"The coming wave of contradictions"

Um tema interessante retirado de "The Coming Wave" de Mustafa Suleyman e Michael Bhaskar, "The coming wave of contradictions":

"If centralization and decentralization sound as if they are in direct contradiction, that's with good reason: they are. Understanding the future means handling multiple conflicting trajectories at once. The coming wave launches immense centralizing and decentralizing riptides at the same time. Both will be in play at once. Every individual, every business, every church, every nonprofit, every nation, will eventually have its own AI and ultimately its own bio and robotics capability. From a single individual on their sofa to the world's largest organizations, each AI will aim to achieve the goals of its owner. Herein lies the key to understanding the coming wave of contradictions. a wave full of collisions.

Each new formulation of power will offer a different vision of delivering public goods, or propose a different way to make products or a different set of religious beliefs to evangelize. AI systems already make critical decisions with overt political implications: who receives a loan, a job, a place at college, parole; who gets seen by a senior physician. Within the decade Als will decide how public money gets spent, where military forces are assigned, decentralizing ways. An Al might, for example, operate as one massive, state-spanning system, a single general-purpose utility governing hundreds of millions. Equally we will also have vastly capable systems, available at low cost, open-source, highly adapted, catering to a village.

Multiple ownership structures will exist in tandem: technology democratized in open-source collectives, the products of today's corporate leaders or insurgent blitz-scaling start-ups, and government held, whether through nationalization or in-house nurturing. All will coexist and coevolve, and everywhere they will alter, magnify, produce, and disrupt flows and networks of power.

Where and how the forces play out will vary dramatically according to existing social and political factors. This should not be an oversimplified picture, and there will be numerous points of resistance and adaptation not obvious in advance. Some sectors or regions will go one way, some the other, some will see powerful contortions of both. Some hierarchies and social structures will be reinforced, others overturned; some places may become more equal or authoritarian, others much less so. In all cases, the additional stress and volatility, the unpredictable amplification of power, the wrenching disruption of radical new centers of capability, will further stress the foundation of the liberal democratic nation-state system.

And if this picture sounds too strange, paradoxical, and impossible, consider this. The coming wave will only deepen and recapitulate the exact same contradictory dynamics of the last wave. The internet does precisely this: centralizes in a few key hubs while also empowering billions of people. It creates behemoths and yet gives everyone the opportunity to join in. Social media created a few giants and a million tribes. Everyone can build a website, but there's only one Google. Everyone can sell their own niche products, but there's only one Amazon. And on and on. The disruption of the internet era is largely explained by this tension, this potent, combustible brew of empowerment and control."

Um mindset diferente

Há anos escrevi sobre o caso da VW e a Deutsche Post, Mongo a bater à porta. Tão bom!!! 

Recordei logo ao ler "Six Mindsets to Help You Change the World" de John Mullins e publico no número de Outono da Rotman Magazine:

"MINDSET 1: Yes, We Can!

When a customer asks an entrepreneur to do something that they are not currently doing for them, the answer isn't, Sorry, we don't offer that'; instead they say, "'Yes, we can!' Then they figure out how to deliver on the promise.

Big companies almost never do this. Broadly speaking, leaders are advised to 'stick to their knitting': They are supposed to know what their organization's core competencies are, nurture them and do what they can to make them more robust. If a customer asks for something outside the box, they say, 'No, I'm sorry, we don't offer that.'

...

MINDSET 2: Problem-First, Not Product-First Logic 

Big companies are obsessed with their products, to a fault in some cases. Take for example, the laundry detergent category. My family and I have I used Tide detergent for many years, and every time a new brand manager comes along, they tweak the product: They might add green speckles to the powder, change the scent slightly or add more water so the liquid soap pours easier. Does any of this count as innovation? I don't think so. Entrepreneurs like Jonathan Thorne, in contrast, start with a customer problem. Thorne, the founder of Silverglide Surgical Technologies, had developed a technology that stopped the surgical instruments used in medical procedures from sticking to human tissue. He asked himself, 'What are the most common sticky-tissue problems?'

...

MINDSET 3: Think Narrowly, Not Broadly, About Your Markets 

Big-company wisdom is straightforward: 'If we're going to trydoing something new, it has to be for a big market.' Any new product or service has to be big enough to 'move the needle' for the company. Otherwise, why bother? The best entrepreneurs, on the other hand, don't worry about how big the target market is at the outset. They realize that if they build a foundation in a narrow market from which they can learn, good things will happen. They start out thinking narrowly, not broadly. After all, it's far easier to solve the problems of a narrowly defined target market than to make one product that attempts to serve all."

