Are consumers about to become partners in the manufacturing process?
消费者将会成为制造过程的合作伙伴吗？
Themaker movementhas seen a massiveresurgence in recent years, allowing ordinary people toget involved in the technology manufacturing space. And with cheap, easilyprogrammable products like theRaspberry
Pion themarket, people don’t have to have all around expertise.
近年来创客运动已经出现了大规模的复苏，它允许普通的消费者参与到技术生产空间。对于市场上廉价，易于制造的产品比如树莓派来说，人们无需掌握全面的专业技能。
Rightnow, it’s a subculture. But if a new report from Deloitte is to be believed,everyday consumers could soon become a crucial part of the manufacturingprocess as whole.
眼下，这只是一种亚文化。但是如果来自于Deloitte的一份报告可信的话，那么每日的消费者将会很快成为制造过程整体的一个重要组成部分。
Accordingto the report, changes in consumer demand, the nature of products, theeconomics of production, and the economics of the supply chain have led to afundamental shift in the way companies do business.
根据这一报告，客户需求，产品本质，生产经济性以及供应链经济性的改变已经对公司开展业务的方式产生了根本性的转变。
AsDeloitte Africa Manufacturing Industry Leader Karthi Pillay notes, consumers’rising power and unmet needs around personalisation, customisation, andco-creation are causing niche markets to proliferate.
正如Deloitt非洲制造行业领导人Karthi Pillay强调的那样，消费者不断提升的力量，围绕个性化和定制化所未满足的需求以及共同创造等原因都造成了利基市场的激增。
This isalready evident all about us: added sensors and connectivity turn previously‘dumb’ products into ‘smart’ ones, while products increasingly becomeplatforms—and even move into the realm of services. “Advancements in materialsscience are enabling the creation of far more intricate, capable, and advancedobjects, smart or otherwise. At the same time, the nature of the product ischanging, with many products transcending their roles as material possessionsthat people own, to become services to which they buy access,” says Pillay.
这对于我们来说已经很明显：增加传感器和连接器可以将之前的“哑巴”产品转变成“智能产品”，而产品迅速变成平台，甚至进入服务领域。“材料科学的进步使得我们可以创建更加复杂，功能强大和先进的物体，无论是智能的还是其他方式。同时产品的本质正在发生改变，很多产品超越了他们作为人们所拥有的物质财产的角色，而变成他们买入的服务，”Pillay说。
Astechnology continues to advance exponentially, the report says, barriers toentry, commercialisation, and learning are eroding. The result is that newmarket entrants with access to new tools can operate at much smaller scales,enabling them to create offerings which were once the sole field of the majorincumbents. Although large-scale production will always dominate some segmentsof the value chain, innovative manufacturing models—distributed small-scalelocal manufacturing, loosely coupled manufacturing ecosystems, and agilemanufacturing—are arising which can take advantage of these new opportunities.
报告指出，随着技术持续的以指数形式增长，入门，商业化以及学习的障碍正在被侵蚀。结果新市场的入门者可以使用新的工具以更小的规模运营，使他们能够创造曾经是主要现有企业所占据领域的产品。尽管大规模的生产通常会主导价值链和创新制造模型的一部分。分布式小规模地方制造企业，宽松耦合制造生态系统以及灵活制造企业可以充分利用这些新机会发展起来。
Technologiessuch as additive manufacturing are making it possible to cost-effectivelymanufacture products more quickly, in smaller and smaller batches. Digitaltechnologies are also narrowing the distance between manufacturer and consumer,allowing manufacturers to bypass traditional intermediaries. Numerous factorsare leading manufacturers to build to order rather than building to stock. Inthis environment, intermediaries that create value by holding inventory arebecoming less and less necessary. Together, these shifts have made it moredifficult to create value in traditional ways.
科技型企业比如添加剂制造业使得更加快速，更小批量以及经济化产品制造成为可能。数码科技型企业同样缩短了制造者与消费者之间的距离，使制造商能绕过传统的中间人。很多因素引导制造商按订单生产而不是填充库存。在这种环境下，通过保留库存而创造价值的中间人越来越少，也不再必要。而且，这些转变使得在传统方式下创造价值变得更加困难。
“Thesetrends,” says Pillay, “have the capability of affecting different manufacturingsectors at different rates. To determine the speed and intensity of the comingshifts in a particular sector, companies should consider factors including theextent of regulation, product size and complexity, and the sector’s level ofdigitisation.”
Pillay说：“这种趋势有能力以不同的比率影响不同制造业领域。为了衡量特定领域转变的速度和力度，公司应该考虑这些因素，包括法规，产品规格，产品的复杂性以及领域的数字化级别。”
Accordingto the Deloitte report, manufacturers should focus their strategies onconcentration and consolidation, rather than fragmentation. Due to competitivepressures, large manufacturers may experience increasing pressure to focus onjust one role, shedding aspects of the business that might distract from thecompany becoming world class in its chosen role. The likely result is asignificant restructuring of existing product manufacturers.
根据Deloitte的报告，制造商应该将他们的战略聚焦在集中和整合，而不是分裂。由于竞争压力，大型制造商如果仅仅关注一个角色的话会感受到不断增加的压力，也许从公司分散的缩减业务部分会由于它选择的角色而变成世界级。可能的结果就是对既有的产品生产者进行重要的重组。
Ratherthan focusing solely on ‘make vs buy’ options, large players will have anopportunity to connect with, and mobilise, a growing array of new entrants,many of which will target fragmenting portions of the manufacturing value chainin order to deliver more value to their customers. Two emerging businessmodels, ‘product to platform’ and ‘ownership to access’, seem particularlypromising in terms of driving leveraged growth strategies.
与其仅仅关注于“制造vs购买”这些选项，大型制造商将有机会连接和调动不断增长的一系列行业新军，其中很多会关注制造价值链的分裂部分以便为客户传递更大的价值。两个新兴的商务模型，“从产品到平台”以及“从所有权和使用”，对于驱动杠杆型增长战略特别有前景。
Finally,given the emergence of more complex ecosystems of fragmented and concentratedplayers across a growing array of manufacturing value chains, businesses thatunderstand emerging ‘influence points’ will have a significant strategicadvantage. As the manufacturing landscape evolves and competitive pressuremounts, driven by the needs of ever more demanding customers, position willmatter more than ever.
最后，考虑到日益增长的一系列制造价值链中分散和集中玩家更加复杂的生态系统的出现，理解新兴“影响力点”的企业将会有更加明显的战略优势。随着制造环境的演变和竞争压力的增加，以及被更加苛刻的客户需求所驱动，位置将比以往任何时候都更加重要。
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