Summary of Third Industrial Revolution

The First Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the late 18th century, with the mechanization
of the textile industry. Tasks previously done with difficulty by hand in hundreds of weavers
cottages were brought together in a single cotton mill, and the factory was born. The Second
Industrial Revolution came in the early 20th century, when Henry Ford mastered the moving
assembly line and conducted in the age of mass production. While the First Industrial Revolution
caused the growth of industries, such as coal, iron, railroads and textiles, the Second Industrial
Revolution witnessed the expansion of electricity, petroleum and steel. The first two industrial
revolutions made people richer and more urban.

The Third Industrial Revolution or the Digital Revolution refers to the advancement of
technology from analog electronics and mechanical devices to the digital technology available
today. The era started during 1980s and is ongoing. The Third Industrial Revolution includes the
personal computer, the internet, information and communications technology (ICT). Third
Industrial Revolution also known for how fundamental economic change occurs when new
communication technologies unite with new energy regimes, mainly, renewable electricity.

As manufacturing is becoming digital day by day with advance technology and also to adopt
“clean” economy like recycling and green energy, manufacturing firms also introduced new and
innovative products through research and development. For this it will allow things to be made
economically in much smaller numbers, more flexibly and with much lower input of labor. That
is why new materials and new process like 3D printers, Robots and new collaborative
manufacturing services are available online.

Today, Internet technology and renewable energies are beginning to merge to create a new
infrastructure for Third Industrial Revolution (TIR) that will change the way power is distributed
in the 21st century. In future, people will produce their own renewable energy in their homes,
offices and factories and share green electricity with each other just like we now generate and
share information online. Additive manufacturing (AM), or also known as 3D printing, is at
work everywhere in the world. Although still in its early stages, AM has revealed its ability to
revolutionized manufacturing, from prototypes to final products.
As technology is changing frequently and because of research and developments new products
and methods are coming, many manufacturing companies willing to go back to the developed
countries again. Factories used to move to low-wage countries to limited labour costs. But labour
costs are growing less and less important: a $499 first-generation iPad included only about $33
of manufacturing labour, of which the final assembly in China accounted for just $8. Offshore
production is increasingly moving back to rich countries not because Chinese wages are rising,
but because companies now want to be closer to their customers so that they can respond more
quickly to changes in demand. And some products are so sophisticated that it helps to have the
people who design them and the people who make them in the same place. The Boston
Consulting Group reckons that in areas such as transport, computers, fabricated metals and
machinery, 10-30% of the goods that America now imports from China could be made at home
by 2020, boosting American output by $20 billion-55 billion a year. Cheap product making cost,
transportation cost and material cost is no longer the main concern to acknowledge with the
product innovation and green energy. Manufacturing still matters, but the jobs are changing
because of modern technologies. Over 100year ago America was the world’s leading
manufacturer, but now China is also close to America in manufacturing products.

Because of new ideas and methods are inventing to manufacture and to have a cost effective
business cycle companies are no longer interested like before to provide training the workers
regarding developing their knowledge and skill as workers have the tendency to switch once they
get trained. To avoid the situation and control the cost of training, manufacturer thinks about the
collaboration between community colleges and local firms to develop training programs and if
needed the firms will donate manufacturing equipment to the colleges. By this way many people
can learn about different terms, techniques of machine usage and get ready for a job right after
the training sessions.

In future factories will do everything with smarter software through digitalization in

manufacturing. With this new era of manufacturing, people can easily launch new products in a
cheaper price. People will create ideas of products and will make it real through 3Dprinitngs.

With this people will do the practice of “social manufacturing” which is more like after creating
product ideas, they will contact with the online based 3D printers communities who will provide
service to make the idea real and physical. By this way a digital platform will be occurred for
manufacturing products.

The previous way of making things engaged taking lots of parts and screwing or welding them
together. Now a product can be designed on a computer and “printed” on a 3D printer, which
creates a solid object by building up consecutive layers of material. The digital design can be
happened with a few mouse clicks. The 3D printer can run unattended, and can make many
things which are too complex for a traditional factory to handle. In time, these amazing machines
may be able to make almost anything, anywhere.

The applications of 3D printing are especially mind-blowing. Already, hearing aids and high-
tech parts of military jets are being printed in customized shapes. The geography of supply
chains will change. An engineer working in the middle of a desert who finds he lacks a certain
tool no longer has to have it delivered from the nearest city. He can simply download the design
and print it.

Other changes are also significant. New materials are lighter, stronger and more durable than the
old ones. Carbon fibre is replacing steel and aluminum in products ranging from aeroplanes to
mountain bikes. New advanced techniques let engineers figure objects at a tiny scale.
Nanotechnology is giving products enhanced features, such as bandages that help heal cuts,
engines that run more efficiently and crockery that cleans more easily. Genetically engineered
viruses are being developed to make items such as batteries. And with the internet allowing ever
more designers to collaborate on new products, the barriers to entry are falling.

3D printing can also be combined with other forms of production to make, such as, mass
production chain molds which allows easy modification of the retail products the instant a
problem is identified and the design is modified. The implications of 3D printing are obvious.
Shipping costs will be reduced as manufactured products will be produced locally. The business
model-on-demand printing of customized products has significant advantages over traditional
retailing models.