Para reflexão

No The Wall Street Journal de ontem:

"A major home builder is teaming with a Texas startup to create a community of 100 3-D printed homes near Austin, gearing up for what would be by far the biggest development of this type of housing in the U.S. 

Lennar Corp. and construction-technology firm Icon are poised to start building next year at a site in the Austin metro area, the companies said. While Icon and others have built 3-D printed housing before, this effort will test the technology’s ability to churn out homes and generate buyer demand on a much larger scale.

...

Skilled tradesmen are a dying breed,” said Eric Feder, president of LenX, Lennar’s venture-capital and innovation unit. “So there have to be alternative building solutions to help with this labor deficit.”"

Para reflexão

"The era of export is coming to an end. Instead of making and sending goods, it becomes a trend to send money and data to make and supply goods locally. It means that the world is ending in a world where labor is cheap and raw materials are cheap.

The world economy in the era of the so-called 'post-corona' as predicted by German business thinker Dr. Hermann Simon.

...

"The era of hyper-globalization, when exports amounted to twice the GDP (gross domestic product), is over, and we are now entering the era of de-globalization. “As local production increases through FDI (foreign direct investment), exports will decrease, and the restructuring of the global economy will accelerate accordingly,” he said.

...

“Companies have learned how easily global supply chains can collapse (due to a pandemic). An alternative is to set up a production base overseas where raw materials and parts can be directly supplied, and operate it through an independent local corporation. In other words, instead of investing in the country where the head office is located, we invest overseas where there are demand sources or raw materials. 

...

In the past, it was not easy to set up a high-tech factory abroad. However, advances in advanced technologies such as 5G (5th generation mobile communication) and 3D (3D printer) are making this possible. “It is now possible to send data in real time to make things (with 3D printers) in factories on the other side of the world. There is no longer any need for products to be moved between countries. This means that the global supply chain (GVC) can be reorganized to be the center of the data flow (rather than the flow of parts and raw materials).”

Dr. Simon said, "These days, quite a few CEOs (CEOs) say that it is 'like a miracle' when they see companies running well without business trips or face-to-face meetings." This experience is not just a surprise, but leads to a 'sympathy' between the business owners and professional managers that 'it is okay to give more autonomy to overseas branches and manpower'. “It doesn't matter where the headquarters is anymore. Now, the important thing for CEOs of global companies is to find a region that is optimized for 'the industry we are good at'."

Trechos retirados de "“The era of living on exports will end after Corona,” a world-class business scholar warns" 

" olha para a mesma realidade e vê oportunidades"

Ao longo dos anos tenho escrito aqui no blogue sobre o advento de Mongo (aka Estranhistão) e sobre a democratização da produção, sobre os makers e makerspaces (ver marcadores abaixo).

Assim, como não sorrir ao ler "The Autonomous Factory: Innovation through Personalized Production at Scale" (a única coisa que me deixa algum desconforto é a interpretação que se possa dar aquele "at scale" porque penso naquele "tu não és do meu sangue", porque penso na paixão assimétrica das tribos).

Mongo não é só capacidade de produção customizada a custo aceitável, Mongo é também paixão, interacção entre produtor e utilizador, Mongo é pertença à mesma tribo. Julgo que muita gente ainda não percebeu isto, não basta ter capacidade produtiva, tem de se ser capaz de sonhar com e desafiar o outro, fazedor ou utilizador. Por isso, estas experiências feitas pelas Siemens deste mundo são bem vindas, aprecio-as pragmaticamente pelo trabalho de pavimentação que fazem para os pequenos que virão depois. Os pequenos nunca teriam poder para alterar leis feitas no "século XX" para proteger um mundo que se vai desvanecendo, tal como a Uber.

Vamos a alguns trechos do texto:

"Nowadays, consumers expect the ideal product in terms of size, material, shape, color, quality and other individual needs and specific requirements. Advances in technology and digitalization have created a significant market for individualized offerings. Personalization at scale has the potential to create $1.7 trillion to $3 trillion in overall new value. Capturing this value requires companies mastering the underlying technologies and enabling consumers to be their own product designers [Moi ici: Essa é a primeira fase "to be their own product designers", mas para isso não precisamos de empresas, precisamos de espaços ao estilo "Grab-and-Go" com máquinas 3D e pouco mais. A segunda fase é quando entram os designers, os desafiadores, os curadores, os que ajudam a afinar o gosto. Espaço para cooperativas de fazedores].

...

