5 ms·

Makes me wonder how much manufacturing knowledge has been lost in the west, and how long it might take to rediscover it all. Does anyone know of any good sourc

Makes me wonder how much manufacturing knowledge has been lost in the west, and how long it might take to rediscover it all. Does anyone know of any good sources on this?

deaddodo 3y ago
Strictly speaking, none. The knowledge is all there, the problem is lack of experience/training.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
  Training is a cost center. Just put out a job req demanding 20 years experience in forging curved steel. Problem solves itself. Now just let me collect my plum consulting fee for this bit of genius business management advice.
  - notsurenymore 3y ago
    > Now just let me collect my plum consulting fee for this bit of genius business management advice. Come on, you’ve got to at least offer them something other than what they’ve already been doing for years.
1970-01-01 3y ago
It's the skills that are lost. The knowledge is safe in print.
- moonchrome 3y ago
  There's a lot of practical/contextual knowledge that isn't documented, and what's documented isn't guaranteed to be correct or can be misleading (terminology changes, standards change, some things are implied because they are obvious at the time, etc.)
  - bluGill 3y ago
    Though knowledge of experience is sometimes wrong as well. Sure it works - unlike print where mistakes (sometimes intentional to hide a secret) can tell you something that cannot work, but that doesn't mean it is a good way to do things.
  - 1970-01-01 3y ago
    Give some examples? That kind of 'undocumented' knowledge is lost because better tech has completely replaced it. I'm talking about inventions like the Spinning Mule or the steam engine. We have superseded them with electric motors and logic boards.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - moonchrome 3y ago
      First thing that comes to mind is friends father was hitting retirement age after working at a petrochemical/plastics facility for ~20 years, was in charge of maintenance of some section. I think he told me the owner had to call him twice to help diagnose problems that were causing product outages. These things don't get built on a whim - there's risks, regulations, documentation, procedures, experts, etc. At the end of the day you have people doing the work for decades, with an intuition about how things work. Given infinite time you can recreate anything - but by the time you're done putting the puzzle together you're out of business.
      - 1970-01-01 3y ago
        >At the end of the day you have people doing the work for decades, with an intuition about how things work. That's exactly my point. This intuition is undocumented however it becomes superseded by new tech. Nobody can (successfully) run a plastics plant with decades of old hardware knowledge and expect to be in business another 20 years. "In 1991, Aldo retired and Ed took over day-to-day management of the company. First Plastics began the initiative to replace and update its molding equipment with new large capacity presses in 1995. This initiative has placed First Plastics as one of the most technologically advanced injection molders in the Northeast. Today it continues to add the latest technology while increasing its manufacturing capacity." https://firstplastics.com/about.html https://firstplastics.com/about.html
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  You can't even document computer code accurately. And neither can I. Gordon Ramsey can't document how to cook a steak and how to tell thats its done. 3 different cooks will read his instructions and will end up with 3 different steaks. The idea that a lifetime of steelworking experience can be foind in books, especially by people who aren't known for love of books, is pure folly. Skills are living. They live in flesh and bone.
  - genmud 3y ago
    I call BS. Code and any process can be documented just fine. > 3 different cooks will read his instructions and will end up with 3 different steaks Either his instructions are shit, or the cooks are donkeys. Sear steak at high heat, 1 minute, rotate steak 45 degrees, flip steak to sear back side for 1 minute, rotate steak 45 degrees. Move steak to indirect heat until internal temp probed at center of steak reaches 145F, remove steak and plate steak after resting for 4 minutes. There. If you follow those instructions you can get a perfectly done steak every. single. time. Shit is only subjective if you don’t have a repeatable way of measuring things. You absolutely can learn steel working and foundry type of stuff from books, but you have to find ways of measuring what you are doing. E.G. heat to this temp, control cooling process by means of $X, $Y, $Z. Inspect crystal structure of coupon, X-ray for porosity. It isn’t easy, but it can be done.
    - fomine3 3y ago
      You can make it documented. Can other people understand completely same as you? It's a different story
    - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
      > Code and any process can be documented just fine. Can be? perhaps. Is documented? definitely not. 90% of code is not documented, whether it is a trojan or firmware for a soda dispenser. If I find you a random piece of code that was not maintained for the last 5 years, in a random language, what is the chance that you can get it to work? 30%? > It isn’t easy, but it can be done So most of the time it isn't done. Its software engineer's job to document code, it is not the job of a machinist to document minitua of his job. In fact some proffeshions made historically a point of keeping their craft secret and passing knowledge on to an apprentice. > Code and any process can be documented just fine.
