Most of us have become remarkably disconnected from the world of manufacturing. That’s quite weird given every single thing in our lives — unless it is a rock or plant, person or animal — has been manufactured in some way. Someone, somewhere, designed that thing, chose and acquired materials and components, did some processing and assembly, and got it delivered to its point of use. Hundreds of billions of products for billions of people.
Yet over recent years, the details of how this global system works have become opaque. Much of this lack of visibility is a result of physical distance. As wealthy economies became more dominated by services, factory-based activities went overseas, with firms eager to access specialised labour, or avoid tariffs, or to be close to emerging markets. In the UK, and other wealthy economies, we literally and figuratively lost sight of manufacturing.
With this distance came downsides. As manufacturing dissolved into the background of our lives, we became unaware of how fragile our systems for making and transporting things often are, and how environmentally harmful they can be to the planet. If we want to reverse this situation, which we must, the first step is to rebuild our collective awareness of the importance of manufacturing — and our own roles as consumers within this complex, vital web.
Modern manufacturing is extraordinary. Over the past 300 years, we’ve gone through three industrial revolutions and developed the ability to create previously unimaginable volumes and varieties of products: all at high quality and low cost. We’ve also developed ways to ensure that this treasure trove of goods is readily available to a huge proportion of the world’s population with astonishing speed and reliability.
Our manufacturing systems ensure that medicines are available even in the most remote of communities. It also means we produce enough food to (in theory) feed everyone on the planet, even as we have the ability to transport billions of people by land, sea and air, safely and at low cost. Since the dawn of the internet, it also enables almost instant communication between almost everyone on earth. We can produce all the things needed to keep us sheltered, clothed, fed, healed, educated and safe.
Yet as these systems have grown, they have developed problems. These exquisitely intricate networks of production, connecting thousands of factories from the tiniest job shop to the mightiest mass production plant, have developed some rather alarming “emergent properties”. These are things that were not anticipated, but which have emerged from operating this mind-bogglingly complex system over many years. Fragility is one such emergent property. Think back to 2021, when that 200,000-tonne ship, the Ever Given, got itself wedged across the Suez Canal. One error by one person on the bridge of one ship — and 10% of global manufactured goods ground to a halt for a week.
Yet this was nothing compared to the pandemic. We were shocked enough to see supermarket shelves emptying: where did all the toilet rolls go? But then our Amazon orders started getting delayed; then waiting times for new cars started stretching into the following year; then things just kind of — stopped arriving. But while this was inconvenient and annoying, it usually wasn’t life-threatening. For hospitals, though, there were much more serious consequences. We just couldn’t make enough protective equipment, nor could we scale up the production of specialised medical devices needed to keep Covid patients alive. The now-evident fragility of our manufacturing systems had deadly consequences.
Another emergent feature of our complex manufacturing systems is that they are helping to wreck the planet. Building schools, hospitals and homes requires millions of tonnes of cement each year, and that results in one of the largest single sources of CO2 emissions of any industrial activity. The cement industry produces four times more than all of global aviation. Our manufacturing systems can produce enough food to feed more than everyone on the planet, yet 40% of what we produce never gets eaten.
Huge amounts of resources are used to grow, harvest, process, and transport food that just gets thrown away. The clothing industry is massive, employing over 300 million people worldwide. But this industry’s emissions are greater than all international flights plus all maritime shipping. One third of all raw materials in the textile supply chain end up as waste, and are never used to make actual products. One truck’s worth of clothing per second goes to landfill or is incinerated.
Despite these challenges, however, manufacturing is transforming for the better: and we, as individuals, are at the heart of this change. What do I mean? In an odd way, we’re gradually returning to our pre-industrial past. Over the past three centuries, we’ve moved from “tell me what you want and I’ll make it” localised craftsmanship to mass manufacturing. Thanks to the development of machine tools, interchangeable parts, the assembly line, and automation technologies, companies learned how to make huge quantities of products. The challenge became one of persuading the consumer to want to buy them. This led to the emergence of marketing, advertising, planned obsolescence, consumerism — and, ultimately, unsustainable levels of waste.
“This led to marketing, advertising, planned obsolescence, consumerism — and unsustainable levels of waste.”
But that is now changing. The pervasiveness and rapid advancements in digital technologies allow us to capture and process eye-wateringly large amounts of data on so many aspects of our lives. Thanks to this, and coupled with new technologies such as 3D printers, we are now moving from the era of mass production to one of mass customisation — where manufacturers can produce unique products, each designed for the specific needs of millions of individual consumers.
We can already see one extreme example of the future of manufacturing in the way we can treat some types of cancer. Rather than making generic treatments designed for the average patient, CAR-T treatments take cells from individual patients, “re-programme” them through some nifty manufacturing processes, then re-inject that unique product back into the patient. It is the ultimate form of bespoke manufacturing, where the consumer is an integral part of the process and product itself.
Mass customisation could soon prove useful elsewhere too. By only making a single product for a single consumer, you inevitably end up with less waste. By tightening the link between producer and consumer, it may also make sense to link production and consumption closer together. Shorter, simpler supply chains have the added advantage of reduced pollution and increased resilience. The CAR-T example above illustrates that second benefit. Shipping delicate live human cells over long distances to specialised processing facilities comes with a degree of risk. Much better for the “factory” to be close to the hospital.
Before we reach this nirvana, though, we need to address some fundamental problems with manufacturing here in the UK. Since the Eighties, the number of things that are made here has fallen sharply. As factories were closed, and production moved overseas, we slowly lost much of our national manufacturing infrastructure — the “industrial commons” of skilled workers, local suppliers and investors. As a result, entrepreneurs seeking to grow manufacturing businesses based on the outputs of our robust science base face real challenges.
If you want to scale up a new biotech, or energy system or quantum technology business, you will need specialised technicians and suppliers: not only of components but also specialised services. Then there is the availability of appropriate physical infrastructure: spaces where you can actually run your business with access to the utilities and services needed to make and ship things. In many parts of the UK, accessing those resources and people can be really challenging. Even in science-obsessed Cambridge, lab vacancy rates stand at just 1%; in the “Golden Triangle” between London and Oxbridge, firms are short some two million square feet of research space.
Yet once again, change is afoot. As a result of Covid — to say nothing of the current geopolitical tumult — we now have a growing appreciation of the value of having stronger national manufacturing capabilities.
It helps, too, that manufacturing is back in the public eye. Especially in our age of roiling change, the economic and social value of having world-leading firms, such as Rolls-Royce or GSK, is increasingly clear. At the same time, we have pockets of excellence that show how we might develop new manufacturing ideas. In South Yorkshire, for instance, there is the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), where academia and industry are co-located to support the acceleration of new manufacturing ideas. The AMRC is just one of many similar such schemes across the UK.
To ensure that manufacturing has a real impact on supporting national growth, resilience and sustainability, we need more coordination. To deliver that at a national level, meanwhile, the Government will soon release its new industrial strategy, one highlighting advanced manufacturing as a key driver of growth. By making manufacturing more visible, at any rate, we are rediscovering something fundamental: the ability to make things is a vital capability for any national economy and local community that wishes to be resilient, secure and sustainable. And with that restored visibility, hopefully we won’t again forget how vital it is to all our lives.
***
Life Is Manufactured: How We Make Things, Why It Matters and How We Can Do It Better is published by Faber and Faber
