Industry of Future – a blend of I.T and Manufacturing

 

It all started in EuroMold fair (one of the biggest trade fairs held in Frankfurt, which shows machine prototypes of products) where the industry of future was not just visualized but also seen. In November last year at EuroMold fair, there were a group of machines at display called as 3D printers. Sounds somewhat that it may generate 3D images or so, but in reality it was not so. They were the printers used for manufacturing. Sounds strange!!! But they were used for generating real materialistic objects from the digital sources. Imagine you have a digital image of an iron ball, you just give a print command and the iron ball is there for you in the 3D printer. Now, this is not imaginable but real. An American firm, 3D systems, used one of its 3D printers to print a hammer, complete with a wooden handle and metalized head. This is called the INDUSTRY OF FUTURE.

No doubt that it is a new technique and it in its infant stage but if we look at futuristic scope, we can call it as the Third Industrial Revolution. First industrial revolution began in Britain in 18^th century with the mechanization of the textile industry, second began in America in 20^th century with the era of mass production, and now it’s the time for the digital manufacturing using smart software’s capable of customized manufacturing with such an ease in terms of cost as well as time that no one can imagine.

China is leading the manufacturing sector in the world and has decreased the manufacturing jobs in America by one third. Outsourcing the manufacturing parts and getting it assembled became the basis of all the manufacturing companies because it reduces the manufacturing cost of the product by huge amount. But now workers in china are not so cheap, they are also demanding high salaries for the work they are being producing and with in very short span of time. For this reason many of the production houses are moving towards the other cheaper countries. For instance Nike has shifted it production base from china to Vietnam, which is now the company’s biggest production base. Many other production houses are moving to the countries like Bangladesh, Cambodia and Indonesia. But now with the invent of technology many of the production houses are moving into their native countries and setup base over there. They can have robots to control the production process, they can have smart machines and smart software that can be very beneficial as for the reduction of wage cost and more over it increases the economy of the country and all the production process is under observation and if one needs any alterations then it can be made very easily which is very difficult if the production base in elsewhere located.

3D Printing

At Rock hill, South Carolina, in a business park there is a factory of future which is working on the vision to change the way thing are manufactured. There are lots of machines, some are bulk size like cars and some small as microwave but all are operated by computers. Some machines are printing ornaments and some other parts that can be assembled as a product later.

This factory is the head quarters of 3D systems, a firm founded by Chuck Hill. Basically 3D printing was started as a way to make prototypes but as the technology expands it can be used to print fully finished products. The ability to produce highly complex designs using the smart software and then turning them into 3D objects that too without any nuts and bolts as a single structure has created a new world of manufacturing. With the invent of this technology the workers engaged un the manufacturing process will be decreased but that does not means it decreases the employment, but the employment becomes more and more skilled. Now the factories will be full of designers, IT specialists, accountants, logistic experts, marketing staff, customer relationship managers, cooks and cleaners and a few if required manufacturing experts. So in this way the scenario is going to change.

Working of a 3D printer

The 3D printer works on the phenomenon of additive manufacturing. It works in the same manner as the paper printers. The command is given to the printer and the printer creates a layer of ink over the paper surface and the paper gets printed. The same is the fundamental with the 3D printer but here the layers are more than one and this is known as additive printing. In 3D printing the smart software creates the dgital slices of the product and send the command to the 3D printer which then successively adds the slces one on to the other and creates a 3D object. The difference is that the ink used in 3D printer is the material. The layers can come together in many of the ways, some printers uses inkjet process. Object which is an Israeli firm uses inkjet method to create a plastic layer which is then exposed to ultraviolet rays it get cut into the desired shape and then new thin layer of plastic gets deposited again and again to make a 3D object. Many of the firms are using powder as the print medium. The powder can be spread onto the priting medium and then it can be solidified using the liquid binder and the process can be continued to create a 3D object. The extra material can be blown off.

