3 ms·
The article spends its last three paragraphs talking about Tesla: When we were theorizing about a gifted car plant, the example may have vaguely sounded like T
by protomyth 8y ago
The article spends its last three paragraphs talking about Tesla:
When we were theorizing about a gifted car plant, the example may have vaguely sounded like Toyota’s NUMMI plant, that was, for practical purposes, given to Tesla in 2010 in exchange for shares. A year later, Toyota opened its first simple, slim and flexible plant as a pilot north of Sendai, Japan, and a few years thereafter, Toyota sold its shares in Tesla. If the relationship would have lasted a little longer, and if Elon Musk’s hubris would have been a little less pronounced, Tesla could have learned something.
Before landing in production hell, and pitching a tent to make his Model 3, Musk promised that he would out-Toyota Toyota when it comes to lean manufacturing. He had a catchy name for Tesla’s non-existent miracle plant. He called it the Alien Dreadnought. I ask Akahane what Toyota calls its super-flexible line.
“We don’t really have a name for it,” Akahane says, and he doesn’t seem to think it needs one.
- Judgmentality 8y agoYou should never try to automate something before that something is already working. You can't optimize something that doesn't exist. It's the equivalent of scaling a company before you even have a product, let alone product-market fit. I completely agree with you, I'm just surprised how often I see people try to do this. As someone with lots of experience in advanced robotics, people ask for my advice on automating things quite a bit. I always tell them they're approaching the problem wrong, and they never listen until it's too late and usually (because it's often a startup) the company just outright fails. You are not the first company in the world to try to automate <insert blank>, it just turns out it's roughly 2 orders of magnitude harder than you think it is. No, I will not build a production ready system that involves an unsolved robotics problem with a ~$100k budget.
- bryanlarsen 8y agoElon just claimed that designing a rocket manufacturing process is 10X as difficult as designing a rocket, and that designing a car's manufacturing line is 100X as difficult as designing the car. I'm fairly certain he didn't believe that 10 years ago. :)
- rangersanger 8y ago“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.” - Bill Gates. He didn't have a third rule that says "If there's no process, automating a new will expose your hubris" but it's implicit.