Producing companies are therefore facing pressing questions: How can a production process evolve to meet these personalization demands? How to decide on the best automation strategy? And how will the future of production ultimately look like? It essentially comes down to the question: What to automate and to which degree? It can be all too easy to get carried away with automation for its own sake, but the result of this approach is almost always projects that cost too much, take too long to implement and fail to deliver against a company’s business objectives and operations strategy. [Moi ici: Este trecho faz logo lembrar as experiências da Mercedes e da Toyota que já entraram na fase da desautomatização por causa da flexibilidade que precisam. Li este trecho umas três vezes nas últimas 24 horas e sempre emergiu na minha mente a foto que serve de papel de parede numa sala de reuniões de uma empresa. No texto que escrevi em 2017 cometi um erro, assumi que a fábrica era anterior à electricidade. No entanto, depois percebi que no tecto estavam as lâmpadas ... eléctricas. O que ainda reforça mais a pergunta que faço no tal postal de 2017, "Quanto tempo?". Já temos as peças todas, mas ainda não aprendemos, ainda não dominamos como as vamos organizar. Julgo que o maior obstáculo está na mente, a formatação a que fomos sujeitos coloca-nos palas que escondem o que para quem virá mais tarde, será um duhhh!]

...

The extent of twenty-first-century customization and personalization also requires production businesses accommodating a large variety of versions of any given product, which must be produced in smaller batches with very short lead times. This Low Volume – High Mix production typically means lot sizes of less than 20 pieces (occasionally, down to 1 piece only) per ordered lot, involving increased complexity and administration cost. The fundamental challenge for producing companies can therefore be formulated as: Maximizing overall productivity under

• higher personalization (i.e. increasing variety of product versions)
• smaller and variable lot sizes
• shorter product life cycles (i.e. shorter time spans available to production)"

Lembram-se da VW e a Deutsche Post? A maior barreira é a formatação da nossa mente, sempre em busca da big bet idealizada no século XX. Incumbente, linha vermelha, vê a evolução acima "This Low Volume – High Mix production" como uma fuga do Paraíso, uma pedra no sapato. A organização do futuro, linha a preto, olha para a mesma realidade e vê oportunidades.

Intermediar para democratizar

Imaginem um mundo económico em que mais gente independente na Europa quer lançar marcas novas no mercado, marcas para tribos.

Existem unidades produtivas disponíveis para servir essas marcas?

Como é que independentes e unidades produtivas podem conhecer-se e encontrar-se?

Talvez faça sentido uma ou mais entidades a servir de intermediário entre as partes como em "These Entrepreneurs Help Small Fashion Brands Make Their Goods in the U.S.A.".  Atenção, não estou a falar dos tradicionais agentes que têm por base outro modelo de negócio.

Estórias que alegram a travessia do deserto

Um dos livros que herdei da biblioteca do meu pai foi “Small Is Beautiful” de E.F. Schumacher. Acho que nunca o li, o que é estranho para alguém que escreve sobre a democratização da produção e sobre Mongo.

Esta semana comecei a ler "When More Is Not Better" de Roger Martin (claro que irei escrever mais do que uma vez sobre um livro que ataca a paranóia do eficientismo). Ao ler a longa introdução dei comigo a discordar das razões do autor para a origem da deriva de desigualdade que afecta a economia americana a partir de 1972. O empobrecimento da classe trabalhadora americana e europeia se calhar tem muito mais a ver com o enriquecimento das classes trabalhadoras no chamado Terceiro Mundo. O capital existe para apoiar empreendedores e muitos deles sofrem da doença anglo-saxónica. Se existem trabalhadores mais baratos noutra parte do mundo... porque não deslocalizar a produção para essa outra parte do mundo e obter um maior retorno?

Por isso, sonho com Mongo, sonho com a democratização da produção, sonho com a salvação pela arte.
Por isso, sonho com uma economia que não aspira ao crescimento desmesurado, mas à paixão.
Por isso, sonho com uma economia de makers recheada de ateliês e cooperativas.

Por isso, aprecio estórias como esta "Want to Make It Big in Fashion? Think Small Like, Evan Kinori":

"Evan Kinori, 32, operates a one-man clothing label. Here — or rather in an adjacent garage — he creates garments that are manufactured mostly within a one-mile radius of his workshop in small hand-numbered batches, in patterns and fabrics that change by subtle degrees from one season to the next and that, as GQ recently noted, “sell fast and never reappear.”
...
Mr. Kinori does not call himself a tailor or even a designer. Rather, he is a craftsman, somewhat in the tradition of people like the great Bay Area architect Joseph Esherick, who throughout his career concerned himself less with creating branded monuments to himself than with making harmonious, humane spaces.
...
Mr. Kinori’s clothes bring to mind those houses — careful, deliberate, free of ostentation, handmade. They are cut from patterns he devises himself and sewn with French seams on single-needle machines. They are pieced together from cloth sourced from dead stock or traditional Irish tweed makers like Molloy & Sons in County Donegal or Belgian linen manufactories or kimono cotton mills in far-off Japanese prefectures. When he works, he thinks less about the demands of the industrial fashion machine than a desire to create durable objects."

