2 High-speed adaptive production: technical problems that must be solved
The processes must deliver high-volume, high-efficiency production that were typical of 20th-century mass production, while also delivering a new standard of uniqueness, love of art and craft, and careful adaptation of detail and variety which was common in the production of the pre-industrial, pre-literate centuries a thousand years ago.
To accomplish this seeming tour-de-force, it will not be sufficient to try for some kind of mixture of the two systems of production. Rather, what will have to be provided is a new form of process, a uniquely 21st-century and ultra-modern form of process, different from those of the 20th century, and also vastly different from those of the 12th century: a new kind of process, altogether new, in conception, detail, execution, and conceptual structure.
Some of the key features of the new process configuration which are to be discussed include the following:
- Extensive use of computers.
- Extensive use of handcraft and hand-eye sensitivity translated to component manufacture through computer-intense technology linkage.
- Partial prefabrication undertaken to allow detailed on-site adaptation and adjustment.
- Off-site production.
- Off-site testing of partially completed configurations.
- Use of ultra-high-technology cutting and forming equipment.
- Further adaptation on site at time of installation.
- On-site modification of pre-formed components.
- Adaptation in off-site mockup facilities.
- Subtle adaptation of shape, color, geometry, and form of components as the on-site space develops in shape and degree of completion.
#book/The Nature of Order/3 A Vision of a Living World/17 The production of giant projects#