5 ms·

I wonder what their manufacturing processes are like, such that they could accommodate this kind of flexibility.

dba7dba 10y ago
It was probably more like having some engineers and guys in shop/factory work weekend to meet the demand, on top of what they were already supposed to do.
- notoothpaste 10y ago
  In order to create a prototype with a port in a different location, they would need, at the very least, to produce a one-off motherboard PCB, and a one-off injection molded case. That they could justify doing so to produce near production quality results for a small order either indicates impressive manufacturing flexibility, or an inefficient manufacturing process.
  - lisivka 10y ago
    Their process is implemented for flexibility first, then for mass production. Look at Toyota fabric [1]. Do you see lot of advanced robots to reprogram for each new model? [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg5RlapdEtE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg5RlapdEtE
    - notoothpaste 10y ago
      So how is/was Fujitsu's laptop manufacturing tailored toward flexibility? I want the details. If all you can do is passive aggressively repeat vague ideas that were printed in mainstream management and manufacturing texts decades ago, don't respond at all. Nobody cares about or wants your input.
      - yaakov34 10y ago
        And you think that someone from Fujitsu (where it's 8 in the evening, BTW) is going to jump in here and explain their factory layout to you, because you've put your foot down? The best general answer you are going to get is "They made it using whatever process they used to make prototypes. Probably". You want names, ranks, and serial numbers - try writing to Fujitsu. Preferably while being more polite.
        notoothpaste 10y ago
        So in other words, you have nothing useful to contribute, but wikiable factoids. Don't fucking respond. It would be better for everyone involved if the thread died, than if I wasted my time trying to cajole information out of people that clearly know no more than I do. This entire thread was me taking a shot in the dark to see if any experienced EEs/industrial engineers/etc. had any interesting insight to give on the subject. Stroking your dick at your amateur understanding of manufacturing processes serves no-one but yourself. I understand this is a hard impulse for people like you to overcome, but you don't have to respond to every post you see. Next time, try shutting the fuck up when someone asks a question that you can't respond to. I don't know everything, and I don't pretend to know everything, so I don't condescend towards people unless I know I have a world-class understanding of a topic. I would rather have my score at -50 and be forced to create another account, than argue with people that have NOTHING to contribute but want to give me shit for asking questions that their pea brains aren't equipped to answer. EDIT: Wish I could have had a real conversation with you on a site where that isn't fucking impossible due to "rate restrictions" for wrongthinkers. I really thought we could have gotten along, even after your second shithead reply that I tried to draw something constructive out of. EDIT EDIT: Who are you voting for, wannabee EE?
        yaakov34 10y ago
        Guess what - you can't tell us what to do, any more than you can order Fujitsu's management to appear before you and testify. Not being the dictator of the universe is very unpleasant, but most of us have learned to live with that by the age of 3. And if you think I've been commenting here specifically for your edification, that's wrong too. As for being downvoted and needing a new account - I personally never care enough any more to get involved with that, but yeah, that's a good guess by the time after the West Coast wakes up, so have fun with that.
  - thedaniel 10y ago
    Or... that it was an option for port placement they'd already considered, and they pulled an existing prototype out of the library, which seems more likely to me.
  - kw71 10y ago
    Your assumptions that they would need to redesign and tool up for brand new complex motherboard and housing parts are incorrect. This is a foolish way to accommodate a request to physically move a connector.
lisivka 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Toyota_Way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Toyota_Way Quote: Principle 3 Use "pull" systems to avoid overproduction. A method where a process signals its predecessor that more material is needed. The pull system produces only the required material after the subsequent operation signals a need for it. This process is necessary to reduce overproduction.
- notoothpaste 10y ago
  I too have heard of Kanban and JIT from my fellow arrogant valley douches. I would like to understand the specific manufacturing processes that make one-off products of production quality viable.
  - lisivka 10y ago
    I suggest to read Gemba Kaizen books. Yes, it is hard to understand first, but then you realize that Toyota Way is like 3D printer — add only what is needed right now, do it fast, be precise. So yes, you are right — Toyota Way is not viable for mass production, but it perfect for areas where human labor is still plays major role in manufacturing, e.g. programming.
yaakov34 10y ago
In most manufacturing, you have a prototype hall or floor where you have somewhat more general purpose/flexible machines with a lot of manual intervention to make small quantities of prototypes, and factories with automated machines set up to make the exact parts you need for your full production. This was always my experience in electronics - you, as the development engineer, set up small-scale production (going from prototypes to EV or engineering validation articles, which are basically the final product produced by these manual/slow methods), and then manufacturing engineers work with you to transfer your processes to an automated assembly line making who knows how many units a minute. It's not unusual to produce a special prototype in the small/experimental floor; I mean, Apple probably goes through hundreds (or whatever) of prototypes and test articles before releasing their next phone, and they are certainly not stopping their million-per-day manufacturing plants to make them. However, it does show impressive commitment to the customer on the part of Fujitsu. Also, electronics is more cyclical than cars (3-year-old model may be completely different and useless compared to the current one), so it is common to produce everything in batches rather than "the Toyota way" with just-in-time. In other words, if a laptop model is sold for 2 years, the whole run may have been made in 6 months, and then you have that manufacturing equipment sitting idle while the next prototype is worked on, so you may have equipment and engineers to spare. Only a few of the highest-volume factories (e.g. Apple again, I assume) run at full capacity all the time.
- notoothpaste 10y ago
  Thank you for your sincere and informed response. I understand that EEs create countless prototypes over the course of the development of a product, and that development PCBs need not (especially for debugging purposes) bear any physical resemblance to the finished product. What is impressive to me is that Toshiba could: Redesign and test a PCB Set up a manufacturing process for pick and place etc Create an injection-molded case Put it all together Deliver all of this, on a whim, to a customer in the single digit quantities And apparently do so to similar standards as their mass-produced machines Did they just eat the cost of the most expensive PCB masks and injection molds, or is there something more interesting going on behind the scenes? That's what I want to know. EDIT: I tripped the (whatever the fuck random sequence of characters you need to bypass the filters) filter and now I can't post any more for a few hours, otherwise I'd happily call all of you out as the ignorant yuppie douchebags you are... no, worse, the 19 year old CS majors pretending to be ignorant adult yuppie douchebags. tl;dr I just wanted the chance to hear from experienced engineers. Please fuck off if you don't know what you're talking about, for the sake of anyone that wants to ask a remotely relevant question on this braindead hellhole.