Não sou ingénuo ao ponto de pensar que operários transformam-se em criadores-fazedores com um golpe de mágica.
Não sou ingénuo ao ponto de pensar que se fica rico, mas ganha-se a vida de cabeça erguida, é-se independente e livre.

Tenho de ter a paciência de viver os 47 dias incipentes, a travessia do deserto, antes da transformação.

BTW, a direita política não aprecia Mongo porque retira poder às so-called elites rentistas. A esquerda política também não aprecia Mongo porque lhe retira peões.

Acerca do modelo de produção do século XX

"In his forthcoming book, Craft: An American History, scholar Glenn Adamson traces the relentless erosion of craftsmanship that occurred as the U.S. transitioned from a nation of artisans to an industrialized economy. In it, he retells a familiar story about Henry Ford and his newfangled assembly line with an interesting twist, which is worth quoting at length:
.
In the first year of the assembly line, so many workers walked out of the Ford plant in disgust that more than 52,000 had to be hired just to maintain a constant labor force of 14,000. Though the company had massively deskilled the process of assembly, each new employee still had to be trained. This was an inefficiency Ford had not counted on. Famously, he raised wages to five dollars per day, far above the industry norm, just to keep workers on the job. Later this was spun as a brilliant maneuver to help his own employees afford Model Ts, turning them into consumers. Actually, it was a means of coping with a self-inflicted management crisis. In any case, Ford did not have to pay these high wages for long. As the entire industry shifted to the assembly line—and then other sectors of the economy followed suit—workers had little choice but to submit to the new manufacturing techniques."

Os humanos gostam de variedade, gostam de se diferenciar, não apreciam a uniformidade da produção em massa. No entanto, no século XX, tiveram de se submeter a ela para ter acesso a bens baratos. Há muito que escrevo aqui que praticamente toda a gente acha que o modelo de produção do século XX é o modelo definitivo e que qualquer desvio face a esse modelo é um ataque aos trabalhadores.

Como não sorrir ao comparar essa crença a estes picos:

Daqui a 100 anos os humanos vão olhar para trás e horrorizar-se com o modelo de produção do século XX.

Venha Mongo!

Trecho retirado de "Restoring craft to work"

Desformatando (parte II)

Parte I.

"Much of the fragmentation is likely to occur in product design and commercialization activities.
This activity depends on creative talent, and creative talent tends to seek the autonomy available in smaller organizational settings. This creative talent can establish much closer connections to their customers and build deeper relationships over time that will help them to deliver more effective personalization and customization, opening up opportunities for customers to participate in the design and creation of the products. These more specialized players will acquire deeper insight into the needs of the highly focused niches they are serving—needs that the customers themselves have a hard time articulating or may not even recognize.
...
[Moi ici: Niche operators] Over time, they should have a greater impact on their domains, competing with large companies by serving increasingly diversified consumer desires and providing personalized, even localized, products and services.
...
As consumer demand for uniqueness or other specialized attributes causes product fragmentation, another type of fragmentation will occur in the retail space, as retailers cater to specific consumer preferences with a targeted set of niche products. A new type of retailer is emerging that uses both physical and virtual facilities to help customers more effectively navigate a vast range of products to find and use those that are most personally relevant. They will increasingly offer targeted experiences to niche customer segments—showcasing products, providing learning environments to help customers get more value from the products, and creating venues for customers to form communities around these niche offerings. This phenomenon is different from more narrowly defined curation services, which simply provide expertise or reviews in a product category.
Increasingly, we will see similar trends across other domains where the barriers to entry, commercialization, and learning are diminishing."

Trechos retirados de "The hero’s journey through the landscape of the future" do Deloitte Center for the Edge" de 2014.

Desformatando

"The erosion of barriers to forming and pursuing a business venture [Moi ici: A democratização da produção levará a um mundo muito diferente daquele que o século XX formatou] will lead to increasing fragmentation in certain parts of the economy.
...
For individuals and small entities, the barriers to forming and pursuing a business venture are rapidly being dismantled. As barriers fall, many small yet viable players will emerge, with increasing influence on the economy, via three primary pathways:

• Freelancers, empowered by online staffing platforms, will begin as individual contractors, but will quickly transition to forming flexible teams—colloquially called “hives”—comprised of other freelancers with complementary skill sets. Gradually, these hives will move from just accepting work from other businesses to collectively creating their own products and services, and ultimately forming their own small companies.

