What is Micro-Manufacturing?

I first came across the term Micro-Manufacturing on a Make magazine blog post. They attribute the term to Clive Thompson at Wired Magazine. Clive is primarily talking about hand made items that are sold online by individuals. Plenty of sites allow you to get your work out there. Etsy is probably the best known site for this. I

Micro-Manufacturing really comes into it's own when you take it a step further then handmade one of a kind items. There is a growing number of people who are bridging the gab between handmade and traditional manufacturing processes. Usually, these companies target very niche markets and produce very small quantities on a regular basis. A popular option is to produce electronics kits. These micro-manufacturers buy components in bulk and usually run small runs of custom pcbs to include in the kits. It keeps the cost down for the end user and the kit designer makes a bit of money on the side. If you get very deep into any hobby you will find hundreds of these cottage industry companies that are targeting that small niche and usually doing it out of love for the community.

As an example, I own CorSec Engineering and am about to launch a second company QR-Locket. I run both of these companies out of my home. I'm the only employee and I wear many hats. CorSec's products are primarily targeted at the tabletop gaming crowd. The Omni-Stand system of flight stands filled a big need for collapsible flight stands for airplane and space combat games. The company is really just an outlet for all my crazy ideas. Most of those tend to be focused on the tabletop gaming crowd because it is a hobby I enjoy. QR-Locket will be a big change and is challenging me in lots of new ways. I enjoy these challenges because it stretches me as an engineer and helps me to learn new skills. I am a jack of all trades and I love every moment of it.

CorSec has been around for about 2 years now. It has been my sole source of income for the past year or so. It has been interesting and I have had many challenges along the way. As a micro-manufacturer, I have to be flexible to keep costs down. I keep stock of most of the items. Primarily the laser cut stuff. Some are made to order. This keeps overhead down. I sell 1 or 2 a month of some items and hundreds of others. You have to keep an eye on you stock levels and sometimes a customer just has to wait a few extra days.

The challenge really comes when you start to see a lot of orders coming in. Traditionally you would make several hundred thousand items and try to get people to buy them so you can recoup your cost. Micro-Manufacturing is a bit different. You need to find a nice balance between time and material cost. Material cost will be your enemy every step of the way. It really takes some out of the box thinking. For instance, did you know that bolts are drastically cheaper per inch of thread then threaded rod? A Traditional manufacturer is battling time. The faster they make an item the cheaper it can be. They can sacrifice material cost because it is a very small factor. A micro-manufacturer will see a much higher ratio between time cost and material cost. Most of the time cost is just sweat equity from the owner. You need to be efficient but not at the cost of large amounts of capitol or material cost.

Things get really interesting when you start to blur the lines between the two. Eventually, you will have to jump to more traditional methods of manufacturing and that can be a challenge. Another option is to think outside the box again. For instance, I am currently working on a machine design that will automate some of the manufacturing processes and give me the higher output that I need without spending a bunch of capitol on traditional manufacturing methods. This allows the product to go into distribution channels and generate more sales without eating up all my time in manufacturing.

I'm going to try to update this blog on a regular basis and talk about some of the challenges that I have been faced with and how to avoid or overcome them. I will also be using it as an outlet for information that others might find useful. I am expecting my laser cutter in a few days. It was my first big ticket purchase and I'll try to get a good write up of the setup procedure.