The Internet of Production Alliance works to make the knowledge and tools that are needed for a world of decentralized production, openly available.
The following initiatives are part of a series of open infrastructures that the IoP Alliance is working on, aiming to build a new web that will do for products what the web has done for information – give everyone the chance to participate in production. In the long run, we aim to make it possible to contract 100+ nearby manufacturing capability with local machines to make the same quantities as mass production overseas.
Data model for sharing hardware designs and documentation online, to “Know How” something can be made.
Open Know-Where is a data model that can be used for mapping of manufacturing capabilities worldwide, to “Know Where” something can be made.
New standard for open electronics design-data focusing on design information and documentation of electronics components, assemblies and sub-assemblies.
In addition to the work on standards described above, the Internet of Production Alliance and its predecessors have engaged in a number of research and community building activities.
This research project investigated governance systems in the context of distributed manufacturing. The work was done by Isabella Kaplan, a Social Impact MBA student at Brandeis University, who interviewed a range of world-leading figures in distributed manufacturing, conducted research into governance theory and took inspiration from a range of other complex systems.
In July 2019, fourteen people who had separately been working on different aspects of what could become an open ‘Internet of Production’ came together in Warsaw, Poland, for three days of conversation and exchange. From this summit sponsored by the Shuttleworth Foundation and facilitated by uncompromise came the current form of the Internet of Production Alliance.
Building on the MakerNet pilot, this project looked at how design files can be shared and how quality can be ensured in a humanitarian context. The project summary can be viewed, along with detailed surveys and analysis done on design sharing platforms and knowledge sharing platforms.
The ideas behind the Internet of Production Alliance were first explored in this collaborative project done in Kenya in 2016-17, which evaluated the feasibility and desirability of using a decentralised manufacturing approach to provide certain medical devices and spare parts to hospitals and equipment in Kenya. The project’s final report is available or key findings from the project were presented.
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