- smoyer 3y ago
  We can't build the engines for the Saturn five rocket anymore though the engineering documents still exist. You need the documentation and skilled craftsman.
  - defrost 3y ago
    If that's true ... then how were the engines ever built in the first place? You know, back when they had neither the plans nor people that had built such large engines before?
    - NikkiA 3y ago
      About 20 iterative engine designs from the Rocketdyne A-1 to the F-1, building experience and skills along the way. It's probably a myth anyway, Rocketdyne's expertise continues with the RS-68 and there are probably still employees that worked on the RS-56 that was derived from the H-1, which was essentially a smaller F-1 edit: Apparently, an upgraded F-1B is part of the SLS Block 2 spec anyway, so yes, they can still make them.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
testfoobar 3y ago
Not the same industry, but here is an article in the WSJ about declining numbers of petroleum engineers: https://www.wsj.com/articles/big-oils-talent-crisis-high-salaries-are-no-longer-enough-194545be https://www.wsj.com/articles/big-oils-talent-crisis-high-sal... "Big Oil’s Talent Crisis: High Salaries Are No Longer Enough Energy companies scramble to attract engineers as young workers fret over climate and job security Good news from the oil patch: Jobs are plentiful and salaries are soaring. The bad news is that young people still aren’t interested. Even as oil-and-gas companies post record profits, the industry is facing a worsening talent drought. At U.S. colleges, the pool of new entrants for petroleum-engineering programs has shrunk to its smallest size since before the fracking boom began more than a decade ago. European universities, which have historically provided many of the engineers for companies with operations across the Middle East and Asia, are seeing similar trends. ...."
- throwbadubadu 3y ago
  > The bad news is that young people still aren’t interested And maybe that is also good news, because the youth realizes what we won't and what is at stake? Wouldn't have thought that not everything can be bought.. a little hope for them's still there, as we will ignore it til our deaths ;)
  - appleiigs 3y ago
    Or maybe this is bad news, because the youth do not realize what is at stake. After all the article is talking about skills that we have lost relative to other countries which may not like the U.S. very much.
    - throwbadubadu 3y ago
      Was not referring to the article but apparently to the oil industry specifics the article also doesn't talk about, and try to see everything negative just with a bit of optimism ;) Thus, you cannot just repeat "bad news" unfair :( Bring a new perspective please. (And feel free to downvote, yeees I know we need some oil industry.. but no, if we'd do it right still not as much as >95% of it is right now for.. no way around it). Skills will come and go as needed, the drama is overrated and sensationalism imo (just to ensure more downvotes ;))
Tangurena2 3y ago
I remember a very old WSJ article about "swiss style machinists" and how there are no young American ones any more. This style of machinist makes tiny objects (think of how small things inside a mechanical watch are), where a day's production fits into a coffee cup. It takes a 10 year long apprenticeship to become productive enough that a company is willing to one of these machinists. All of the "younger" ones came from Germany or Austria because their governments subsidize the long training & apprenticeship programs. In the US, virtually all of them were laid off at the end of the Cold War. Like most trade workers, the worker owns the tools that they use on the job. When they sell their tools, they leave the trade. I don't think there have been any good studies or histories written about the decline in tradeskilled labor.
- NegativeK 3y ago
  There's a lot of discussion about how tradespeople are retiring and leaving big gaps in the workforce, and there's a strong element of truth to it, but America is still producing large and small machined parts. There's still large machine tools being refurbished in Rockford, Illinois, Haas is building a large new facility in Nevada (delayed; thanks covid) for making CNC machine tools, medical and aerospace parts are still earning machinists a crapton of money, and people are still hobbing enormous gears that are very, very expensive. It's pretty clear that American machining has lost its production bandwidth due to offshoring, but it's not accurate to say that the field is dead.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
mortureb 3y ago
I think for anything we don’t actively make anymore, we can assume the skill has been lost.
0xDEF 3y ago
I think we in the West need to get better at creating excitement about manufacturing. The two biggest wind turbine manufacturers in the world, Vestas Wind Systems and Siemens Gamesa, are located here in Denmark. It is definitely possible to do manufacturing in high income developed countries.
dxbydt 3y ago
https://www.businessinsider.com/basic-products-america-doesnt-make-2010-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/basic-products-america-doesn... Dated article, says USA doesn't make these anymore - Baseball Babyfood Etch a Sketch Converse Shoes Stainless Steel Rebar Dress Shirt Mattel Toys Minivan Vending Machine Levi Jeans Red Wagon TV Cellphone Railroad Turnouts Sardines Dell Computer Cutlery Bulb
- bhelkey 3y ago
  I can't speak to many of these. However, some baby food is made in the US. https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/associated-wholesale-grocers-inc-releasing-notice-due-recalled-infant-formula-being-distributed-its https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety...

