OSE Africa Guidelines

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Background

OSE is developing machines within the 'developed' world where stable industrial supply chains can be found easily. Also, UPS and FedEX allow overnight access to many parts through Amazon Prime.

Because OSE is developing in the industrialized world, collaborators in 'other countries' should note that OSE favors mastery of the supply chain if OSE is to participate in development in other countries.

Access to CAD, machine shop, custom fabrication shops, electronics, metal supply - these are critical at this phase of OSE's development.

Once OSE builds its precision machining and hot metal rolling infrastructure - it will be possible to bring its operations to regions where industrial supply chains are absent - as long as a waste stream of metal is available. This metal can then be melted, hot rolled, and machines to make any parts required for modern civilization. Short of this, there is an unhealthy dependence on nonexistent or hard-to-access supply chains.

Call to Action

We are inviting collaboration with any stakeholders who are interested in developing, designing, and building the world's first open source flexible fabrication facilities - open source fab labs or open source microfactories. OSE's vision is a 4000 square foot multipurpose, off-grid facility with supporting infrastructure such as office space. The OSE Roadmap indicates completion of the open source microfactory by 2021, unless resources are made available for a more rapid, Apollo-style program.

Much talk of the Open Source Microfactory and Fablab has happened in the media. From the practical standpoint of wide replication, these efforts are limited due to their reliance on expensive proprietary machines. OSE's goal is to fill this gap and extend capacity to a full range of small scale metal rolling and casting, precision machining, and automation. OSE's scope includes providing flexible, modular, and scalable Open Source Construction Sets for production machines. Precision machining, materials production, automation, and power electronics are all relevant within the context of a nominal 4000 square foot microfactory facility.

OSE's practical approach to get there includes:

  1. Development of open source mass collaboration in design using FreeCAD
  2. Design of Construction Set workbenches and part libraries in FreeCAD so that normal people can get involved in design
  3. Recruiting SMEs in key areas of endeavor to assist in open-sourcing industrial civilization
  4. Publishing of Design Guides for building various sets of machines by leveraging talents of collaborating SMEs.
  5. Hosting rapid prototyping workshops using OSE's Extreme Manufacturing techniques
  6. Developing distributed talent through Collaborative Literacy Webinars and Design Sprints
  7. Developing Distributive Enterprises around the technologies that are being developed to provide a positve capital feedback loop for continued development and improvement

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