We always get a little excited when fabbing hits mainstream news because it means we’re getting a teensy bit closer to a world of digital fabrication. One example of this comes from 3News New Zealand, who’ve recently done a short piece on Ponoko, their local (and global to the rest of the world) 21st century personal manufacturing service. The highlights:
- Derek Elley, Ponoko Co-Founder speaks of the power of digital manufacturing: Make, then sell
- Some 70% of Ponoko’s orders come from North America. As a result, they’ve recently opened an office in San Francisco
- The San Francisco office proves they can “export physical products digitally without shipping costs”
- Views behind the scenes at Ponoko, where objects are created
- Their laser cutter now runs 16-17 hours per day, six days a week
Ponoko has a very interesting business model. We like think of it as a kind of distributed slow-speed replicator.
Via 3News
