How to not fuck up your manufacturing startup

Post by lmm » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 11:46 AM UTC

banjomascot wrote: post #18

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #4

"Figure out software after everything else" I also work at a manufacturing startup ( https://markforged.com ) and I disagree. Manufacturing is ancient. Software as a field has been around for 45 years (give or take). If you're not working at a pure software company, the software for your particular field is probably in its infancy. If you're looking to innovate, it is orders of magnitude more fruitful to look to the…

I disagree with you - Figure out your process and automate with software. Your software will only be as good as your process. There are mid-market ERPs that are 30 years old or more (specifically, Dynamics NAV comes to mind). These software solutions implement the processes that have been honed by humans for more than a thousand years. It is much easier to innovate elsewhere. I am curious which specific ERP packages…

Post by smallnamespace » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 12:02 PM UTC

pipio21 wrote: post #50

Yeah, the main difference is that in the Software world companies like google make products in beta form and use their customers as testers. They could improve the product "on the fly". On the other hand in manufacturing having a big recall for a defective or incomplete product usually means "instant bankruptcy". Even big companies like Samsung(Galaxy recall) or Volkswagen(Dieselgate) or BP(Deepwater oil spill) have…

Post by chillydawg » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 12:40 PM UTC

avn2109 wrote: post #28

Animats wrote: post #27

The startup mentioned is an urban indoor farm for lettuce. As a manufacturing process, it's a good case. One product. Few changes. No need to retool for the 2017 Lettuce. Few operations. (In a manufacturing plant, an "operation" is one step in the process.) This is the best case for classic mechanization. You just need to do the same thing over and over while holding the process parameters within tolerance, and do it…

>> "...No need to retool for the 2017 Lettuce." These indoor farm outfits have nothing to do with lettuce. There's a reason they're building them in/around NYC, aka in the densest concentration of pot smokers the world has ever seen, far from Humboldt county's fields and Colorado's manual hydroponics. The business model is just to get the automation figured out with some low-value crop, e.g. salad greens, while waiti…

Post by DoofusOfDeath » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 1:14 PM UTC

Post by rmah » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 1:38 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #49

avn2109 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "...No need to retool for the 2017 Lettuce." These indoor farm outfits have nothing to do with lettuce. There's a reason they're building them in/around NYC, aka in the densest concentration of pot smokers the world has ever seen, far from Humboldt county's fields and Colorado's manual hydroponics. The business model is just to get the automation figured out with some low-value crop, e.g. salad greens, while waiti…

Do you think this explains the reports of Toshiba [1] Fujitsu and Olympus [2] growing lettuce in clean rooms? I was under the impression that weed legalisation was low on the political agenda in Japan. It might be that these producers expect higher human-labour costs, making automation more profitable - such as due to rising nationalism reducing the supply of cheap migrant labour. [1] http://qz.com/295936/toshibas-hi…