How to not fuck up your manufacturing startup • Hacker News Board

Re: How to not fuck up your manufacturing startup

#91

Post by odbol_ » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 10:20 PM UTC

mszcz wrote: post #38

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…

In general, it's hard for me to agree with that too. I can remember a few times where the hardware side of things was done decently (or at least at a level I could put up with) but the software side was shit and felt like a necessary evil, an afterthought, a forgotten checkmark on a todo list that needed to be taken care of. Belkin WeMo comes to my mind as a prime example as their app is slow and buggy. Philips Hue l…

You're talking about consumer-facing software though. There's no app for "lettuce".

Re: How to not fuck up your manufacturing startup

#92

Post by leodeid » Tue, Dec 06, 2016, 11:29 PM UTC

amk_ wrote: post #30

leodeid wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the wikipedia page and that "what is TRIZ" article, and I still don't understand what it is. At times, it sounds like an automated program (especially with statements like "More than three million patents have been analyzed to discover the patterns that predict breakthrough solutions to problems"). But at other points, it seems like a human-centric problem solving strategy, but without the strategy. It describ…

They teach you this stuff in product design classes. TRIZ is a way of breaking down an engineering design problem into the thing you want to change, and the thing you can't change (a "contradiction"), then resolving it. A "TRIZ Matrix" is a reference tool that suggests ways of resolving conflicts between common design parameters (strength, weight, durability, manufacturing tolerance, etc.) based on a number of princi…

Thank you, this explanation made a lot more sense to me.

Re: How to not fuck up your manufacturing startup

#93

Post by jakewins » Wed, Dec 07, 2016, 1:10 AM UTC

odbol_ wrote: post #90

jakewins wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> distribution of that farm product to a far away base of consumers is not viable Can you source this? My understanding of academic research in this area was that the energy used for artificial lighting by far outweighs the energy used for production and transportation for conventional produce. Eg: If you're interested in climate impact or energy use, warehouse farms burn significantly more coal to keep the lights on…

Who said they needed to exclusively use artificial lighting? They do have the sun over there, right?

Well, the original article was about growing inside a warehouse - hence no sun.

They could ofc use green houses. However, if you've ever seen a modern industrial green house after dark, you can see how they would be unlikely to get a permit for a large operation. The light pollution from these things can be seen lighting the sky above them from miles away, they are like miniature suns. Imagine having one outside your apartment :)