Publish in a Multimedia Fashion

There are lots of publishing houses all over the world publishing Magazines, Books, Articles, Journals, Story books etc. But now the time has changed, it’s the multimedia era and everything that is associated with multimedia can be a Gem for the idea developer as well as the consumer because the developer will get revenue and the consumer gets the experience. This is the concept introduced by three friends Evan Ratliff, Jefferson Rabb and Nicholas Thompson. All the three are associated with Journalism by one or the other ways. Sitting in a bar in Brooklyn complaining about the state of Journalism the idea came. The idea evolved as a business and known as The Atavist which has opened a new vision in terms of multimedia magazines. The Atavist is a new iPad and iPhone app which has changed the way nonfiction stories were created and sold. They have deep knowledge of publishing: Ratliff, the chief executive of The Atavist, is a longtime contributor to Wired magazine writing for it, Thompson is the editor of NewYorker.com, and Rabb, the chief technology officer, spent much of his professional life designing websites for books.

 The Atavist creates high multimedia quality nonfiction stories. They are more than a magazine article and less than a book in length but the experience it is providing is awesome. Full of text, images, video, audio and most importantly the interface has made it the hottest product in the iPad market. The content is quite similar to that of Kindle, where simplified versions of stories from The Atavist are also made available.

The Atavist looks like an e-magazine initially but it is not just like a magazine but much more than that. The Atavist is much more involved in creation of stories else than creating just simple magazines. The writer writes a story and The Atavist creates an app for their book by adding much of multimedia into the story just to give a look and feel of the story.

As Ratliff explained, "We can build our own way of seeing the story." The Atavist creates the apps that are a nice blend of Story from the Write and multimedia by the Atavist. Multimedia includes the videos that are embedded into the pages and play where they are rather than being open as a new element, the reader that is being incorporated into the app which reads the full story to you in a very nice and emotionfull manner so that the original feel of the story remains intact. Lots of images are also being put in to give the realistic view of the story. This was "better than any lede I could've written for the story," said Ratliff.

Coming to the price of the app for iPad and iPhone, it is very nominal that anyone can easily buy a story book app created by The Atavist and can have the ultimate experience of multimedia as well as the nonfiction story. The cost for iPad and iPhone is just $2.99 and for that of Kindle Singles is $1.99. The revenue collected from the app is shared between the author of that book and The Atavist.

The Atavist has around 16 publications in its name by the day and has a name in the market of e-publishing. If the idea clicks more than in no time it will be the biggest e-publishing house somewhere like the giants of paper book publishing Pearson and McGraw-Hill.

Facebook - Part 2

FACEBOOK – PART 2

Once a boy posted pictures of his friends and fellow students of Harvard online just to get reviews, comments and likes from the viewers and that chocolaty boy with a spark in his eyes is Mr. Mark Zukerberg and his by chance experiment in now days know as Facebook. The idea has already been flourished and more than 900 million linkages to facebook has already made Mr. Zukerberg a millionaire and soon he will be billionaire.

Now a days investor’s silver spoon can be Facebook. Facebook has initially announced the plans of an initial public offering (IPO) that value around $5 billion but according to recent stats facebook has announced the raise for $18.4 billion, which is the largest floatation made ever by an internet company and is the first U.S Company to be worth more than $100 billion at its debut. The share costing of facebook is initially estimated to be around $34 but it has also risen to $38. It is not wrong to say that Facebook is now among the tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Apple though their market capitalization is $190 billion, $250 billion, and 425 billion respectively and Facebook’s valuation is $104 billion which is comparable to the market worth of Amazon and exceeding that of H.P (Hewlett Packard) and Dell, but the fact that only 8 year old company has such a worth cannot be ignored and which could be a hiccough for the tech giants.

Facebook’s last year’s total earnings are estimated to be about $3.7 billion and a net profit of about $1 billion. The network has the third largest population (900 million users) in the world after China and India. The reason for such a success of facebook is to provide people what they want and what was missing in their life i.e. socialization in their busy life and facebook makes it easier and simpler and most importantly at any time anywhere because of enabling facebook on mobiles and tablets and that too with a high speed and comfort.

