A factory in a box

The dream of futurists is to see everything from an apple (the red or green kind, not a Jobs creation, but that too) to a pencil built molecule by molecule in a nanotech factory the size of a breadbox. They envision one of these in every home. This is not that, but it exists today and has been in use by the military (why do they get everything first?).

From Global Guerrillas, August 16, 2010:

RESILIENT COMMUNITY: Forget Afghanistan, These are Needed in Detroit etc.

The US Military Special Operations Command is building eight "mobile factories" that fit into standard shipping containers. These factories are based on the successful experience the US Army has had with something similar called the MPH.

From Strategypage:

The MPH was developed when the army realized that the easiest way to get the many rarely requested, but vital, replacement parts to the troops, was to manufacture the parts in the combat zone. In short order, this led to the construction of a portable parts fabrication system, called MPH, that fit into a standard 8x8x20 foot shipping container. The original version used two containers, but smaller equipment and more powerful computers eventually made it possible to use one container.

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