The Future of Retail has landed.
As co presenter of the ‘Future Matters’ series with the National Geographic Channel back in 2004, I discussed the idea of Rapid Prototyping or 3D Printing. At that stage, 3D printers were like very large office photocopiers and the better ones had starting prices of around $150,000. I stated that in the near future, people would be able to print out their own dinner sets in their own homes, by simply downloading a Computer Aided Design (CAD) program straight into their printer. A year or so later I presented to the Queensland Supply Chain & Logistics conference and showed them the new face of retail and manufacturing with a few examples. That face has arrived with the latest shift in 3D printing accessibility –
It would be fair to say that not everyone at the conference was pleased with what I said. I’d just shown them that manufacturing could be done in the home (examples were a vase, dinner plates, a high heeled shoe and some toys), that rather than shipping lots of good around, all that would be needed were standard plaster base or plastic base filaments which reduced the need for most retail stores and most trucking.
And then I offered them the out – because prices for units were still too high for most people to have one of their own, the INTERIM step would be 3D printer retail stores (like the photocopying place you go to now) that would have multiple machines in a retail setting, wherein the customer would browse a catalogue, select and pay for their chosen item and come back an hour or two later to pick it up. Minimal storage and warehousing needed; minimal shipping from overseas needed; few trucks on the road needed and almost NO retail shops needed.
And now the new phase of retail and manufacturing is here with the arrival of the Dreambox 3D vending machine. If you don’t think the face of retail is going to change, you’re simply not paying attention. 3D printing can now deal with multiple materials (fibre, plaster, plastics and metals – oh and of course human skin) and the machines are getting easier to use. The retail model means that manufacturers would only need to ‘manufacture’ 3D CAD programs. Yes they’d need to do a bit of testing but that’s pretty much all. The consumer would create the product at the consumer’s end.
For those of you that follow me on other platforms, you’ll have seen, heard or read some of my thoughts on the lab grown proteins from firms like #ImpossibleFoods or #BeyondMeat. I’m a fan of those lab grown protein concepts arriving at that position whilst undertaking a Master of Science in 2004 in which…
Read More >Trying to understand something you’ve never experienced before can be a real challenge. In this post the #Covid19 #pandemic is explained using cars and traveling Your body is your car – it’s your mode of transport in this life. We want to treat it well and insure it and ideally we want to be able…
Read More >There’s a significant disconnect with a number of articles on ‘Hybrid Workplaces’ and it’s really disappointing to see SO MANY large consultants pump out articles that ignore reality. So this is a short take to offer an additional perspective. 1) Hybrid workplaces have existed for centuries, they are not new, though the sudden interest is…
Read More >Hi everyone – though a focus on particular those of you in Victoria, Australia who have an idea related to sports, active living or recreation that they might like to convert into a business. Sportstech & Active Living Pre-Accelerator program is being run by the Australian Sport Technologies Network (ASTN) and the Global Sports…
Read More >Old normal, new normal, normal normal. As some businesses aim to rush back to ‘old normal’ they’re likely missing a key opportunity to define, perhaps for the first time, what a new normal should look like for themselves. This Workforce Planning framework should help As a CEO or senior manager, here’s questions I’d want…
Read More >As Covid19 variants continue to emerge, the cause of which can be fairly placed at a lack of social distancing and slow vaccine rates that allow ‘mixing’ of viral strains in social settings, India is on the brink of a healthcare collapse and the implications for Australian companies, especially in the tech sector, are huge.…
Read More >What does the future hold for Australia in the next 3 months, to 3 years? Travel, work, living… Recording to the one hour session inc a Q&A Here’s the Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/pBJqFvN_yZVrktNsN2xWRE7heUTpr226GtyjJpiChG8yZA2D3qEHpACjm8TpMfxd.67Jj1DNSPserOvpZ Passcode: 1DPi*.$Z
Read More >Sometimes the words come to you readily and this small piece has me thinking about what I’d like to say at a time when maybe I’ve lost the cognitive ability to do so Before I was Me Before I was Me I used to be fit, and even quite smart; We’d chat about love,…
Read More >I was doing it well before then and there’s clips of me online going back as far as 2010 or so, railing against the idea of human resources as a label and the insistence by HR managers or CEOs that only people who work ‘in the office’ are going to be productive. It Is A…
Read More >Like lab grown meats, Vertical Farming is going to be part of the future of food. For now it might be best to compare them to small scale battery storage on the electrical grid that can help balance out spikes of demand in the system and provide an output directly where needed. Eventually (like…
Read More >