What’s the difference between a cabinet made on an assembly line in a factory and one made by the cabinet maker down the street in his shop?
Maybe you’re thinking quality.
It’s not quality.
A good factory can make cabinets with high-quality materials and superbly consistent dimensions and finish. A mediocre cabinet maker can make a lousy cabinet with cheap materials and bad finish.
Maybe you’re thinking personal service or customer care.
It’s not personal service.
A factory with excellent people in customer service, including installation contractors, can provide an outstanding and personalized experience. An uncaring cabinet maker down the street can make you wish you’d hired anybody else.
The difference is where the craft mentality resides.
A factory cabinet has most of the crafting done before manufacturing begins. A person has already decided the dimensions, materials, joints, tolerances, hardware, finish, and assembly sequence. The factory optimizes its manufacturing to reproduce that design consistently, quickly, and cheaply.
A cabinet maker down the street moves much of that crafting into the act of building. He can look at your crooked wall, change a dimension, choose a different joint, compensate for unusual conditions, and make judgments as the work progresses all the way through installation.
Where does AI fit?
AI is the tool, not the factory or the cabinet maker. It’s the CAD package, ruler, and calculator. It’s the supply chain management engine. It’s the design verifier. It’s the “what-if” analyzer. It’s the
Craftsmanship has little dependence on whether the thing came from a factory or from a person whose name you know.
AI doesn’t change that.