Ask HN: Anyone doing Small scale manufacturing

You need to be more specific.

What counts as "small scale manufacturing?" I build sensor products and controllers in my basement and sell them direct. Is that small scale enough?

There are thousands of 2-5 person machine shops turning out thousands of small parts per day. Is that what you mean?

Fine-furniture makers, small boat builders, custom farm equipment fabricators may build 5 - 500 pieces per year, is that closer?

You're asking an open-ended question. Manufacturing has always interested me and I'd love to get involved in a conversation, but right now I don't really understand your motivation.

I work with a full range of manufacturers, large and small, globally. EndSwapper is focused on raw materials. I'm not sure you will ever see a single system that does it all. You may see an Amazon-like aggregator that gives a top view and manages connecting all of the various pieces behind the scenes.

I think manufacturing is poised for tremendous growth in the US as incumbents and new players leverage new technology for manufacturing and environmental health & safety. I haven't seen Tesla's manufacturing processes which are claimed to far advanced of current methods. If they are what they claim, they may be leading industry 4.0 in the automotive sector.

Traditionally, to manufacture on a large scale there are geographic limitations. When you apply affordable, renewable energy and some other available technologies those limitations are eliminated and the approach and strategy can be completely shaken up.

Going back to Tesla, if you have autonomous solar trucks to deliver cars and handle inbound logistics for materials and parts you can scale like crazy on cheap land in the desert and supply the entire country, and the world. When overseas shipping is solar, or hydrogen driven, Tesla can supply the world from Fontana, while having a minimal carbon footprint.

Is there a particular industry or product you are interested in?

Happy to discuss further offline as well. chris at endswapper dot com

Yes sorry i should better explain. What i am interested about is small manufactures that have employees. Right now we employ 3 to 4 people full time. Doing production is challenging, not because it is hard work but because there is a lot of moving parts. You have to keep track of a many components. That complexity only grows as you add more product. 1 product = 5 components 10 product = 50 components . Then if you included, marketing, customer service , it is a lot to handle. I think making something locally and selling it directly to customers online is the wave of the future for the developed world. Running such an organization is really challenging. But i think it can all be automated, not by using robots but with software. A software should tell you what to make, when to make it, how much to make of it, and also manage your raw material. This is what we are working on and would love to talk to others that are faced with the same issue.

It is nearly a decade old, but I enjoyed this book:

Fab: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop--from Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication Paperback – February 6, 2007

https://www.amazon.com/Fab-Revolution-Desktop-Computers-Fabr...

Not in the US myself but totally agree with you on the future of manufacturing.

Personally I'm very interested in developing software/interfaces to digital manufacturing processes as to allow mass production of customized/personalized products.

Would be great to talk to likely minded people and people from industry that could use these kind of tools.

ERP software like you describe: http://acctvantage.com