Future Makespaces and redistributed manufacturing

Abstract

This presentation reports on the two year EPSRC funded Future Makespaces in Redistributed Manufacturing project currently being conducted at the RCA. This project investigates the role open fabrication workshops could play in a future landscape of distributed manufacturing in the UK. In order to underpin the need for this work a series of scenarios will be presented that illustrate potential future roles that these spaces could play; specifically with regard to enabling technologies, cultures, practices and networks. 

Central to the project is the funding of short feasibility studies that investigate specific aspects at each of the four study levels (Makespace, Local Connections, Digital Networks and Policy and Supply Chains). This approach goes from a granular understanding to that of strategic implications. The Makespace Level focusses on identifying visions for the key technologies, people and skills, tools, materials, resources, cultures and methods that are needed in makespaces for them to support redistributed manufacturing and in order to move from linear economy practice to circular economy practice. We will report on two studies that we are funding at the this Level, which act as foundational research to inform subsequent levels. 

The first of the studies is run by the Open University and MakLab and explores the role makespaces could play when in collaboration with academic institutions and industry to provide training and accreditation to support the future employment needs of redistributed manufacturing. Specifically recognising that the tacit learning activities 

within makespaces can enable people to acquire valuable skillsets, covering cutting edge technologies as well as rekindling lost making skills. As well as recognising that academia can provide an important role in validation and curriculum creation beyond formal education. 

The second study is led by Sustain RCA and focusses on how the move to a more circular model of production can be achieved with the makespace community. Using existing data to explore assets already in place within existing makespaces to gauge the current activity and awareness from a circular economy viewpoint with the intention of then testing specific best practice interventions within ‘trial’ spaces. 

Three more studies will be funded by the project, one at each level, to explore key challenges. The insights gained from each study in conjunction with the cross-cutting research being conducted will be drawn together to inform the EPSRC’s future agenda with respect to the future landscape of decentralised and distributed manufacturing. A landscape of potentially more localised, more networked and more flexible manufacturing, closer to the customer and with a greater capacity to manage material flows and limit the negative environmental consequences of manufacturing.