• Hobbyists will transition from “moonlighting”— working full-time for someone else while pursuing their passion projects during off-hours—to being fully dedicated business owners.

...

• “Star” performers within big companies— confident of their value and frustrated by a lack of autonomy—will increasingly choose to leave employers in favor of building businesses that use their full range of talents.

...
Fragmentation (within a domain) is defined by the following characteristics:

• Each player within the domain has a small, addressable market and is focused on a specific niche

• Collectively, players address a diverse spectrum of customer and market needs

• Both players and niches are proliferating within the domain

• No single player has enough market share to influence the direction of the domain long term

• A relatively modest level of investment is sufficient to enter and sustain position

• “Diseconomies of scale” are in play—it is more challenging for large players to stay in business"

Trechos retirados de "The hero’s journey through the landscape of the future" do Deloitte Center for the Edge" de 2014.

Acerca do futuro

No Financial Times de dia 15 de Junho um artigo de Wolfgang Münchau sobre ... a impressão 3D 

"In the 1960s Roy Amara, a Stanford computer scientist, observed that “we tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run”.

...

Supply chain managers in industrial companies will be busy right now studying alternative sources that are more local. They may trade efficiency for robustness. They may be looking at automation. Back in February, they may not have seen the need to fix what did not seem broken. But now it is.

.

A recent 3D printing industry survey found that companies are looking at the technology differently, with more of them now considering using it for end production rather than just prototypes.

.

A German study in 2015 predicted that the economic impact of 3D printing would be to lower barriers to entry, making it easier for companies to serve different markets and cutting prices for consumers. It would constitute what economists call a positive supply shock.

...

More localised production would also cut the cost of transport and contribute to the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

...

There are downsides. Export-led growth has been the business model of developing countries. More localised manufacturing would hurt them. Automation will improve the employment prospects of some but reduce those of others. A mechanical or chemical engineer can perhaps retrain and find niches in other high-tech areas.

...

Like many technological inventions of the past, this one could also give rise to new forms of inequality. Economies with strong high-tech investment such as the US and China would do well. European countries would probably not be at the forefront — to put it mildly — but there may be niches for those with a strong technological focus,"

Recordar "O mundo que conhecemos nos últimos 20 anos vai mudar (parte II)"

 

Trechos retirados de "3d printing can be a real source for optimism"

O mundo que conhecemos nos últimos 20 anos vai mudar (parte IV)

Parte I e parte II e parte III.

Não é impunemente que se está a passar por este evento.

Definitivamente, o mundo não vai ficar o mesmo. Tal como este evento que estamos a viver representa, em linguagem da química, um delta de Dirac que fez parar bruscamente a economia:

Está em paralelo a acelerar a emergência de uma nova economia. Ontem, chamaram-me a atenção para este grupo no FB - "Coisas Que Imprimem E Outras Que Entopem". Não é impunemente que se criam estas redes de capacidade produtiva, de cumplicidade e partilha de saberes. Não é impunemente que se passa por cima de regulação que protege incumbentes.

Entretanto, para meu espanto, parece que os chineses ainda não perceberam o quanto o mundo mudou "The Second Virus Shockwave Is Hitting China’s Factories Already". Agora, começam a sentir o impacte das decisões de sobrevivência e de bom senso tomadas pela micro-economia: cancelamento de encomendas, recusa em levantar encomendas terminadas.

Depois virá a segunda onda, o impacte das decisões estratégicas das empresas que vão retirar as produção na China e adoptar o que há muito diziam, mas demoravam a implementar, unidades produtivas por bloco económico.

Depois virá a terceira onda, o impacte das decisões políticas dos blocos económicos para evitarem futura dependência do gigante asiático.

O mundo que conhecemos nos últimos 20 anos vai mudar (parte III)

Parte I e parte II.

O futuro já cá estava... só que estava mal distribuído.

Conhecem a estória do lago de nenúfares? 47 dias pacatos e de repente ZÁS! O mundo muda! Recordar "47 dias incipientes e depois, de repente..." (Junho de 2014)

Parece que estamos a viver a faísca que gera o Tipping Point.

Quantos negócios estão/vão neste momento, por força das circunstâncias a mudar de modelo de negócio?

Quantos negócios estão/vão a transitar de B2B para B2C?