Another reason for facebook success is Social Advertisement and the revenue collected from advertisements. Around 85% of the revenue is collected from the ads and it is going to increase much more in the coming future because facebook is planning to launch ads in the mobile and tablet versions also. Mr. Hussein Fazal, the chief executive of AdParlor, which manages Facebook’s ads, believes that revenue from facebook ads will surprise Google soon which has a revenue of about $40 billion from ads.

It’s not so that all the days in future will be sunny for the facebook, some could be rainy too on which facebook has to do homework in advance. One recent fact of Facebook’s down market is the concept of timeline and forcing the people to adopt timeline and once it is on your profile you cannot get rid of it which reduces the market value of the company. Once the youth is angry, then it would be very difficult to put back the train on to rails.

Another issue occurred with the America’s Federal Trade (FTC). They were receiving the complaints that facebook is making the user’s data public which suppose to be private. In settlement facebook agreed to submit its privacy policies every two years for the next 20 years. So privacy is the biggest concern for facebook as daily 250 million photos are uploaded on the site and every seventh minute spent on internet is on Facebook. In many countries governments are paying high attention towards the privacy policies of Facebook. Facebook should not think only in terms of money but in this direction also. Another issue is the ban of facebook in China. Being the most populated country, if facebook is able to find a way to fill this social hole then the profits will be unimaginable.

(The stats written in this article are till 19th of May 2012.)

Facebook - Part 1

FACEBOOK – ANOTHER MEAL ADDED TO OUR DAILY LIFE

Isn’t it true to say that Facebook has become an additional meal in our daily life? As we do breakfast, lunch, dinner and so, now a day is Facebook. Mr. Mark Zuckerberg has made a revolution in the social networking that every one in seven individuals on this planet is on facebook and half of them are addicted to it. Mr. Mark Zukerberg has given the social community a drug and that too for the benefits of the people, which many of the people are looking after. Mr. Zukerberg has touched the most important part in any individual’s life that is the social part of the individual. All the persons want to chat, share their videos, pictures, their reviews, comments and all other things they want to socialize, along of providing all this Mr. Zukerberg has also touched other spheres of  a common man’s life like entertainment, gaming, e-gifts, e-greetings and now even facebook credits and all this too in a simpler and easier manner. This is the main reason for success of facebook and subscription of more than 900 million people by 23^rd April 2012 on facebook. Three main reasons for the biggest success of facebook in terms of popularity are:

1.      Allow People to Socialize themselves to the extreme

2.      Provide facebook in the hands of people i.e. facebook mobile as well as tablet applications. About 40% of the total mass using facebook, accesses facebook on mobile as well as tablets.

3.      Gaming, gaming and gaming. People love to play games on the network beating their friends score, competing with other competitors, etc.

This is the success of facebook in terms of popularity among the population but the real success and growth of a company is measured from its monetary worth in which also facebook is not behind. An eight year old company which is successfully run by a 27 year visionary boy has the total revenue of about $3.7 billion with a net profit of $1 billion. This tells the story of success w.r.t market revenue generated by facebook. The reasons for the such a big turn over in such a short period of time are:

1.      Advertisements: Facebook earns 85% of its revenue share from the display advertisements which is not a small amount. People and companies  pay facebook and posts their advertisements on the facebook.

2.      Gaming: Zynga, a social gaming site which is the most popular site among the social-gaming and is popular because of facebook and the total revenue generated by Zynga is all because of facebook and facebook generates its 12% revenue from Zynga.

3.   Facebook Credits: Facebook credits are giving revenue to facebook but they can be more popular if the facebook credits can be used on the web anywhere on any site for purchasing or by doing online transactions. Mr. Zuckerberg have to work on it and do certain tie-ups with PayPal or so to accept facebook credits and in return exchange those facebook credits from facebook in terms of real cash or something of that kind.