It was probably more like having some engineers and guys in shop/factory work weekend to meet the demand, on top of what they were already supposed to do.

notoothpaste 10y ago
In order to create a prototype with a port in a different location, they would need, at the very least, to produce a one-off motherboard PCB, and a one-off injection molded case. That they could justify doing so to produce near production quality results for a small order either indicates impressive manufacturing flexibility, or an inefficient manufacturing process.
- lisivka 10y ago
  Their process is implemented for flexibility first, then for mass production. Look at Toyota fabric [1]. Do you see lot of advanced robots to reprogram for each new model? [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg5RlapdEtE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg5RlapdEtE
  - notoothpaste 10y ago
    So how is/was Fujitsu's laptop manufacturing tailored toward flexibility? I want the details. If all you can do is passive aggressively repeat vague ideas that were printed in mainstream management and manufacturing texts decades ago, don't respond at all. Nobody cares about or wants your input.
    - yaakov34 10y ago
      And you think that someone from Fujitsu (where it's 8 in the evening, BTW) is going to jump in here and explain their factory layout to you, because you've put your foot down? The best general answer you are going to get is "They made it using whatever process they used to make prototypes. Probably". You want names, ranks, and serial numbers - try writing to Fujitsu. Preferably while being more polite.
      - notoothpaste 10y ago
        So in other words, you have nothing useful to contribute, but wikiable factoids. Don't fucking respond. It would be better for everyone involved if the thread died, than if I wasted my time trying to cajole information out of people that clearly know no more than I do. This entire thread was me taking a shot in the dark to see if any experienced EEs/industrial engineers/etc. had any interesting insight to give on the subject. Stroking your dick at your amateur understanding of manufacturing processes serves no-one but yourself. I understand this is a hard impulse for people like you to overcome, but you don't have to respond to every post you see. Next time, try shutting the fuck up when someone asks a question that you can't respond to. I don't know everything, and I don't pretend to know everything, so I don't condescend towards people unless I know I have a world-class understanding of a topic. I would rather have my score at -50 and be forced to create another account, than argue with people that have NOTHING to contribute but want to give me shit for asking questions that their pea brains aren't equipped to answer. EDIT: Wish I could have had a real conversation with you on a site where that isn't fucking impossible due to "rate restrictions" for wrongthinkers. I really thought we could have gotten along, even after your second shithead reply that I tried to draw something constructive out of. EDIT EDIT: Who are you voting for, wannabee EE?
        yaakov34 10y ago
        Guess what - you can't tell us what to do, any more than you can order Fujitsu's management to appear before you and testify. Not being the dictator of the universe is very unpleasant, but most of us have learned to live with that by the age of 3. And if you think I've been commenting here specifically for your edification, that's wrong too. As for being downvoted and needing a new account - I personally never care enough any more to get involved with that, but yeah, that's a good guess by the time after the West Coast wakes up, so have fun with that.
- thedaniel 10y ago
  Or... that it was an option for port placement they'd already considered, and they pulled an existing prototype out of the library, which seems more likely to me.
- kw71 10y ago
  Your assumptions that they would need to redesign and tool up for brand new complex motherboard and housing parts are incorrect. This is a foolish way to accommodate a request to physically move a connector.

