{"id":1423,"date":"2008-01-21T00:01:14","date_gmt":"2008-01-21T05:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/?p=1423"},"modified":"2008-02-11T23:03:33","modified_gmt":"2008-02-12T04:03:33","slug":"next-generation-product-development-tools-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/?p=1423","title":{"rendered":"Next Generation Product Development Tools, Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

At this stage I just wanted to post a reminder of just how amazingly basic much of today’s manufacturing technology really is. To that end I surfed around for some visual media to help illustrate my point.<\/p>\n

Where Fabrication Has Been And Where It Still Is<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The above video does a decent job providing an overview of the injection mold-based manufacturing process currently used in China (reinforced by this short piece on Design News – Link<\/a>) and is pretty much the standard solution for fabricating a substantial amount of product worldwide.
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\nIf it’s plastic, it was almost certainly formed by one of a few mold-based techniques like the one being presented in that video.<\/p>\n

For comparison, the image below is a pre-Inca pottery mold that is essentially the same thing: two halves that when joined together create an enclosed volume wherein material can be poured (or “injected”).<\/p>\n

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\nThe same kinds of molds were used to cast bronze thousands<\/em> of years ago (but I couldn’t find as nice a picture as this one).<\/p>\n

It’s difficult to believe that whole economies are built around this basic solution to making multiples of an object. When economists speak of “manufacturing infrastructure”, machines which clamp parts of a mold together<\/a> are a significant part of that infrastructure.<\/p>\n

That’s right. Big, hydraulic clamps<\/em>.<\/p>\n

You’d almost think we were stuck in the 19th Century.<\/p>\n

{Image Copyright \u00a9 Dr. Clark J. Radcliffe, Michigan State University<\/a>}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At this stage I just wanted to post a reminder of just how amazingly basic much of today’s manufacturing technology really is. To that end I surfed around for some visual media to help illustrate my point. Where Fabrication Has … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-administrative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rebang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}