Makes me wonder how much manufacturing knowledge has been lost in the west, and how long it might take to rediscover it all. Does anyone know of any good sources on this?

deaddodo 3y ago

Strictly speaking, none. The knowledge is all there, the problem is lack of experience/training.

kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
Training is a cost center. Just put out a job req demanding 20 years experience in forging curved steel. Problem solves itself. Now just let me collect my plum consulting fee for this bit of genius business management advice.
- notsurenymore 3y ago
  > Now just let me collect my plum consulting fee for this bit of genius business management advice. Come on, you’ve got to at least offer them something other than what they’ve already been doing for years.

1970-01-01 3y ago

It's the skills that are lost. The knowledge is safe in print.

moonchrome 3y ago
There's a lot of practical/contextual knowledge that isn't documented, and what's documented isn't guaranteed to be correct or can be misleading (terminology changes, standards change, some things are implied because they are obvious at the time, etc.)
- bluGill 3y ago
  Though knowledge of experience is sometimes wrong as well. Sure it works - unlike print where mistakes (sometimes intentional to hide a secret) can tell you something that cannot work, but that doesn't mean it is a good way to do things.
- 1970-01-01 3y ago
  Give some examples? That kind of 'undocumented' knowledge is lost because better tech has completely replaced it. I'm talking about inventions like the Spinning Mule or the steam engine. We have superseded them with electric motors and logic boards.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - moonchrome 3y ago
    First thing that comes to mind is friends father was hitting retirement age after working at a petrochemical/plastics facility for ~20 years, was in charge of maintenance of some section. I think he told me the owner had to call him twice to help diagnose problems that were causing product outages. These things don't get built on a whim - there's risks, regulations, documentation, procedures, experts, etc. At the end of the day you have people doing the work for decades, with an intuition about how things work. Given infinite time you can recreate anything - but by the time you're done putting the puzzle together you're out of business.
    - 1970-01-01 3y ago
      >At the end of the day you have people doing the work for decades, with an intuition about how things work. That's exactly my point. This intuition is undocumented however it becomes superseded by new tech. Nobody can (successfully) run a plastics plant with decades of old hardware knowledge and expect to be in business another 20 years. "In 1991, Aldo retired and Ed took over day-to-day management of the company. First Plastics began the initiative to replace and update its molding equipment with new large capacity presses in 1995. This initiative has placed First Plastics as one of the most technologically advanced injection molders in the Northeast. Today it continues to add the latest technology while increasing its manufacturing capacity." https://firstplastics.com/about.html https://firstplastics.com/about.html
ClumsyPilot 3y ago
You can't even document computer code accurately. And neither can I. Gordon Ramsey can't document how to cook a steak and how to tell thats its done. 3 different cooks will read his instructions and will end up with 3 different steaks. The idea that a lifetime of steelworking experience can be foind in books, especially by people who aren't known for love of books, is pure folly. Skills are living. They live in flesh and bone.
- genmud 3y ago
  I call BS. Code and any process can be documented just fine. > 3 different cooks will read his instructions and will end up with 3 different steaks Either his instructions are shit, or the cooks are donkeys. Sear steak at high heat, 1 minute, rotate steak 45 degrees, flip steak to sear back side for 1 minute, rotate steak 45 degrees. Move steak to indirect heat until internal temp probed at center of steak reaches 145F, remove steak and plate steak after resting for 4 minutes. There. If you follow those instructions you can get a perfectly done steak every. single. time. Shit is only subjective if you don’t have a repeatable way of measuring things. You absolutely can learn steel working and foundry type of stuff from books, but you have to find ways of measuring what you are doing. E.G. heat to this temp, control cooling process by means of $X, $Y, $Z. Inspect crystal structure of coupon, X-ray for porosity. It isn’t easy, but it can be done.
  - fomine3 3y ago
    You can make it documented. Can other people understand completely same as you? It's a different story
  - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    > Code and any process can be documented just fine. Can be? perhaps. Is documented? definitely not. 90% of code is not documented, whether it is a trojan or firmware for a soda dispenser. If I find you a random piece of code that was not maintained for the last 5 years, in a random language, what is the chance that you can get it to work? 30%? > It isn’t easy, but it can be done So most of the time it isn't done. Its software engineer's job to document code, it is not the job of a machinist to document minitua of his job. In fact some proffeshions made historically a point of keeping their craft secret and passing knowledge on to an apprentice. > Code and any process can be documented just fine.
smoyer 3y ago
We can't build the engines for the Saturn five rocket anymore though the engineering documents still exist. You need the documentation and skilled craftsman.
- defrost 3y ago
  If that's true ... then how were the engines ever built in the first place? You know, back when they had neither the plans nor people that had built such large engines before?
  - NikkiA 3y ago
    About 20 iterative engine designs from the Rocketdyne A-1 to the F-1, building experience and skills along the way. It's probably a myth anyway, Rocketdyne's expertise continues with the RS-68 and there are probably still employees that worked on the RS-56 that was derived from the H-1, which was essentially a smaller F-1 edit: Apparently, an upgraded F-1B is part of the SLS Block 2 spec anyway, so yes, they can still make them.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