lisivka 10y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Toyota_Way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Toyota_Way Quote: Principle 3 Use "pull" systems to avoid overproduction. A method where a process signals its predecessor that more material is needed. The pull system produces only the required material after the subsequent operation signals a need for it. This process is necessary to reduce overproduction.

notoothpaste 10y ago
I too have heard of Kanban and JIT from my fellow arrogant valley douches. I would like to understand the specific manufacturing processes that make one-off products of production quality viable.
- lisivka 10y ago
  I suggest to read Gemba Kaizen books. Yes, it is hard to understand first, but then you realize that Toyota Way is like 3D printer — add only what is needed right now, do it fast, be precise. So yes, you are right — Toyota Way is not viable for mass production, but it perfect for areas where human labor is still plays major role in manufacturing, e.g. programming.

yaakov34 10y ago

In most manufacturing, you have a prototype hall or floor where you have somewhat more general purpose/flexible machines with a lot of manual intervention to make small quantities of prototypes, and factories with automated machines set up to make the exact parts you need for your full production. This was always my experience in electronics - you, as the development engineer, set up small-scale production (going from prototypes to EV or engineering validation articles, which are basically the final product produced by these manual/slow methods), and then manufacturing engineers work with you to transfer your processes to an automated assembly line making who knows how many units a minute. It's not unusual to produce a special prototype in the small/experimental floor; I mean, Apple probably goes through hundreds (or whatever) of prototypes and test articles before releasing their next phone, and they are certainly not stopping their million-per-day manufacturing plants to make them. However, it does show impressive commitment to the customer on the part of Fujitsu. Also, electronics is more cyclical than cars (3-year-old model may be completely different and useless compared to the current one), so it is common to produce everything in batches rather than "the Toyota way" with just-in-time. In other words, if a laptop model is sold for 2 years, the whole run may have been made in 6 months, and then you have that manufacturing equipment sitting idle while the next prototype is worked on, so you may have equipment and engineers to spare. Only a few of the highest-volume factories (e.g. Apple again, I assume) run at full capacity all the time.

notoothpaste 10y ago
Thank you for your sincere and informed response. I understand that EEs create countless prototypes over the course of the development of a product, and that development PCBs need not (especially for debugging purposes) bear any physical resemblance to the finished product. What is impressive to me is that Toshiba could: Redesign and test a PCB Set up a manufacturing process for pick and place etc Create an injection-molded case Put it all together Deliver all of this, on a whim, to a customer in the single digit quantities And apparently do so to similar standards as their mass-produced machines Did they just eat the cost of the most expensive PCB masks and injection molds, or is there something more interesting going on behind the scenes? That's what I want to know. EDIT: I tripped the (whatever the fuck random sequence of characters you need to bypass the filters) filter and now I can't post any more for a few hours, otherwise I'd happily call all of you out as the ignorant yuppie douchebags you are... no, worse, the 19 year old CS majors pretending to be ignorant adult yuppie douchebags. tl;dr I just wanted the chance to hear from experienced engineers. Please fuck off if you don't know what you're talking about, for the sake of anyone that wants to ask a remotely relevant question on this braindead hellhole.