How to not fuck up your manufacturing startup

So wild! Such a surprise to find this on the front page of Hacker News. If it weren&#x27;t for the author&#x27;s username, I might have missed this gem.<p>I had worked at Edenworks as a software engineer for a few years, alongside Johnny. I don&#x27;t pretend to know enough to speak on manufacturing itself, but Johnny&#x27;s remarks on software development are spot-on.<p>When I had come onboard, I had naively suspected a typical software startup experience; rampant technophilia with an obsession for integrating the freshest software technologies. If &#x27;Software is King&#x27; is true everywhere else, why shouldn&#x27;t it be true here?<p>Edenworks is not a software startup, however, and it&#x27;s important to realize that. Manufacturing is an entirely different beast, which makes steady, deliberate movements (i.e. it doesn&#x27;t move fast, and it shouldn&#x27;t break things). When the main product being developed is a tangible system, redos are way more costly. Adding flashy software features does not expedite this; lashing the latest and greatest Javascript library onto the fronted does not add value... not reliable value anyways.<p>When it comes to developing a manufacturing process, software should be flexible and let the process demands come first. The typical workload is more concerned with running test trials than hacking up something new.<p>For me, this realization was more emotional than organizational - sometimes you have to curb your hype. To add real value to the product, I had to watch my ego. In a manufacturing company, the Process is King.

Although my main gig is software, I&#x27;ve also been manufacturing electronic music gadgets for 15 years. The most significant difference in thinking for me was, for hardware, always keeping in mind &quot;this item is being shipped across the world, must work perfectly upon arrival and for hopefully a long time after that, and is almost impossible to update without the customer incurring hassle or the company incurring expenses&quot;. Contrast that to software where problems are generally easily able to be fixed and - most importantly - can be updated almost instantly.<p>Especially after some recently problems with my hardware business that necessitated the return of some units for repair, and the hold-up of manufacturing while we worked out what was wrong, I&#x27;ve come to realise that the easily-updateable nature of modern day software really gives us such power and flexibility, it should never be taken for granted.

&quot;All of these things take time away from getting shit out the door, but they ensure you don’t get fucked. In manufacturing, you optimize for not getting fucked.&quot; The language is a giveaway he has been involved in manufacturing

The startup mentioned is an urban indoor farm for lettuce. As a manufacturing process, it&#x27;s a good case. One product. Few changes. No need to retool for the 2017 Lettuce. Few operations. (In a manufacturing plant, an &quot;operation&quot; is one step in the process.) This is the best case for classic mechanization. You just need to do the same thing over and over while holding the process parameters within tolerance, and do it cheaply.<p>This indoor farm, EdenWorks, has a nearby competitor, AeroFarms, in Newark.[1] AeroFarms claims to be much bigger, and claims a new patented technology for growing plants on a cloth substrate made from recycled plastic bottles, with the plant roots in a nutrient-enriched spray mist instead of water or soil. (AeroFarms may be exaggerating how far along they are. See Google StreetView.[2]) Welcome to manufacturing, where it&#x27;s about volume and price.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;aerofarms.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;aerofarms.com&#x2F;</a> [2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;goo.gl&#x2F;maps&#x2F;amxpekwPEGr" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;goo.gl&#x2F;maps&#x2F;amxpekwPEGr</a>

From the article: &quot;A good, defensible manufacturing strategy is one where you’re applying and protecting (ideally via patent) a faster, cheaper, more reliable way of doing something in your industry, by borrowing a proven approach from a parallel industry.&quot;<p>If you&#x27;re looking for a formalized system designed to help with some of this, take a look at TRIZ[1][2]. I&#x27;ll just steal one note from the &quot;What Is TRIZ&quot; article - &quot;Somebody someplace has already solved this problem (or one very similar to it.) Creativity is now finding that solution and adapting it to this particular problem.&quot;<p>A big part of the basic tooling for TRIZ is the results of people going through a huge mass of patents looking for patterns of problem categories and how they were solved.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;TRIZ" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;TRIZ</a> [2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;triz-journal.com&#x2F;triz-what-is-triz&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;triz-journal.com&#x2F;triz-what-is-triz&#x2F;</a>

&quot;Figure out software after everything else&quot; I also work at a manufacturing startup (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;markforged.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;markforged.com</a>) and I disagree.<p>Manufacturing is ancient. Software as a field has been around for 45 years (give or take). If you&#x27;re not working at a pure software company, the software for your particular field is probably in its infancy.<p>If you&#x27;re looking to innovate, it is orders of magnitude <i>more</i> fruitful to look to the software improvements which can be made to your technology because orders of magnitude <i>fewer</i> man-hours have been spent by humans so far solving those problems.<p>&quot;In indoor farming, we see a lot of competition focus on how data will drive yield increases, yet they haven’t figured out how to regulate air temperature in their facility.&quot; I have to assume that these competitors are looking for the innovations that will make them 10x more competitive. Startups are dead by default. Innovation is the only way to survive.