Quantos negócios estão a redefinir o seu processo comercial, migrando para canais on-line, a fim de manter contacto com os clientes e poder identificar claramente suas necessidades e expectativas?
Quantas empresas estão a mergulhar de cabeça no mundo das redes sociais e das plataformas online para receber, verificar e confirmar o conteúdo dos pedidos com os clientes?

Quantas empresas estão a aprender a usar as redes sociais para comunicar pedidos e requisitos de clientes à produção/serviço, para planear actividades, para reunir e resolver problemas, para formar e treinar funcionários, para comunicar os resultados do controlo da qualidade, para entrar em contato com fornecedores, parceiros e serviços de logística?

E depois de produtores/prestadores/fornecedores e clientes experimentarem... talvez não voltem para trás quando tivermos chegado a um novo normal.

Adicionemos a isto a democratização da produção, tão bem representada pela experiência da semana passada em Brescia com a impressão 3D, e o crescente sucesso da customização/personalização:

• Customers Want Customization, and Companies Are Giving It to Them - “Our core belief is that the world is going custom,”
• Getting Comfortable with Furniture Customization

Deixo aqui, mais uma vez a frase de Noah Harari no Financial Times em "Yuval Noah Harari: the world after coronavirus":

"Many short-term emergency measures will become a fixture of life. That is the nature of emergencies. They fast-forward historical processes. Decisions that in normal times could take years of deliberation are passed in a matter of hours. Immature and even dangerous technologies are pressed into service, because the risks of doing nothing are bigger. What happens when everybody works from home and communicates only at a distance? What happens when entire schools and universities go online? In normal times, governments, businesses and educational boards would never agree to conduct such experiments. But these aren’t normal times."

Move fast, break rules, break things!

ADENDA das 08:01

My column today on what the virus could mean for America pic.twitter.com/T3i6HBGYOi

— Bruno Maçães (@MacaesBruno) March 22, 2020

O mundo que conhecemos nos últimos 20 anos vai mudar

Na semana passada escrevi:

• O mundo que conhecemos nos últimos 20 anos pode mudar drasticamente (parte I) 
• O mundo que conhecemos nos últimos 20 anos pode mudar drasticamente (parte II)
• O mundo que conhecemos nos últimos 20 anos pode mudar drasticamente (parte III)

E ontem vi:

The Trump administration is preparing an Executive Order that will crush America’s dependence on China for medical supplies.

This is the start of a TSUNAMI OF INITIATIVES from many counties around the world, to ween themselves off the stranglehold that China has on our lives! pic.twitter.com/BaraRPA59o

— BeachMilk (@BeachMilk) March 16, 2020

No Sábado passado escrevi: O mundo não vai acabar este ano

Ontem escrevi: Os saxões na Nacional nº 236

O mundo não vai acabar, mas vai mudar. 

O made in China vai recuar em força. 

Muitas PME vão fechar com falta de liquidez.

Quando a economia puder reanimar, as futuras PME, sem capital, talvez possam usar as novas tecnologias e começar como startups, a fazer as experiências e o percurso descrito em  Quantas empresas (parte X)

que nunca fariam se estivessem a defender o passado.

Alguma esperança

Empresas descapitalizadas, cada vez mais nichos, democratização da produção permitida pela tecnologia, (eis um exemplo do que digo "Coronavirus, a Brescia manca una valvola per i rianimatori: ingegneri e fisici la stampano in 3D in sei ore", paixão e arte - Quantas empresas (parte XI)

O estilhaçar do século XX (parte II)

Parte I.

Na sequência da publicação da parte I recebi este tweet:

Como é que explicas os iPhones desta vida? Não estamos sujeitos aos mesmo mecanismos de "modas"? Não creio que os nichos se vão generalizar.

— Rato SemTino (@RatoSemTino) December 2, 2019

Ora aí está uma boa pergunta.

Não digo que as empresas grandes acabem, digo é que o número de empresas grandes será cada vez menor e terão cada vez menos quota de mercado, porque empresas grandes significam produção em massa e se o futuro é a variedade...

Uma possibilidade de explicação do sucesso da Apple pode residir na juventude da categoria, ainda há desenvolvimento por fazer no eixo do conteúdo físico:

Aliado a barreiras de entrada ainda demasiado altas e aliado a uma marca que se posicionou não pelo preço, mas pela marca e sua diferenciação.

Disrupção e "morte"

Ontem, mandaram-me um e-mail com este artigo "3D-Druck verlängert das Leben europäischer Autos in Afrika" e com o comentário, bem visto: 

"Corresponde a uma lógica de economia circular com uma pegada  ecológica “pesada” ao manter carros pouco eficientes em funcionamento"

Verdade, mas o que me atraiu no artigo é a contradição subjacente.

