
I went to production heaven - Osiris30
https://dailykanban.com/2017/12/go-production-hell-went-production-heaven/
======
avs733
While they are decidedly bearish on Tesla, dailykanban's analysis is worth
reading. They know one thing (auto manufacturing) and they know it really
well. Their comments on just how mismatched Tesla's public statements and
private actions are is damning...even if it sometimes feels a bit like
potshots.

~~~
danvoell
It is very potshotish. Comparing production hell to a 75% increase in stock
isn't really a fluid argument. They should stick to the manufacturing bits.
Otherwise, enjoyed the read.

~~~
busterarm
Both Bertel & Ed were writers/editors at The Truth About Cars. TTAC is a
fabulous website if you're interested in the auto industry, but their
perspective and target demo is mainly the automotive sales industry. Dealers
and the supporting network around them.

Their anti-Tesla bias is strong and well-documented. They've had legitimate
criticisms but take what they say with a grain of salt.

------
syntaxing
Serious question, I read about all these amazing factory line marvels and how
much faster it is to create these state of the art factories in China. But I
never understood what is giving China such a huge competitive advantage? Why
does it take that much longer in Europe and the USA? Sure, we can dive into
some of the political rhetoric, but from an engineering prospective, what is
the root cause? Is there a price to making these factory faster (such as
government subsidy)?

~~~
pjc50
I have a suspicion - although no real evidence - that this is a management
_and class system_ effect. I've often asked myself why, in the UK, we have
either small boutique car firms (e.g. TVR, various F1 teams) OR factories
under foreign ownership running imported management processes, but all the big
domestic car firms melted away. Some clues are in the final demise of MG
Rover: [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/may/08/mg-rover-
di...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/may/08/mg-rover-directors-
banned-collapse)

That's an extreme example of the problem, but I think it's endemic in the UK
being so centered around the financial industry. While the middle class is
centered around the cottage industry of rising property prices. The most
ambitious people go into finance, not businesses where you actually have to
make something or deal with employees. The factory, employees and culture
surrounding that then just become tradeable tokens that will have their
surplus value extracted and then discarded. Meanwhile it's hard to get
ambitious, effective managers because people with that skill set are earning a
lot more elsewhere in the economy.

A lot of what makes a good manufacturing process is, effectively, oral culture
- passed on through apprenticeships and shadowing skilled technicians.
Attempts to document it are surprisingly hard (this is why ISO9001 et al are
unpopular). So in order to get a good factory startup you have to get
experienced staff, which is easier in a cultural location that already has
them.

~~~
stcredzero
_A lot of what makes a good manufacturing process is, effectively, oral
culture - passed on through apprenticeships and shadowing skilled technicians.
Attempts to document it are surprisingly hard (this is why ISO9001 et al are
unpopular). So in order to get a good factory startup you have to get
experienced staff, which is easier in a cultural location that already has
them._

Read Thomas Sowell's _Culture and Migrations_ for more on this and the
historical evidence.

~~~
jdmichal
Is this the right one? I doubt he would have written two books with the same
title transposed... But hey I've seen lots of silly things in my life, so I
thought I would double check.

[https://www.amazon.com/Migrations-Cultures-World-Thomas-
Sowe...](https://www.amazon.com/Migrations-Cultures-World-Thomas-
Sowell/dp/0465045898)

~~~
stcredzero
Yes.

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AskewEgret
I can remember reading Bertel Schmitt over at TTAC [1] years ago. You will
find very few people in the world who can write well enough and have the level
of car industry knowledge that he has. If I remember correctly, he started
working at Volkswagen in the 1980s.

I can still remember an article about a Toyota factory [2] that is quite the
opposite from this Volvo factory

[1] [http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/author/bertel-
schmitt](http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/author/bertel-schmitt) [2]
[http://archive.fortune.com/2011/02/18/news/international/toy...](http://archive.fortune.com/2011/02/18/news/international/toyota-
factory-japan-asia.fortune/index.htm)

~~~
Dalex0
Wow interesting read that the Toyota factory is the opposite. I think some
adjustments where made targeting property cost in Japan are much higher but
overall the property cost compared to total factory investment cost are low.
But also the Chinese factory is producing higher margin cars compared to low
revenue cars from Toyota.

~~~
busterarm
Toyota's manufacturing methods are well known at this point...

If you've read about Lean Engineering or the Toyota Kata or even foundational
devops books like The Phoenix Project, you've been beaten over the head with
the idea that Toyota's process is highly effective. (And it is)

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dfox
The article mentions that Tesla wants to do batch manufacturing and frames it
as somehow bad thing in comparison to JIT used by other car makers. In fact
JIT outsources the logistics chaos caused by inconsistencies of planned order
betweeen different production steps to component manufacturers which does not
make much sense with vertical integration.

Commonly used metric for out-of-orderness (ie. number of times when next
serial number is smaller than previous one) usualy works out to single digit
percents, which looks good on paper but in actual logistics reality means that
order of components picked from warehouse is essentialy random (measured by
edit distance between stored and picked order) and automating that is more
expensive than doing manual picking.

