Announcing justmanufacture.com
On-demand fabrication services that reduces your design time and delivers to your doorstep.
The age of abundance
What does it mean? A post-scarcity era in the near future of human race where people don't have to worry about basic needs. During this era, goods and services would be so plentiful, affordable, and accessible that scarcity would no longer dominate economic systems or social structures. In theory, humanity would be freed up from the concept of work, to do what they want to do.
To reach there, Robotics and AI will play a significant part. This post announces our work at justmanufacture.com - one of the first companies in the world building Amazon's AWS-like infrastructure for manufacturing. By leveraging Robotics and AI, we're building fully automated, fast, and efficient factories for metal fabrication and help human race reach the age of abundance.
China's Strategy
In the late 2010s, China made it a part of their five-year plan and incentivized robotics development and adoption, even when their labor was cheap. It wasn't an obvious move at the time. Labor costs were low, and robots were expensive. But they saw something others didn't: the long-term benefits of automation.
Fast forward to today, Chinese industrial robots have become astonishingly affordable. You can now get a robot with a 12kg payload and a 1.4-meter reach for just $3,600 - 3x cheaper than established brands.
To put that in perspective, that's roughly the annual salary of a single factory worker in India working an 8-hour shift. These robots have a lifespan of 2.5 years, about half that of the big four robotic brands, but at a fraction of the cost.
China's foresight has paid off. They now have approximately 1.75 million operational robots, accounting for over 50% of the world's robots [Source]. In contrast, the U.S. has about 350,000, and India 40,000.
Although China's robotics boom began later, strategic government intervention has driven rapid growth, allowing it to quickly catch up and even surpass other nations. India risks falling behind, unless it actively incentivizes robotics and actuator development now—India is at a similar stage to where China was in the early 2000s. Meanwhile, U.S. manufacturing is grappling with high costs and sluggish production, with robotics as its most viable path to remain competitive.
Our Vision for Manufacturing
As robots are being commoditized, it wouldn't make sense to employ humans in dull, dangerous and dirty tasks anymore. And companies will be moving towards "lights-out production" soon.
Advances in AI have made tasks that would seem impossible a couple of years ago, possible. I believe a lot of Industrial processes can be automated with a combo of perception systems, custom models and machine learning.
Using industrial robots + smart software, we are solving for sheet metal fabrication first - a $200bn industry. From cars to planes and home appliances, a lot of things are made out of sheet metal.
The goal is to build factories with 100s of AI powered robots that will significantly increase efficiency while reducing costs multi-folds, something factory owners today can only dream of.
What this means in numbers…
Once our systems are fully implemented, we anticipate:
- Over 8x Reduction in factory operational costs
- 1.5x - 2.5x increase in output per shift
- 24/7 operations
- Reduction in costs for customers
- A major reduction in setup costs in the U.S., as we are building "automated factories in shipping containers" in India. Learn more at justmanufacture.com/about
Semi-automated fabrication services starting Dec 1, 2024
We're collaborating with an Indian job shop to offer semi-automated sheet metal fabrication services starting December 1. We have complete oversight and control over processes.
We have a 3kw laser, 200 MT pressbrake, a powder coating unit & two robotic arms. All these machines will be connected to our software, and running our tech.
We will be using these robotic arms to juggle between bending/welding/coating/tapping. Wherever it is not possible to use robots, we will use humans for immediate production needs, and solve for these automation edge cases following that.
This is a temporary phase, which will help us to better understand edge cases in sheet metal fabrication and develop the tech without the overhead of managing a factory from day 1.
Why should you use justmanufacture.com?
Right now, we are not jumping into full-fledged production. But, you can reap the benefits from day one.
- With our quoting engine, you can get instant pricing, DFM feedbacks and accurate lead times. This will also reduce the time an engineer takes to design a product.
- For American Companies, cost to manufacture sheet metal in India, then shipping to the US will be 2.5-4x cheaper than making it in the US.
- For Indian Companies, it will marginally be cheaper than other alternatives because of automation, and quality will be better, thanks to robotics.
Companies start in garages all the time. We are in that stage today. Come say hi at our "garage" in Coimbatore. We are enabling human race to reach the age of abundance.
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A poster by General Motors during WW2
