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> "In construction, you hire a general contractor. Why is there no manufacturing equivalent of a general contractor?" Houses are much more similar to each othe

by pavlov 3y ago

> "In construction, you hire a general contractor. Why is there no manufacturing equivalent of a general contractor?" Houses are much more similar to each other than products. If you've built a few houses, you can probably find many more customers who will want similar houses. Most people don't care if their house is essentially the same as somebody's on the other side of town. But a new product must offer something that's not found in the existing products on the market. If it doesn't, then there's no reason to go to all the effort of getting it manufactured — customers could just buy the existing products where all that investment was made already and is largely recouped. So an industrial design product is more like the houses you see on the "Grand Designs" TV show. Each of them represents a dream and a vision, and usually there's a lot of trouble and blown budgets on the way to the grand finale where the family finally gets to sit together by the fireplace in their unique creation. ("Grand Designs" doesn't show the dream projects that fail miserably.)

bryanrasmussen 3y ago
>But a new product must offer something that's not found in the existing products on the market. how is it then the case that there are multiple versions of products on the market that differ very little from each other?
- pavlov 3y ago
  Typically they're either using the same elements despite being branded differently, or there's a competitive factor in the design that's not superficially obvious to the consumer, or the market is so established that there's a repository of existing designs that can be slightly tweaked to create a new product affordably. Let's say you want to sell plastic brooms. With such a common product, what possible competitive edge could you get by creating your own design from scratch? If your reason for getting in the business is that you want to address a niche or trend (e.g. you want to sell hot pink brooms because it's Barbie summer of 2023), that can be accomplished with an existing design. It only makes sense to create new molds for a broom if you're a corporation like Ikea with the massive sales volume that enables vertical integration of every aspect of the product.
- derefr 3y ago
  Logistical convergent evolution. You set off to make your own thing, and maybe you do make your own thing, at first, in a small-batch artisanal way. Then you try to scale up. You subcontract to various manufacturing companies — companies also being used by your competitors. Those companies have standard "best practice" ways of doing certain things, and they tell you that your design will be executed a lot more cheaply if they're allowed to nudge it toward conforming with those best practices, so that they can use standard parts and techniques. Iterate this three or four times — especially in the context of a company that's plateaued in market share and is now all about cost optimization — and eventually you have a version of your product which is indistinguishable from your competitors' products. That's what allows for the best economies of scale up the pipeline, and therefore saves you and your competitors the most money.
bluGill 3y ago
Most people want a house that is the same or very similar to others around town. You want to be unique on your block but otherwise the same as houses a few blocks away. Just enough that you don't try to get into the wrong house those first months after moving in. Houses that are the same as ones across town are cheaper as the builder has experience with it and knows the tricks to build it with less labor. They also are designed with years of feedback about what other like and dislike. They don't have weird corners that are not usable because after putting things in that is what fit.
- onetokeoverthe 3y ago
  [dead]
RetroTechie 3y ago
So an industrial design product is more like the houses you see on the "Grand Designs" TV show. In a way it's like forking a software project: the more you deviate from what's done before, the more 'pain' you'll be in. What's done before can be re-done by any competent builder. But beyond that, you'll need expertise in different fields, to fit parts of a design together in new ways. No expertise -> project will fail, or be extremely 'painful' (like: costly, time-consuming, many iterations, result isn't what you wanted, etc). Enough expertise -> steps in new territory might be uncomfortable or include some mistakes, but overall you'd know where you're at, where you're going & have realistic expectations. So yeah - nothing wrong with getting some expert help when entering new territory.
- derefr 3y ago
  > What's done before can be re-done by any competent builder. That assumes part availability, though. There were kit-built octagon-shaped homes in the 1800s; but good luck asking a builder to build you one today.
mejutoco 3y ago
> "Grand Designs" doesn't show the dream projects that fail miserably Great analogy, seriously. As a big fan of that program (cathartic if you have any real state project going on) let me add that I have seen programs in which the house is not finished after 8 years; some in which rooms projected for kids are not needed because they are going to college; and couples that start together, and by the end of the program are divorced (or one of them passed) by the end of the program. It really puts things into context. Also, my favourite, when 80% of the participants casually say they want to be in by Christmas, summer vacations, New years next year, and the host smiles and says something like (let's see).
- floil 3y ago
  And to connect it back to the original post: the moments that make me cringe the most in Grand Designs are the ones where the owner decides, as a cost-cutting measure, to manage the project themselves despite not having prior domain experience. Whereas the author of this article successfully engaged an expert early on, and saw it pay dividends, despite the up front cost.
derefr 3y ago
You're picturing the residential-construction kind of general contractor; but there's also the commercial-construction kind: the kind who works for a commercial construction company; who interfaces with a property developer as client, and with an architecture firm that the property developer has also contracted; and then either works with an structural engineer working for the developer, or for the architecture firm, or with their own structural engineers, or all three. All of those engineers push back on any impracticalities in the "dream and vision" before any of them are willing to sign off on it — where that sign-off is a requirement before the general contractor will get to work. That's the thing that I would expect here: that the firm you'd hire would come with a built-in person to look at your design and say "no, this isn't gonna work, try again."
- jjk166 3y ago
  > that the firm you'd hire would come with a built-in person to look at your design and say "no, this isn't gonna work, try again." Reputable product manufacturers actually do have that person.