O artigo é sobre um jovem estudante de engenharia, numa universiadade nigeriana, que ganhou um prémio ao ter desenvolvido uma biela para um velho Alfa Romeo através da impressão 3D. Já não é possível encontrar à venda peças para modelos de carros muito antigos, quando estes avariam em África.

Queremos praticar e desenvolver uma Economia Circular, mas estaremos preparados para arcar com as consequências?

A CECIMO, uma associação europeia de fabricantes de máquinas e ferramentas, no seu site chama a atenção para a sua importância ao dar emprego a 147 mil pessoas. No entanto, a mesma CECIMO no artigo refere:

"A Associação Europeia de Fabricantes de Máquinas-Ferramenta (Cecimo) vê a produção aditiva, a impressão 3D, como a principal tecnologia para uma economia circular. Por um lado, isso aumentará a produtividade, mas também economizará recursos de forma sustentável. Consumidores e utilizadores poderão beneficiar de produtos mais duráveis e que consomem menos energia. A eficiência do material, a reciclagem, a funcionalidade aprimorada dos componentes e a descentralização são alguns dos benefícios que a impressão 3D traz para a Economia Circular."

A impressão 3D baixará as barreiras de entrada e democratizará a produção de peças e componentes. O artigo refere:

"Em breve todas as empresas de artesanato e todas as oficinas deverão explorar as possibilidades de tecnologias de impressão 3D descentralizada e funcionalmente optimizada."[Moi ici: Deixei de propósito a tradução mixiruca do Google Tradutor, "empresas de artesanato", porque vai ao encontro do que penso e escrevo - aqui, aqui, aqui e aqui, por exemplo] 

A impressão 3D elevará para outro nível o potencial de bailado entre produtores e clientes:

Recordar aqui, aqui e aqui, por exemplo.

A impressão 3D provocará a disrupção e "morte" entre os membros da CECIMO.

É só olhar para o depois de amanhã e para as consequências naturais do que a tecnologia e a interacção com o gosto vai permitir.

Continua.

Ver para lá do que se conhece (parte III) ou manifestações em 3, 2, 1 ...

Em Novembro passado na parte I escrevi:

"A propósito de "Implante no cérebro permitiu usar 'tablets' com o pensamento", se é possível com um tablet é possível com um exoesqueleto. E se é possível com um exoesqueleto... não há limites."

Um tema que me atrai desde há largos anos (recordo este postal de 2011, por exemplo). Na parte II dei conta do começo da democratização dos exoesqueletos.

Ontem à noite para meu espanto... they got there:

"Um homem paraplégico conseguiu caminhar e fazer movimentos com os braços usando um exoesqueleto controlado pela própria mente. Um pequeno passo, que abre gigantes perspetivas para o futuro das pessoas presas a uma cama."

Trecho retirado de "Tetraplégico caminha e mexe os braços com exoesqueleto controlado pela mente"

Recordar: Cuidado com a absolutização do que a nossa empresa produz (parte I e parte II) e, sobretudo, "Um exemplo de miopia na vida real".

Se isto fosse em Portugal teríamos o começo de manifestações de fabricantes de cadeiras de rodas em 3, 2, 1 ... a pedir para que estes exoesqueletos sejam proíbidos porque lhes roubam vendas e são postos de trabalho que se perdem.

Democratização da produção (Parte VI)

Parte I, Parte II, Parte III, Parte IV e Parte V.

Um bom remate final para esta série passa pelo artigo "Patient-innovators fill gaps that industry hasn’t addressed — or can’t":

"Here’s a long-held assumption that’s ripe for a challenge: Valuable improvements in health and patient care should come from experts in the pharmaceutical, medical device, and related industries.
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There’s no question that such professionals are essential for innovation. But our research shows that patient-innovators also have important roles to play and will fill significant gaps that industry hasn’t addressed — or can’t. [Moi ici: E volto ao exemplo da Deutsch Post e da sua carrinha eléctrica]
...
To understand what drives patient-innovators like these and the challenges they face, we worked with colleagues around the world to conduct nationally representative surveys in six countries. We also had face-to-face discussions with groups of collaborating patient-innovators.
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One of the big surprises from this work was how many people have embarked on journeys of medical innovation: as many as one million people in the six countries surveyed reported having developed medically related products for personal use.[Moi ici: E vai ser cada vez mais fácil, barato e natural experimentar]
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What drives most patient-innovators is the realization that something they want or need isn’t commercially available."

