Digital Delivery of Physical Products: Fixing Supply Chains Amid Wars and Uncertainty

It might sound like something from a sci-fi movie with royalty free music, but thanks to the fast-paced development of digital additive manufacturing plants and professional 3D printing studios, all the technology we need to pull this off is here today. And we’re not just talking in theoretical terms — IMAGENERIA is already making it a reality for brands and designers.

Let’s take a closer look at what digital delivery is all about, the benefits it brings, and the story of how Imageneria is delivering this change.

What is digital delivery?

Currently, when a customer orders a product, the item is taken from an inventory of physical stock in a warehouse and delivered to that customer’s door. Everything is produced in a specific physical location and shipped to wherever the customer is.

With digital delivery, things work a little differently. Each product is managed digitally and doesn’t exist in the physical world at the time the customer makes a purchase. Then, after a customer makes an order, it is manufactured at a local digital factory.

This makes it possible for companies to sell their goods with zero physical inventory.

Imageneria develops distributed manufacturing through authorized digital factories to ensure that customers can get the items of their choice produced locally. Then, they make a significant cut on the delivery — meaning that all parties involved are winners.

Advantages of digital delivery

The traditional way of manufacturing and delivering items might work well when a customer buys something that’s produced locally to them. But if an American wants to buy a piece of furniture made in Australia, we’re talking about enormous costs. It’s also very damaging for the environment for supply chains to operate in this way.

Plus, the last few years have shown us that financial and environmental issues aren’t the only problem at stake here. Over the pandemic, supply chains faced serious challenges due to the complications brought on by lockdowns and health and safety regulations. Then, events like Russia's war in Ukraine showed us just how vulnerable supply chains can be across certain borders.

Digital delivery would remove these barriers and create a much more seamless experience for both brands and consumers.

These causes are close to Imageneria’s heart due to its close ties with Ukraine, which has made the company particularly passionate about the importance of production solutions that span borders. CEO Julia Daviy contributed to the development of the country’s renewable energy industry from (almost) scratch in 2006, helping it to join the top 16 renewable energy markets in the world.

Plus, she has been a fierce lobbyist for opening the PV market up to householders in Ukraine, launching a project to secure 1 million solar energy roofs for the country in 2011 when the number of PV installations in the private sector was several dozen. By the beginning of 2022, Ukraine had over 70,000 households installing PV plants and was participating in the green electricity market.

The story behind Imageneria

Imageneria democratizes the market entry for designers and brands - now, they may start selling their design goods without excessive upfront investments in mass manufacturing, logistics, and storage. All they need are digitally-manufacturable files of their products (from jewelry and accessories to home decor and furniture).

It launched at the end of 2021, and since then, it has listed over 500 digitally-manufacturable consumer goods on its platform — from designer jewelry and fashion accessories to home goods and furniture. The company has also worked with a range of fast forward designers, including Lada Legina, Alberto Ghirardello, Makuno, Ica&Kostika, Hyper. MNML (to name a few).

Imageneria’s ecosystem uses additive manufacturing, which means it fosters a short, transparent, and traceable digital supply chain. This makes it possible to offer customization, on-demand manufacturing, and self-sufficiency altogether.

Julia Daviy is the mastermind behind the venture. Daviy is an award-winning inventor and designer who is also behind the first sustainable digitally-made clothing collection created on large-format 3D printers, collections of digital bags, jewelry and home decor produced from digital design using various digital manufacturing technologies.

Years ago, the CEO began exploring additive manufacturing technologies when she was searching for a way to cut the long supply chains and delivery to make consumer products genuinely sustainable. Fast forward today, and the company she co-founded and manages seems close to achieving precisely that.

The future is phygital

The concept of digital delivery might sound crazy and overly futuristic at first, but dig a little deeper and it’s simply the common-sense solution to a very real problem the world faces. Why transport items thousands of miles across the world when they could be produced in digital factories and delivered locally instead?

Imageneria is one of the companies at the forefront of ushering in this shift, so watch this space.