Using biology self-assembly methods

Replicating the self-assembly methods that biology already uses is probably the best way towards making a molecular manufacturing a reality.

Results in this area seem to be more promising than trying to make a macro sized inspired assembly line, but built in nanoscopic sizes.
Forget the old car factory assembly line methods, because they probably wont work on the nanometer scale, and start thinking about our own molecular sized factories, inside living cells.

Chemists at Rice University have discovered how to assemble gold and silver nanoparticle building blocks into larger structures based on a novel method that harkens back to one of nature's oldest known chemical innovations – the self-assembly of lipid membranes that surround every living cell.

Read the rest at physorg.com