Process as competitive advantage is an ace point. Most companies fail from mismanagement.<p>Competitor teardowns is another good one, but what information do you use for that? How do you determine who their suppliers are?

Very interesting read, especially since I had a production management focus at university that I&#x27;ve only partly used so far (when developing ERP software not when running my own company).<p>&quot;&quot;&quot;A good, defensible manufacturing strategy is one where you’re applying and protecting (ideally via patent) a faster, cheaper, more reliable way of doing something in your industry, by borrowing a proven approach from a parallel industry.&quot;&quot;&quot;<p>I very strongly disagree with this and find the thought process very unnatural. Patenting something you copied almost feels like it&#x27;s against human nature to me. Humans essentially learn via copy and improve. Thankfully business practice patents are not valid in some countries.<p>I also disagree with the thoughts on not focusing on software or at least think the author undervalues the potential role software can play. I think some of the major problems in production management are very ripe for algorithmic innovations. Plant layout planning and job scheduling (basically most operations research) seem very suitable to AI&#x2F;learning based approaches. Non trivial simulations are also very important for well run production companies (anecdotally, from the ERP development experience).

Putting aside for a moment the author&#x27;s experience, our own experience at <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;8-food.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;8-food.com&#x2F;</a> has been somewhat similar in its difference from conventional startupry but quite distinct in its apparent relationship to conventional manufacturing.<p>We are producing a series of vending-machine-like service locations which automatically prepare and retail hot meals from fresh ingredients. We have of course the manufacturing process for these machines to keep in mind, but in addition the machines themselves are essentially miniature factories and so all of the theory, literature and best practices of the manufacturing economy proper apply - albeit scaled down in time, space and (usually!) cost - to our machines.<p>So far it has been very interesting to read the literature of other engineering disciplines and to translate concepts between them and our experience in software. Thus far I believe there are some great processes that software can teach manufacturing, but also vice versa.

&quot;It’s easy to find new ways to make shit more complicated. It’s hard to find new ways to make shit simpler. &quot;<p>Applies to software just as well :)

Do you find merging the software and process&#x2F;manufacturing side of things to be advantageous? I&#x27;m a process&#x2F;chemical engineer getting into software and am wondering if it&#x27;s worth splitting time.

It&#x27;s always nice to see hardware&#x2F;not-SaaS content on here.

Yeah, the main difference is that in the Software world companies like google make products in beta form and use their customers as testers. They could improve the product &quot;on the fly&quot;.<p>On the other hand in manufacturing having a big recall for a defective or incomplete product usually means &quot;instant bankruptcy&quot;.<p>Even big companies like Samsung(Galaxy recall) or Volkswagen(Dieselgate) or BP(Deepwater oil spill) have to suffer immense loses from &quot;moving fast and breaking things&quot;.

having been through a number of tech businesses who do manufacturing... ( <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.taitradio.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.taitradio.com</a> <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.compacsort.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.compacsort.com</a> and now <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.outpostcentral.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.outpostcentral.com</a> ) the key thing to me is how fast you can innovate which is all about how quick you can try ideas. As a startup, contract manufacture as much as possible so you can scale your production up and down. Definitely focus on your processes, kill bad product lines as quick as possible. Spend the time on making things robust, keep things as simple as possible as long as possible. Sell and promote your brand as much as possible.<p>.... and you are going to fuck things up anyways. But hopefully not in a terminal way. Some fuckups are learning opportunities, some fuckups are because you don&#x27;t learn the right things from previous &quot;learning opportunities&quot;.

Hi Johnny! Great to see you on HN... and great article about some of the challenges with manufacturing!

He forgot to mention: Big clients with aggressive legal stange who promise millions then strangle and cancel the contract you had with them when you&#x27;ve sunk 1000s or hours into R&amp;D.

Does anyone else get turned off by the needless vulgarity?

I wish HN wouldn&#x27;t use this language in its headlines. It means I can&#x27;t read it when my little kids are nearby.

Any need for the F word?