The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand
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Re: The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand
#2If you get a chance to visit a Smokejumper base, I highly recommend it. One of the things you learn is that everyone on the team is required to make all of their own equipment by hand. So all of these highly trained, ex-military guys spend days on end doing nothing but sewing clothes and packing parachutes. The reasons described:
- Cheaper than contracting out everything
- They have a better idea of the exact specifications they need for everything
- It instills a strong culture of self-reliance and trust (anyone has to be able to pack your parachute)
- It fills a lot of offseason downtime
My takeaway is that it makes a lot of sense to in-house your own tools - a lesson from outside of the software industry.
Re: The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand
#3No wonder living in the Bay Area is so expensive...even their ladders are artisanal /s
Re: The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand
#4artisanal ladders
Re: The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand
#5Previous post on the topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1852400
Re: The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand
#6artisanal ladders
x2. This seems like a case where there probably exists better options but the cost and friction of switching is too high. As long as the money's still coming there's no reason to look for alternatives though, especially when looking for alternatives would involve doing battle with a union over the jobs the alternatives would eliminate.
Does SF really have that many more overhead power lines than other cities to warrant the extra expense? Firefighters elsewhere don't exactly get fried on the daily.
Are there other types of cheaper (in terms of cost per ladder per year) ladders that can be used? Is there a high temp fiberglass? Does someone make aluminum ladders coated in rubber?
Edit: per jdietrich's comment NFPA 1931 compliant fiberglass fire ladders do exist
Re: The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand
#7Great read, but loved the end -
""Pete has collected all these different donuts over the years. They're all real, and covered with lacquer so they won't go bad. Some of these are ten years old.""
Re: The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand
#8There's an old saying among firefighters: "The fire service is 200+ years of tradition, unimpeded by progress". Now obviously that isn't strictly true, and SF does have some good reasons for sticking with their wooden ladders... but one can't help but suspect that sheer tradition is a somewhat significant factor.
Of course some departments adopt change faster than others, and some kinds of change are adopted more readily, so it's hard to make any sweeping generalizations.
Re: The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand
#9If you get a chance to visit a Smokejumper base, I highly recommend it. One of the things you learn is that everyone on the team is required to make all of their own equipment by hand. So all of these highly trained, ex-military guys spend days on end doing nothing but sewing clothes and packing parachutes. The reasons described: - Cheaper than contracting out everything - They have a better idea of the exact specifi…
The San Franciso Fire Department is using wooden ladders due to an abundance of overhead power lines.
Which I think is the core issue, use other peoples tools unless you have some critical and unique requirement.
Re: The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand
#10If you get a chance to visit a Smokejumper base, I highly recommend it. One of the things you learn is that everyone on the team is required to make all of their own equipment by hand. So all of these highly trained, ex-military guys spend days on end doing nothing but sewing clothes and packing parachutes. The reasons described: - Cheaper than contracting out everything - They have a better idea of the exact specifi…
- a lesson from outside of the software industry.
Not really, just a forgotten one. Fred Brooks described his ideal development team in The Mythical Man Month and it included a toolmaker.