Redistributed Manufacturing Ecosystem for Healthcare: An in-Depth Case Study of On-Body Manufacturing Using a Microfactory

The shift from centralized to redistributed manufacturing (RDM) enables lower volume production closer to the site of use. The potential benefits of RDM are highlighted in the literature, but in this emerging field, understanding of how its adoption changes relationships within an ecosystem is limited. In this article, we provide a novel case study of an emerging portable, digitized microfactory technology from healthcare that localizes the manufacture of therapeutics on the body of the patient. Taking a manufacturing ecosystems perspective, this article contributes empirical evidence showing how the introduction of the microfactory causes a change in the context of manufacture at the microlevel and a change in interorganizational and institutional relationships at the mesolevel. Our research shows how inanimate agents, such as digital microfactories, can be actors within an ecosystem. We position the digitized microfactory engaged in the service encounter as a resource integrating actor at the microlevel of our ecosystem. The microfactory's structure, components, and architecture, are positioned at a new “sub-microlevel.” This article contributes to the RDM theory, showing that technical advances can push redistribution of manufacturing to the individual level, where components of the microfactory enable simultaneous production and use.