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FUELS & LUBES INTERNATIONAL
Quarter Two 2015
THE SEVEN-YEAR-OLD
company believes that its
philosophy could revolutionise the
automotive industry. At the least,
it is certainly a glimpse into a true
21st-century way of doing business
and making vehicles.
Rogers opened the F+L Week
2015 Conference organised by F&L
Asia Ltd. in Singapore in March
with a keynote address entitled
“Welcome to the Third Industrial
Revolution.” This third industrial
revolution began, according to
Rogers, around the turn of the
21st century. He pinpointed the
fundamental difference between
today and previous eras: the ways in
which we share information. It is no
secret that the Internet has changed
daily life as well as the dynamics
of whole industries. It is also the
reason that Local Motors is able to
produce a new car design in four
months with about 50 parts.
The majority of people involved
in Local Motors do not work together
in one physical location. From 130
countries, they contribute ideas and
comment on the ideas of others as
part of an online community. The
design for the world’s first 3D-printed
car, which Local Motors made in
2014, came from a challenge posed to
this community. The winning design,
the Strati, came fromMichele Anoé
of Italy.
3D printing, formally called
additive manufacturing, is another
component of the third industrial
revolution at the disposal of
Local Motors and others. The
aforementioned Strati has a
3D-printed chassis, exterior body
and some interior parts, and prints
in 44 hours. Other components,
such as mirrors and hubcaps, are
added after the body is printed, and
all the parts total to fewer than 50.
According to Rogers, this project
took about four months from its
inception to the assembly of the
first car in September 2014. The
company is embarking, starting
in March 2015, on a 23-month
endeavour to bring it to market and
on the road.
Low-volume manufacturing
combined with 3D-printing
technology means that
modifications are easy to make. If
Local Motors had a production line
of 17 million vehicles on the road,
Rogers said, a recall or a mistake
would be a disaster. “The great
thing,” he says, “is that we don’t
have 17 million vehicles on the
road.” A huge factory is no longer
necessary because with additive
manufacturing, “all I need is a file…
and I can go print it out.”
Rogers alludes to the “design,
build, sell” model that is often
used to describe manufacturing.
Local Motors, he says, has turned
that triangle into a circle. Additive
manufacturing and the Internet
allow for the process to be less linear
and more circular, which better
fosters innovation.
Most manufacturers take an average of
six years, from start to finish, to build
a car, using thousands of parts and pro-
ducing tens of thousands of units per
year. Phoenix, Ariz., U.S.A.-based Local
Motors is developing a different ap-
proach to manufacturing. The approach
involves an online community of more
than 49,800 individuals not employed by
the company and small, 15,240 square
metre-microfactories that, according to
the company’s CEO and co-founder, Jay
Rogers, resemble a cross between “an
IKEA store and Formula One.”
By Alison Gaines
