Friday, April 25, 2014 GE micro factory brings new business model to manufacturingThis week, General Electric launched FirstBuild, a micro factory and open community space in Louisville, Kentucky, where students, makers, and engineers are invited to co-create the smart appliances of the future. The project is a collaboration between GE, the University of Louisville, and open source hardware platform Local Motors. The company wants to create a new business model for the manufacturing industry by combining open innovation, the maker movement, and community involvement to build a new wave of smart appliances. "This is global co-creation paired with a microfactory on site," said Chip Blankenship, CEO of GE Appliances. "We will innovate and bring products to market faster than ever before." GE's original idea for open innovation and a micro-manufacturing facility came from the company's first crowdsourcing project to create a better jet engine bracket. In June 2013, the company held a contest in partnership with GrabCAD, an open engineering community called "3D printing design quest." GE released their original design for the titanium jet engine bracket and invited the public to riff off of it to create a lighter version that would be 3D printed. Over six weeks, more than 700 entries from 57 countries came in. The winner was a 21-year-old PhD student in Indonesia, who reduced the weight of the bracket by 84 percent. "What we learned was not only that open innovation can work, but part of the reason why it works is that you're tapping into a very different group of people from the people who are normally thinking about the engineering challenges," said Alex Tepper, global director of innovation for GE. For more of the Tech Republic story: techrepublic.com Port of Seattle launches pilot project to cleanse storm water Liverpool2 port orders 8 STS and 15 RMG cranes from Zhenhua Heavy |
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