testfoobar 3y ago

Not the same industry, but here is an article in the WSJ about declining numbers of petroleum engineers: https://www.wsj.com/articles/big-oils-talent-crisis-high-salaries-are-no-longer-enough-194545be https://www.wsj.com/articles/big-oils-talent-crisis-high-sal... "Big Oil’s Talent Crisis: High Salaries Are No Longer Enough Energy companies scramble to attract engineers as young workers fret over climate and job security Good news from the oil patch: Jobs are plentiful and salaries are soaring. The bad news is that young people still aren’t interested. Even as oil-and-gas companies post record profits, the industry is facing a worsening talent drought. At U.S. colleges, the pool of new entrants for petroleum-engineering programs has shrunk to its smallest size since before the fracking boom began more than a decade ago. European universities, which have historically provided many of the engineers for companies with operations across the Middle East and Asia, are seeing similar trends. ...."

throwbadubadu 3y ago
> The bad news is that young people still aren’t interested And maybe that is also good news, because the youth realizes what we won't and what is at stake? Wouldn't have thought that not everything can be bought.. a little hope for them's still there, as we will ignore it til our deaths ;)
- appleiigs 3y ago
  Or maybe this is bad news, because the youth do not realize what is at stake. After all the article is talking about skills that we have lost relative to other countries which may not like the U.S. very much.
  - throwbadubadu 3y ago
    Was not referring to the article but apparently to the oil industry specifics the article also doesn't talk about, and try to see everything negative just with a bit of optimism ;) Thus, you cannot just repeat "bad news" unfair :( Bring a new perspective please. (And feel free to downvote, yeees I know we need some oil industry.. but no, if we'd do it right still not as much as >95% of it is right now for.. no way around it). Skills will come and go as needed, the drama is overrated and sensationalism imo (just to ensure more downvotes ;))

Tangurena2 3y ago

I remember a very old WSJ article about "swiss style machinists" and how there are no young American ones any more. This style of machinist makes tiny objects (think of how small things inside a mechanical watch are), where a day's production fits into a coffee cup. It takes a 10 year long apprenticeship to become productive enough that a company is willing to one of these machinists. All of the "younger" ones came from Germany or Austria because their governments subsidize the long training & apprenticeship programs. In the US, virtually all of them were laid off at the end of the Cold War. Like most trade workers, the worker owns the tools that they use on the job. When they sell their tools, they leave the trade. I don't think there have been any good studies or histories written about the decline in tradeskilled labor.

NegativeK 3y ago
There's a lot of discussion about how tradespeople are retiring and leaving big gaps in the workforce, and there's a strong element of truth to it, but America is still producing large and small machined parts. There's still large machine tools being refurbished in Rockford, Illinois, Haas is building a large new facility in Nevada (delayed; thanks covid) for making CNC machine tools, medical and aerospace parts are still earning machinists a crapton of money, and people are still hobbing enormous gears that are very, very expensive. It's pretty clear that American machining has lost its production bandwidth due to offshoring, but it's not accurate to say that the field is dead.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

mortureb 3y ago

I think for anything we don’t actively make anymore, we can assume the skill has been lost.

0xDEF 3y ago

I think we in the West need to get better at creating excitement about manufacturing. The two biggest wind turbine manufacturers in the world, Vestas Wind Systems and Siemens Gamesa, are located here in Denmark. It is definitely possible to do manufacturing in high income developed countries.

dxbydt 3y ago

https://www.businessinsider.com/basic-products-america-doesnt-make-2010-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/basic-products-america-doesn... Dated article, says USA doesn't make these anymore - Baseball Babyfood Etch a Sketch Converse Shoes Stainless Steel Rebar Dress Shirt Mattel Toys Minivan Vending Machine Levi Jeans Red Wagon TV Cellphone Railroad Turnouts Sardines Dell Computer Cutlery Bulb

bhelkey 3y ago
I can't speak to many of these. However, some baby food is made in the US. https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/associated-wholesale-grocers-inc-releasing-notice-due-recalled-infant-formula-being-distributed-its https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety...