Crain’s New York Business reports on the fate of a New York City jewelery prototyping company, Tech-Designs, who produce one-of-a-kind jewelery models for designers far and wide. Amazingly, Tech-Designs, who have a staff of only three people, also have a fleet of seven 3D printers, which are kept busy printing six days a week. The printers are from Solidscape, who manufacture specialized dental printers. We suppose they also print jewelry equally as well, since Tech-Designs uses typical 3D modelling software to transform designer ideas into 3D models suitable for printing.
While this rapid-prototyping approach may be more common these days, there’s an interesting twist. According to Tech-Designs founder Carlos Zamora:
There are a lot of jewelry companies outsourcing to China now, and I could not compete with those prices and the labor. If it were not for this, I don’t think I’d be in business. It means I can be price-competitive and keep the work here in the United States.
So we see robotic labor competing full-on against human labor, in a contest that surely won’t be the last of its type. We’re wondering if this pattern will spread widely, driven buy competitive forces, leading to a society of creatives masterminding squads of manufacturing robots. Advice to youngsters: brush up your design skills, you many need them.
Via Crain’s New York
Image Credit: Buck Ennis
