Much as I like the Economist, this isn't a very good article. It doesn't clearly distinguish proto and small-scale from large scale manufacturing and glosses over the fact that resource, energy, labor and transportion cost all affect the final cost of products in different ways.

There's no disruption or revolution, mechanical and manufacturing engineers have taken all these factors into account as a matter of course. The availability of better 3D printing is great and we use it to our advantage all the time but it's just one tiny aspect of the overall manufacturing landscape.