Participant support costs Subproject for Institution # SP0050101

The vision for the Engineering Research Center (ERC) for DEmocratizing Manufacturing Accessibility for Designers (DEMAND) is to lead to a world where every designer can fabricate any product seamlessly and intuitively regardless of expertise or background in or connection with manufacturing firms, and regardless of product volume, from one of a kind to millions. This vision will be achieved by breaking the deep information “asymmetry” in the existing manufacturing ecosystem, and establishing a new Cloud-centric platform on which designers’ features and needs can be matched, in real time, with manufacturers’ capabilities and capacities. Furthermore, designers and manufacturers can form groups of varying size and structure, ideate to architect and iterate new ideas, and crowd source tasks and components. The realization of this ERC vision will democratize manufacturing so that designers of all capabilities, including laypeople, can be empowered to see ideas realized as useful products and so that any interested person can engage in manufacturing innovation to serve the needs they perceive in our evolving society.