole Of Any Of His Movies – Yahoo

    Jackie Chan Reveals This Family Member ‘Never Watched’ The Whole Of Any Of His Movies – Yahoo

    Mavs CEO holds firm on new arena, entertainment district in Dallas – Dallas News

    Mavs CEO Stands Strong on Vision for New Arena and Entertainment District in Dallas

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Prosecutors accuse men of exporting U.S. military technology to China – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

    Men Charged with Illegally Exporting U.S. Military Technology to China

    ROLAND’S NEW WIRELESS TRIGGER TECHNOLOGY, PORTER & DAVIES ON TOUR, NEW 64 AUDIO ASPIRE UNIVERSAL IEM MODELS, WAVES FREE PLUGIN PACK – Modern Drummer Magazine

    ROLAND’S NEW WIRELESS TRIGGER TECHNOLOGY, PORTER & DAVIES ON TOUR, NEW 64 AUDIO ASPIRE UNIVERSAL IEM MODELS, WAVES FREE PLUGIN PACK – Modern Drummer Magazine

    This giant microwave may change the future of war – MIT Technology Review

    Revolutionizing Warfare: The Impact of a Game-Changing Giant Microwave

    Bajeed Pattan Joins Forbes Technology Council as Innovation Leader – PRWeb

    Bajeed Pattan Takes the Helm as Innovation Leader at Forbes Technology Council!

    Lafayette Regional Technology Council – Tech Leadership That’s Homegrown and Future-Focused – Discover Lafayette

    Lafayette Regional Technology Council – Tech Leadership That’s Homegrown and Future-Focused – Discover Lafayette

    Drone technology demo in Cambria County showcases future of lifesaving medical deliveries – local21news.com

    Revolutionizing Healthcare: Drone Technology Takes Flight for Lifesaving Medical Deliveries in Cambria County

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home General

Design global, manufacture local: a new industrial revolution?

January 21, 2024
in General
Design global, manufacture local: a new industrial revolution?
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

What if globally designed products could radically change how we work, produce and consume? Several examples across continents show the way we are producing and consuming goods could be improved by relying on globally shared digital resources, such as design, knowledge and software.

Imagine a prosthetic hand designed by geographically dispersed communities of scientists, designers and enthusiasts in a collaborative manner via the web. All knowledge and software related to the hand is shared globally as a digital commons.

People from all over the world who are connected online and have access to local manufacturing machines (from 3D printing and CNC machines to low-tech crafts and tools) can, ideally with the help of an expert, manufacture a customised hand. This the case of the OpenBionics project, which produces designs for robotic and bionic devices.

There are no patent costs to pay for. Less transportation of materials is needed, since a considerable part of the manufacturing takes place locally; maintenance is easier, products are designed to last as long as possible, and costs are thus much lower.

The first version of OpenBionics prosthetic and robotic hands.
from www.openbionics.org

Take another example. Small-scale farmers in France need agricultural machines to support their work. Big companies rarely produce machines specifically for small-scale farmers. And if they do, the maintenance costs are high and the farmers have to adjust their farming techniques to the logic of the machines. Technology, after all, is not neutral.

So the farmers decide to design the agricultural machines themselves. They produce machines to accommodate their needs and not to sell them for a price on the market. They share their designs with the world – as a global digital commons. Small scale farmers from the US share similar needs with their French counterparts. They do the same. After a while, the two communities start to talk to each other and create synergies.

That’s the story of the non-profit network FarmHack (US) and the co-operative L’Atelier Paysan (France) which both produce open-source designs for agricultural machines.

With our colleagues, we have been exploring the contours of an emerging mode of production that builds on the confluence of the digital commons of knowledge, software, and design with local manufacturing technologies.

We call this model “design global, manufacture local” and argue that it could lead to sustainable and inclusive forms of production and consumption. It follows the logic that what is light (knowledge, design) becomes global while what is heavy (manufacturing) is local, and ideally shared.

When knowledge is shared, materials tend to travel less and people collaborate driven by diverse motives. The profit motive is not totally absent, but it is peripheral.

Decentralised open resources for designs can be used for a wide variety of things, medicines, furniture, prosthetic devices, farm tools, machinery and so on. For example, the Wikihouse project produces designs for houses; the RepRap community creates designs for 3D printers. Such projects do not necessarily need a physical basis as their members are dispersed all over the world.

Finding sustainability

But how are these projects funded? From receiving state funding (a research grant) and individual donations (crowdfunding) to alliances with established firms and institutions, commons-oriented projects are experimenting with various business models to stay sustainable.

Design is developed as a global digital commons, whereas the manufacturing takes place locally, often through shared infrastructures.
Vasilis Kostakis, Nikos Exarchopoulos

These globally connected local, open design communities do not tend to practice planned obsolescence. They can adapt such artefacts to local contexts and can benefit from mutual learning.

