The Future of Making in Two @Autodesk Slides

Here are two slides from our corporate Future of Making presentations. These pretty much say it all.

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MORE

• The global middle class is growing faster than at any time in history.
• 400,000 people join the middle class every day^*. That’s good news.
• With this increasingly urban population comes an inevitable demand for more of almost everything — housing, cars, smartphones, highways, hospitals, new and repaired infrastructure of every type.
• More demand doesn’t guarantee more jobs or more equality, and as we make more things for more people, we increase the potential for negative impact.

LESS

• The more we make, the fewer resources we have left — less limited natural resources and less skilled labor to go around. Manufacturing and construction already face skilled labor shortages.
• We also waste a lot. Today, 30% of global waste comes from construction^**. 70% of spare parts are never used^***, resulting in inefficient supply chains, wasted warehouse space, wasted materials, wasted time and money.
• So how do we make and build all that humanity needs, while balancing this with less negative impact — less depletion of resources, less waste, less carbon emission, less harm to communities?
• We have a capacity issue, and we have to rethink the way we make things. This is the biggest design opportunity we’ve ever had.

BETTER

• Automation presents an opportunity to do things better.
• For decades, automation helped us offload tasks and optimize processes, but it's imagination, not optimization, that moves us all ahead.
• A new relationship that combines human innovation and computer automation is helping people imagine new kinds of things (e.g., auto parts) to make and new kinds of things (e.g., neighborhoods) to build.
• Things that are better — for example: Autodesk customers like GM are making cars that are lighter, stronger, less complex and more fuel-efficient; Or Dutch builder Van Wijnen is making housing that costs less, reduces risk, and increases profit while giving residents more yard space and more daylight.

Automation is changing the things we make, how we make them, and how we work.

THINGS

• Whether products or buildings, things are becoming better suited to human needs, more customized, more configurable, more connected, and ultimately more valuable to us.

MAKING

• In the realm of making, robots are moving from the production line to the construction site.
• 3D printing is going from prototyping to production quality.
• We’re now capable of making things of increasing complexity and fidelity.

WORK

• Work is changing as the processes of design and making converge across industries, and industries themselves are converging.
• Construction is becoming more automated, more like manufacturing with prefabrication and modular building components.
• Teams and supply chains are increasingly connected.

Automation gives us the opportunity to co-create with computers and do more meaningful work. It’s changing what we’re capable of making.

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Autodesk has always been an automation company. Today, more than ever, that means helping our customers automate their design and make processes. We help them embrace the future of making, where they can do more (e.g., efficiency, performance, quality), with less (e.g., energy, raw materials, timeframes, waste of human potential), and realize the opportunity for better (e.g., innovation, user experience, return on investment).

The future of making is alive in the lab.