Unto This Last: Micro-Manufacturing Hits the High Street
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 08.16.06
In 1860 John Ruskin wrote "Unto This Last" and railed against the industrial revolution, advocating a return to the local craftsman's workshop. Nearly 150 years later, we go to IKEA to buy flatpacked furniture that is made who knows where and shippped around the world to the store near us. Visionaries like Kieran Timberlake talked years ago about how new technology will change mass production into mass customization, but now it is actually happening and hitting the High Streets. Unto This Last is a furniture company in London where they throw their Sabots into the mill of traditional mass production. Using the latest 3d modelling software and a big CNC machine at the back of the shop, they make flat-pack furniture to order.
Instead of shipping and storing furniture, they have a load of sustainably harvested Latvian and Finnish plywood. When an order is placed it is manufactured to order. "This system allows us to offer most of our products in a wide range of sizes with a variety of finishes. We hope you will find the product that fits your space and your budget.
This organisation simplifies logistics and cuts costs : we do without warehousing, transportation or packaging. This is what allows us to offer you prices that compete with mass-production, in spite of our reduced scale."
Now, instead of the massive infrastructure of the big box furniture store, a network of local shops can make furniture locally, distribute it locally and keep the labour and investment local- the Small-Mart of furniture. According to the company : "we plan to grow by duplicating our workshop in other locations, for your convenience, and the pleasure of making things differently."- we can't wait. ::Unto This Last via ::Springwise
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Just wanted to point out that it is a CNC machine, not a "C&C machine"
LA: Thanks.
Even though I think micro manufacturing is extremely cool, I do have issue with making it sound like it is a return to some golden age of craftsmen. In my mind it is the exact opposite. Microproduction is entirely dependant on mass production, as the robots needed to mircoproduce only become economically viable when they are mass produced. And there are no craftsmen involved either, no romantic visions of a human who has honed his craft over years, just a very versatile robot.
I can't help but feel that the "micro production as an anti-industrial revolution" theme is nothing more than a sad marketing ploy.
Fab Labs have a relatively low start-up cost, they're in use in developing countries. The problem is using raw materials in a non sustainable manner and the lack of regulation. Goods are still made from plastic, metal and glue. Do your really want thousands of small unregulated foundries popping up in backwaters around the world. Spewing
toxic byproductis into the environment.
This is a good thing as far as I am concerned. What's wrong with using a CNC machine. They can use it for their own designs, keep the money in the local community (just like buying local organic food), save transportation costs of finished goods, allow the locals to use there creativity rather then letting IKEA or Wallmart decide what is to be made....
I see this more like a print shop than anything else, it doesnt stop authors, it doesnt kill off artists, it just gives you a place down the road where you can print out your crappy design in a full size poster or somthing else that is too rare to get from the store.
The argument that micro-manufacture is reliant on mass manufacture is a bit redundant to me. There's no reason why a CNC machine can't be micro manufactured, and even if there was, I don't see it as an either/or situation - what's wrong with having both?
As for the idea of design for CNCing not being a craft, I have to take issue with that: the CNC machine is a tool like any other and as such it takes talent and experience to design for it well. Designers have to be the craftsmen of this day and age, and when we start sharing our data, these craftsmen can transmit their craft globally at no extra cost to the quality or to the craftsman's reputation.