In such a scenario, Ecuadorian mountain people can for example connect with Nepalese mountain farmers to learn from each other and stop any collaboration that would make them exclusively dependent on proprietary knowledge controlled by multinational corporations.

Towards ‘cosmolocalism’

This idea comes partly from discourse on cosmopolitanism which asserts that each of us has equal moral standing, even as nations treat people differently. The dominant economic system treats physical resources as if they were infinite and then locks up intellectual resources as if they were finite. But the reality is quite the contrary. We live in a world where physical resources are limited, while non-material resources are digitally reproducible and therefore can be shared at a very low cost.

Moving electrons around the world has a smaller ecological footprint than moving coal, iron, plastic and other materials. At a local level, the challenge is to develop economic systems that can draw from local supply chains.

Imagine a water crisis in a city so severe that within a year the whole city may be out of water. A cosmolocal strategy would mean that globally distributed networks would be active in solving the issue. In one part of the world, a water filtration system is prototyped – the system itself is based on a freely available digital design that can be 3D printed.

This is not fiction. There is actually a network based in Cape Town, called STOP RESET GO, which wants to run a cosmolocalisation design event where people would intensively collaborate on solving such a problem.

The Cape Town STOP RESET GO teams draw upon this and begin to experiment with it with their lived challenges. To make the system work they need to make modifications, and they document this and make the next version of the design open. Now other locales around the world take this new design and apply it to their own challenges.

Limitations and future research

A limitation of this new model is its two main pillars, such as information and communication as well as local manufacturing technologies. These issues may pertain to resource extraction, exploitative labour, energy use or material flows.

A thorough evaluation of such products and practices would need to take place from a political ecology perspective. For example, what is the ecological footprint of a product that has been globally designed and locally manufactured? Or,to what degree do the users of such a product feel in control of the technology and knowledge necessary for its use and manipulation?

Now our goal is to provide some answers to the questions above and, thus, better understand the transition dynamics of such an emerging mode of production.

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : The Conversation – https://theconversation.com/design-global-manufacture-local-a-new-industrial-revolution-82591

Previous Post

A close-up look at what happens when tourists and Maasai communities meet

Next Post

‎MEWA seeks public feedback on draft rules for wheat, seasonal fodder cultivation

Restoration cannot be scaled up globally to save reefs from loss and degradation – Nature

Reviving Our Reefs: The Challenge of Scaling Up Restoration Efforts Globally

June 2, 2025
Attorney General Bonta Sues to Stop Termination, Withholding of National Science Foundation Grants – State of California – Department of Justice (.gov)

Attorney General Bonta Takes Action to Protect National Science Foundation Grants

June 2, 2025
Exclusive: US veterans agency orders scientists not to publish in journals without clearance – The Guardian

US Veterans Agency Imposes New Restrictions on Scientific Publishing

June 2, 2025
Upper Allen Township launches new initiative to encourage a more active lifestyle – fox43.com

Upper Allen Township launches new initiative to encourage a more active lifestyle – fox43.com

June 2, 2025
Lionel Messi rejoins Argentina for two World Cup qualifiers before Club World Cup – USA Today

Lionel Messi rejoins Argentina for two World Cup qualifiers before Club World Cup – USA Today

June 2, 2025
Jobs Report Could Be Early Sign of Tariffs Cost – U.S. News & World Report

Jobs Report Could Be Early Sign of Tariffs Cost – U.S. News & World Report

June 2, 2025
Mark Tremonti Headlines Belmont Stakes Day Entertainment – Thoroughbred Daily News

Mark Tremonti Takes Center Stage at Belmont Stakes Day Celebration!

June 2, 2025
Black Book Research: Health Plans Double Down on AI-Powered Fraud and Claims Integrity Solutions Amid Rising Audit Pressures – Newswire :) Press Release Distribution

Health Plans Embrace AI to Combat Fraud and Enhance Claims Integrity Amid Growing Audit Challenges

June 2, 2025
Opinion | The Politics and Perils of Pornography – The New York Times

Navigating the Complex Landscape of Pornography: Politics, Perils, and Perspectives

June 2, 2025
Prosecutors accuse men of exporting U.S. military technology to China – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Men Charged with Illegally Exporting U.S. Military Technology to China

June 2, 2025

Categories

Archives

June 2025
MTWTFSS
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30 
« May    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (660)
  • Economy (674)
  • Entertainment (21,580)
  • General (15,257)
  • Health (9,717)
  • Lifestyle (677)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (676)
  • Politics (683)
  • Science (15,895)
  • Sports (21,179)
  • Technology (15,661)
  • World (662)

Recent News

Restoration cannot be scaled up globally to save reefs from loss and degradation – Nature

Reviving Our Reefs: The Challenge of Scaling Up Restoration Efforts Globally

June 2, 2025
Attorney General Bonta Sues to Stop Termination, Withholding of National Science Foundation Grants – State of California – Department of Justice (.gov)

Attorney General Bonta Takes Action to Protect National Science Foundation Grants

June 2, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version