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ucaetano
It is interesting to see the trend in the machinery: while the factory is in
China, and the brand is Swedish, all the precision machinery, instruments,
etc. come from Switzerland and Germany. Güdel, ABB, Carl Zeiss, Kuka, etc.

~~~
avs733
That isn't really new... If you look at Machine tools, Europe generally has
the strongest base because their history with them goes way way back
(think...first cannons). There are manufacturers in the US (e.g., Haas,
Gleason) but they are smaller market and either highly specialized or known
for being good enough and less expensive (Haas).

~~~
ucaetano
Yes, I'm Swiss, people are usually surprised when they realise how
industrialized Switzerland is, and how machinery (especially precision
machinery) and not watches, chocolate or cheese, are our largest exports.

~~~
greeneggs
And pharmaceuticals even more than machinery.

[http://www.worldstopexports.com/switzerlands-
top-10-exports/](http://www.worldstopexports.com/switzerlands-top-10-exports/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Switzerland#/media/...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Switzerland#/media/File:Tree_map_export_che_all_show_2010_SITC4.svg)

------
contingencies
I was impressed with the summary points regarding modern automotive production
practices in the article. Allegedly, the value in robots and automation is the
speed of retooling, not the overall line speed which one would naively assume.
Also, smart automakers assemble to order. We are truly a far cry from Henry
Ford and his Model T! This all bodes well for our personalized robotic food
production network at [http://infinite-food.com/](http://infinite-food.com/)
:)

~~~
surfmike
That was surprising to me to learn too, since I would have expected a more
manual human-operated line to be able to retool faster.

------
tomalpha
It's a good read and I enjoy his writing style. I did chuckle at a few of his
thoughts though and hope that they were intended to be as tongue-in-cheek as I
took them to be:

> As we walk through the factory, our small group is permanently trailed by
> two firemen, with a big first aid kit in hand. Nothing happens.

~~~
theQzer
Huh? Congrats on your sense of humor.

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vxNsr
So the tl;dr of this article is that tesla doesn't have the institutional
knowledge of volvo and is still trying to figure out how to build a factory,
meanwhile, volvo's parent company saw astronomic growth while tesla's value
merely almost doubled.

~~~
avs733
Eh...I'm not sure that's it. I read this much more as 'Volvo is trying to
rethink what they are trying to accomplish and why with a factory' as compared
to Tesla who is 'struggling to push sustaining innovation of an outdated
factory model that they don't really understand'.

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neves
Are there more good references about the terrible Tesla factory?

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ndh2
Title should be "Some go to car production hell. I went to production heaven."
(drop one "production").

~~~
jobigoud
I had a hard time parsing the title for some reason, thinking it was about
golang.

Some people go to car-production hell. I went to car-production heaven.

~~~
devin
The title is supposed to be "Some people go to car production hell. I went to
production heaven." The original article doesn't have car in the second part
of the title.

------
alexanderstears
This is an over dramatic take. It's too soon to know how Volvo's China factory
is working, the initial signs are promising but there's so much more to car
quality than how the manufacturer assembles it.

Historically, we've seen inconsistent quality out of Chinese car parts and
there's nothing you can do on final assembly to make a defective wheel bearing
work better (the only option is to assemble the car with a better wheel
bearing). To the extent that the Chinese volvos have Chinese component quality
problems, the Chinese factory is further removed from production heaven.

Toyota's Tahara plant is recognized as the plant capable of the best car
manufacturing in the world and it wouldn't be possible without the Japanese
supplier base. It would have been nice if they compared and contrasted Tahara
with Fremont but the Chinese Volvo plant offers a better comparison in terms
of modernity.

But I had a horse in the race. I was a model 3 reservation holder but opted
for the refund when the quality issues came to light. I take machine quality
very seriously and I was worried about resenting the build quality on my model
3. Though I think Tesla can get it right, the complexity of an electric car is
much lower than an ICE car.

Toyota has had a target on its back since about 1973 (when its quality
advantage became decisive) - everyone benchmarks Toyota's manufacturing. When
Toyota launched the Lexus LS400 in 1989, GM engineers concluded that they
couldn't replicate the precision and quality with a blank check and an
aggressive time frame. In 2010, Consumer Reports estimated that an average
1993 Lexus LS400 had as many trips to the dealer / failures as a brand new
Mercedes S class. Now there are more issues at play with a 17 year old car
than build quality, but good build quality is a good place to start.

I think Musk has called out Toyota by name as their benchmark. Tesla has a
long way to go but I give them the highest odds of making it. They have the
most opportunity to consolidate their supplier base. They have one of the most
simple cars to manufacture and they have some the cheapest capital - they can
turn it into a money game just like Amazon would. They're in the best position
to actually hit the target on Toyota's back.

~~~
Dalex0
"In 2010, Consumer Reports estimated that an average 1993 Lexus LS400 had as
many trips to the dealer / failures as a brand new Mercedes S class."

You mean the sedan has overall the same sum of issues after 7 years as a brand
new after e.g. one year?

~~~
lsaferite
I think your math is off. You mean 17 years, not 7.