by pavlov 3y ago

bryanrasmussen 3y ago

>But a new product must offer something that's not found in the existing products on the market. how is it then the case that there are multiple versions of products on the market that differ very little from each other?

pavlov 3y ago
Typically they're either using the same elements despite being branded differently, or there's a competitive factor in the design that's not superficially obvious to the consumer, or the market is so established that there's a repository of existing designs that can be slightly tweaked to create a new product affordably. Let's say you want to sell plastic brooms. With such a common product, what possible competitive edge could you get by creating your own design from scratch? If your reason for getting in the business is that you want to address a niche or trend (e.g. you want to sell hot pink brooms because it's Barbie summer of 2023), that can be accomplished with an existing design. It only makes sense to create new molds for a broom if you're a corporation like Ikea with the massive sales volume that enables vertical integration of every aspect of the product.
derefr 3y ago
Logistical convergent evolution. You set off to make your own thing, and maybe you do make your own thing, at first, in a small-batch artisanal way. Then you try to scale up. You subcontract to various manufacturing companies — companies also being used by your competitors. Those companies have standard "best practice" ways of doing certain things, and they tell you that your design will be executed a lot more cheaply if they're allowed to nudge it toward conforming with those best practices, so that they can use standard parts and techniques. Iterate this three or four times — especially in the context of a company that's plateaued in market share and is now all about cost optimization — and eventually you have a version of your product which is indistinguishable from your competitors' products. That's what allows for the best economies of scale up the pipeline, and therefore saves you and your competitors the most money.

bluGill 3y ago

Most people want a house that is the same or very similar to others around town. You want to be unique on your block but otherwise the same as houses a few blocks away. Just enough that you don't try to get into the wrong house those first months after moving in. Houses that are the same as ones across town are cheaper as the builder has experience with it and knows the tricks to build it with less labor. They also are designed with years of feedback about what other like and dislike. They don't have weird corners that are not usable because after putting things in that is what fit.

onetokeoverthe 3y ago
[dead]

RetroTechie 3y ago

So an industrial design product is more like the houses you see on the "Grand Designs" TV show. In a way it's like forking a software project: the more you deviate from what's done before, the more 'pain' you'll be in. What's done before can be re-done by any competent builder. But beyond that, you'll need expertise in different fields, to fit parts of a design together in new ways. No expertise -> project will fail, or be extremely 'painful' (like: costly, time-consuming, many iterations, result isn't what you wanted, etc). Enough expertise -> steps in new territory might be uncomfortable or include some mistakes, but overall you'd know where you're at, where you're going & have realistic expectations. So yeah - nothing wrong with getting some expert help when entering new territory.

derefr 3y ago
> What's done before can be re-done by any competent builder. That assumes part availability, though. There were kit-built octagon-shaped homes in the 1800s; but good luck asking a builder to build you one today.

mejutoco 3y ago

> "Grand Designs" doesn't show the dream projects that fail miserably Great analogy, seriously. As a big fan of that program (cathartic if you have any real state project going on) let me add that I have seen programs in which the house is not finished after 8 years; some in which rooms projected for kids are not needed because they are going to college; and couples that start together, and by the end of the program are divorced (or one of them passed) by the end of the program. It really puts things into context. Also, my favourite, when 80% of the participants casually say they want to be in by Christmas, summer vacations, New years next year, and the host smiles and says something like (let's see).

floil 3y ago
And to connect it back to the original post: the moments that make me cringe the most in Grand Designs are the ones where the owner decides, as a cost-cutting measure, to manage the project themselves despite not having prior domain experience. Whereas the author of this article successfully engaged an expert early on, and saw it pay dividends, despite the up front cost.

derefr 3y ago

You're picturing the residential-construction kind of general contractor; but there's also the commercial-construction kind: the kind who works for a commercial construction company; who interfaces with a property developer as client, and with an architecture firm that the property developer has also contracted; and then either works with an structural engineer working for the developer, or for the architecture firm, or with their own structural engineers, or all three. All of those engineers push back on any impracticalities in the "dream and vision" before any of them are willing to sign off on it — where that sign-off is a requirement before the general contractor will get to work. That's the thing that I would expect here: that the firm you'd hire would come with a built-in person to look at your design and say "no, this isn't gonna work, try again."

jjk166 3y ago
> that the firm you'd hire would come with a built-in person to look at your design and say "no, this isn't gonna work, try again." Reputable product manufacturers actually do have that person.