3D printers could potentially allow local empowerment to occur, when citizens will be self-
sufficient and eventually be able to stand up against monopolistic practices such as price fixing
by big corporations easily. In addition, the wide application of 3D printing technology has
separated product design and manufacturing, so designers need to constantly strengthen and
improve their understanding of the design theory, its application and development creating a
stronger interaction between designers and users. A decentralized economy will be accompanied
with globalization, increased communication, internet networks, free education and could lead to
a freer society. Examples of this phenomenon can currently be seen since the introduction of
computers and internet networks. It is expected that the advent of 3D printers will further
intensify this decentralization.

The Industrial Revolution saw manually-crafted products becoming industrialized and

production efficiency improved tremendously, although not reflected into worker salaries. This
revolution rendered many crafting jobs obsolete, and also created new jobs for workers to control
machines and perform repetitive manual labor in a more efficient manner. However, the
alienation of workers and the lack of necessary skill to produce, allowed salaries to decrease and
being easily interchangeable. Human labor became part of a bigger mechanism which could not
affect the system significantly. Though 3D printers may intensify this decentralization, further
remaining manual labor obsolete, on the other hand, could lead to more jobs that reflect design-
based production and the current consumption culture. Low-skilled workers will be remaining
useless but production will be efficient that costs will decrease and will benefit even people who
lost their jobs. An issue that arises is that, newly unemployed workers will enter a
new market for technically savvy designers and programmers having no prior education or
related skills.

Global Impact of Third Industrial Revolution:

Since the Industrial Revolution, cultures have evolved and shaped consumer demands.
Consumers no longer value handcrafted products. Popular culture seems to favour large
multimillion dollar movies, video games or entertainment as well as any other form of
industrialized art.

This is mostly due to the increased funds that can be invested in an industrialized product. It
would not be surprising to find that 3D printers intensify this behaviour even more as many 3D
artists have begun to include 3D printing in their art. Architects use printers to visualize their
models and fashion artists are creating 3d-printed ornaments for dresses.

Another potential implication that 3D printing could have culturally is through history. 3d-
printing has recently assisted in facial recreation of an Egyptian mummy. Though the technology
has not been perfected, it nonetheless opened up opportunities for archaeologists and historians
to challenge and reinterpret existing narratives on history and culture.

3D printers have already been used to produce customized prostheses, to print food, medicines,
and to create human organs. Current experiments include printing proteins which could allow for
DNA synthesizing, printing of biological materials for human and animal enhancement. Firms
are printing human lungs and liver tissue to run medical tests on them.

With the use of 3D printers, a high school student was able to develop an inexpensive
stethoscope from his smartphone. This would not have been possible previously, since the
student would have had to invest large amounts of money to manufacture in a mass production
chain in order to make it an affordable product. 3D printing could improve sustainability of
production, lessening the environmental impact in developing countries which rely on heavy
industrialization.

Japan is producing industrial robots for automated some of its production lines where involving
human workers can be risky, time efficient and have to observe the workers activities. Many
other factories around the world already using laser cutting and injection moulding that operates
without any human intervention. But still these automated machines need someone to operate
and direct what to do and for this task companies need broader skillful workers.

Personal Opinion: From my point of view I don’t think it is realistic to think there will be a 3D
printer in every household in the next 10 years. There will be decentralized manufacturing.
Maybe smaller factories spread all over the place. Products will be printed in shops. In order to
reach mass consumption; we need to print with multiple materials at once, in color and objects
that are big enough to be useful. Once those are done, and it's easy enough to use, then it will
become mainstream in households. The ability for people to create content quickly and easily is
going to be a killer feature.
It is very possible that 3D printers replace traditional production chains, especially because 3D
printers use additive manufacturing, which means we only use as much material as is going to
make up the model. Injection molding is efficient, but you still have to produce the molds. Molds
are expensive. The cost of setting up a production chain is high.

Making changes in designs are more expensive. With 3D printers, you could create molds and
modify them at a much faster speed. In the future, I think we will not be seeing additive
manufacturing at high quantity. It shines at low quantity and up to mid quantity.

There will be a time when common users will not be able to produce quality 3D design in the
same way as a professional. There will be increased demand for freelancing 3D design, just like
there was an increased demand for computer science after the computer revolution.

Effects of Third Industrial Revolution on Bangladesh:

Being a developing country, Bangladesh has not achieved that much technological advancement
in terms of the Third Industrial Revolution which is happening all around the world. But the
nation has given special emphasis on digital technologies to realize Vision 2021, which we
commonly call Digital Bangladesh and with this government emphasis on digital technologies.
Even though it is also true that the international community has a good interest on Bangladesh as
we are one of the top exporters of apparels and also making medicines to export. In near future
we hope to see the uses of industrial robots and 3d printers in apparel making. As the students of
BRAC University, Bangladesh have win a robotics competition (Lunabotic) of NASA and
successfully sent country’s first nano-satellite(Onnesha) in space. So, it gives a positive
expectation that soon we will be able to digitalization our manufacturing companies too.