A fazer-me recuar mais de 12 anos e procurar esta citação:

"In 1970, 5% of global patents were issued to small entrepeneurs, while today the number is around one-third and rising."

E confrontar com:

"In addition to fulfilling a personal need, patient-innovators are also attracted by the learning they gain from the process and from sharing their innovations with people with similar needs. In short, it is a highly self-rewarding endeavor." 

Se não fosse esta disponibilidade para partilhar, os "small entrepreneurs" ainda tinham um peso muito maior no número de patentes.

Democratização da produção (Parte V)

Parte I, Parte II, Parte III e Parte IV.

"Companies have intuitively known for many years that product personalization was an inevitable progression of modern manufacturing. Indeed, the concept of mass customization, which has been around for a few decades, is an early, even primitive, attempt to implement a more personalized manufacturing and service environment and respond better to customers.
...
Technological advances and digital developments are emerging and spreading throughout the manufacturing environment so quickly that point-of-demand production is inevitable in virtually every industry; indeed, it’s already being implemented. Eventually this will lead to cars made by companies like Local Motors — but also Toyota, Honda, and GM [Moi ici: Isto é tão LOL. Como é que organizações dedicadas ao vómito industrial vão-se adaptar a serem alfaites e costureiras. Come on!] — being self-designed by adventurous consumers and built on 3D printers. And as customers taste the benefits of real product personalization, they will demand more of it, driving higher margins to companies that are equipped for customization and forcing all manufacturers to develop those capabilities if they hope to survive. In the end, companies that are prepared for the point-of-demand manufacturing phenomenon will thrive. But they must begin now to rethink their long-term manufacturing strategies and to implement the processes, systems, and technologies that will completely alter the way they interact with customers, make production decisions, establish factory footprints, and compete in their industries."

Trechos retirados de "Manufacturing’s new world order - The rise of the point-of-demand model"

Democratização da produção (Parte III)

Parte I e Parte II.

"The globalization manufacturing paradigms of the past few decades were primarily cost-cutting ventures built on traditional high-volume production schemes. Locating factories in regional hubs, typically in developing countries outside a manufacturer’s domestic market, was seen as a way to reduce labor expenses and form alliances with low-cost suppliers in these regions. And as long as the discount to operate in emerging nations was large enough to overcome logistics inefficiencies and time-to-market requirements, this approach was profitable and made perfect sense.
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But a combination of trends is making this strategic approach obsolete — and is shifting value creation in production downstream toward customers and customization. For one thing, wage escalation in emerging nations and concerns about uncertain energy costs have eroded the perceived competitive advantage that multinationals sought from offshoring.
...
the growing importance of the “build where you sell” principle
...
More than anything, however, the rapidly morphing relationship between manufacturers and their consumers is at the heart of the point-of-demand revolution — and will have the most permanent impact on it. In all regions, but particularly in emerging nations as demand evolves and the middle class expands, customers increasingly expect products that match local cultural preferences, rather than homogeneous global brands and business-to-business services.
...
For the first time, customers can reasonably demand products from mainstream manufacturers that look and feel like they were made next door. And companies can expect increased customer loyalty when they meet these demands through personalization"

Cito isto e lembro-me da reacção da indústria automóvel incumbente a pedidos em pequena quantidade e com requisitos fora da caixa:

"Deutsche Post says it took this route when the conventional vehicle makers turned down requests to build the electric vans in what are limited numbers by their standards."

Também me lembro disto, "Comboio Vasco da Gama vai ligar Portugal à Alemanha em 2020". Da janela do meu escritório, a menos de 10 metros da linha do Norte vejo passar os comboios de mercadorias carregados de: eucalipto; brita; carvão; e cimento (eheheh escrevo isto, oiço o comboio a passar, levanto-me e é um comboio com contentores fechados). Não digo que seja impossível levar exportações das PMEs do Norte para a Europa Central, mas vai ser muito difícil. A variedade de destinos, as pequenas quantidades e as entregas rápidas não sei se podem ser conciliadas por quem tem o mindset noutro mundo. Fazem-me lembrar:

"Em 2009, com a forte quebra da produção automóvel, recordo as empresas produtoras de composto para esse sector, que com preços muito baixos tentaram fornecer os fabricantes de solas. Claro que a coisa não correu bem porque a indústria de calçado queria variedade e pequenas quantidades, não a monocor e as grandes quantidades. E a coisa deu para o torto." 

Continua.

Trechos retirados de "Manufacturing’s new world order - The rise of the point-of-demand model"