The term "personal manufacturing" encapsulates the transition from industrial mass production of consumer goods, distributed from factories to users via retailers, to the emergence of goods produced by end users for self-consumption and satisfaction. Personal manufacturing leverages digital technologies to both distribute and produce goods, encoding them as digital files that are easily shared and precisely reproduced through advanced computer-aided manufacturing devices such as CNC mills, laser cutters, circuit board plotters, and additive manufacturing machines, commonly referred to as 3D printers or rapid prototypers.

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The inherent free distribution of these goods fosters collaborative development, driving the open-source hardware philosophy for peer production. Complex goods designed through this philosophy utilize widely available off-the-shelf components for assembly into end products. This paradigm has facilitated the rise in popularity of standardized electronic components, such as Arduino  and Raspberry Pi, as well as  online 3D model repositories, including Thingiverse and the NIH 3D print exchange.