Glimpses of How it's made, 6 Minute Manufacturing

ptorrone writes "We (MAKE Magazine) have released a free 35 minute film for download - "Glimpses of How it's made" - a tour of how many things in our world are made, each segment is 6 minutes (hence the full name "Six-Minute Manufacturing Glimpses of How it's made"). Learn about, get inspired, and see how stuff is made: LectroSonics (wireless microphones), Rose's Southwest Papers (paper converting), Accurate Custom (Injection Molding), Mega Corp. (water haulage equipment), Earthstone International (recycled glass abrasives), Butterman Tool (tool and die), Eclipse Aviation (small jet aircraft), Optical Insights (optical equipment). Downloads and more info."

6 Minutes

[mysqlrocks]

Only 6 minutes? Is that long enough to really see how this stuff is made? I suppose it is just supposed to be a snapshot so...

Re:6 Minutes

[AKAImBatman]

Only 6 minutes? Is that long enough to really see how this stuff is made?

You'd be surprised. Many manufacturing processes are quite fast. That's why they can turn out thousands of widgets, sprockets, and cogs each day. Most of the time is usually spent in things like heating or rolling, processes where you don't need to record the entire thing to video. These are usually pipelined in such a way that the time taken has little to no impact on producing a widget per minute.

Of course, there are still some proce

Re:6 Minutes

[wealthychef]

You'd be surprised. Many manufacturing processes are quite fast.

LOL. The question was not, "Is that long enough to make this stuff?" but "is that long enough to really see...?"

Re:6 Minutes

[pla]

Only 6 minutes? Is that long enough to really see how this stuff is made? I suppose it is just supposed to be a snapshot so...

I've seen a few different numbers (probably for different models, I expect), but modern auto assembly lines spit out entire cars in less than one minute each.

Or to look at it another way - You have 525,600 minutes per year (assuming 24/7). If you hope to manufacture one million of something per year (like, say, a modern video game console), you better have a way to make two per

Re:6 Minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

I call bullshit!

See:

http://www.assemblymag.com/CDA/ArticleInformation/ features/BNP__Features__Item/0,6493,98596,00.html [assemblymag.com]

The industry average is 26.4 hours per car!!

Re:6 Minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

You sir, are an idiot...

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:6 Minutes

[Main Gauche]

"I've seen a few different numbers (probably for different models, I expect), but modern auto assembly lines spit out entire cars in less than one minute each.

So yes, virtually all mass-produced products take well under six minutes to put together."

There's a teeny difference between "one car per minute" and "one minute per car." The former invokes thoughts of Henry Ford. The latter, of The Flash.

Re:6 Minutes

[drsquare]

There was a programme on TV like this, showing how different things are made. It was an hour long, and believe me you can only watch factory production lines for so long before it gets extremely tedious. Even six minutes of toothpaste going into tubes would have me reaching for the remote.

Factories are dull to work in, why would they be any less dull to watch?

Re:6 Minutes

[petermgreen]

when you work in a factory you presumablly see a tiny part of it day in day out.

with a video they can lead you through the (often reasonablly interesting) process spending only enough time looking at each section to see whats going on. discovery (at least here in the uk) have been doing shows like this under the name (how its made) for ages.

Re:6 Minutes

[drsquare]

when you work in a factory you presumablly see a tiny part of it day in day out. with a video they can lead you through the (often reasonablly interesting) process spending only enough time looking at each section to see whats going on

It's still incredibly boring. Seeing bits of machinery moving round and round loses its novelty after about 7 seconds.

discovery (at least here in the uk) have been doing shows like this under the name (how its made) for ages.

That's the one I'm talking about. It's a perfect cur

Re:6 Minutes

[lysergic.acid]

It's boring--to some people. But other individuals, though I'm not one of them, enjoy seeing the deliberate engineering behind the production process. A lot of manufacturing processes which may be easy to perform by hand may be very complicated to reproduce mechanically. It often takes a lot of ingenuity to design a machine, or machines, that efficiently mass produce(s) a certain product. In other words, what's boring or interesting to watch is subject.

Cool

[Crizp]

This reminds me of sitting glued to the family TV as a child when my favorite children's show would run segments like this. Loved it, watching how all the machines in the factory worked.

That, and tinkering with BASIC on my Spectravideo 738 MSX machine.

Re:Cool

[my_haz]

Cool and Mr Rogers going together, who would have thought. Mr Rogers was the man with the "how things were made segement."

Re:Cool

[Crizp]

I'm not a USian, so I haven't had the "pleasure" of seeing Mr. Rogers' children's shows :) However I know enough to think "cool" would be a serious mis-match with Mr Rogers, yeah.

The host for the show us Norwegians watched back then was a woman, Vibeke Sæther, whom I know many a young boy had a crush on.

Re:Cool

[mikewas]

Now there's an idea! Engineering & Science graduates are decreasing, in the US. A show like this will nicrease interest.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember a show, circa 1968, that I believe was called Discovery. It showed how pencils, bowling balls, etc., were manufactured. Anyone else remember this one?

Re:Cool

[pembo13]

Reminds me of watching Beyond 2000 on Discovery channel. Oh how I loved that show.

Watch "glas" by Bert Haanstra

[SmallFurryCreature]

A dutch documentairy maker, glas was made in the 50's and showed the production of glass bottles. Even won an Oscar so I guess the appeal of watching machines is pretty far reaching.

But hey who doesn't like to watch other people work :)

166 MB file... somebody torrent it quick!

[patiwat]

I'm not sure of the wisdom of the site owners in posting a direct link to a 166MB file on Slashdot... Why don't people just use bittorrent for distribution of files like this?

It's a fascinating video though, conveniently formatted for ipods with video.

Hi, I'm Troy McClure ...

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

You may remember me from such instructional videos as "Mothballing Your Battleship" and "Dig Your Own Grave and Save!"

M4V format, requires Quicktime to view on PC/Mac

[icyisamu]

quote from the site: This film is high quality, 166 MB M4V and will play on video iPods, as well as any PC/Mac with the latest version of QuickTime.

VLC or MPlayer

[eMartin]

Or you could just use VLC or MPlayer on any system that those support.

Re:M4V format, requires Quicktime to view on PC/Ma

[ShyGuy91284]

Hahaha, high quality on video ipod. That's oxymoronic. Perhaps looks good on video iPod, and perhaps looks ok on anything else (like a desktop), but my views of high quality are closer to 720p/1080i (which would of course be an unrealistic download).

Re:M4V format, requires Quicktime to view on PC/Ma

[jZnat]

A 1080p video would probably be something you would stream. It's only unrealistic due to the upstream bandwidth requirements to distribute such massive files.

Re:M4V format, requires Quicktime to view on PC/Ma

[Treacle Treatment]

I despise quicktime. Installing that beast is nearly as bad as real-player.

Someone please seed torrent

[patiwat]

I'm not sure of the wisdom of the site owners in posting a 166MB file onto Slashdot... Why don't people just use bittorrent for distributing content like this? A mirror (a 100MB quicktime movie) is available, though, at http://downloads.oreilly.com/make/howitismade.mov [oreilly.com]

A fascinating file though, conveniently formated for the ipod with video.

Apologies for dupe

[patiwat]

Apologies for the duplicate post - Internet Explorer froze up and I hadn't realized that the original comment went through.

Re:Apologies for dupe

[Crizp]

Heretic! Blasphemist!

Look everyone, an Internet Explorer user! Quick, gimmie the clue-stick!

Re:Apologies for dupe

[Jeff DeMaagd]

But everybody knows that Internet Explorer doesn't freeze. It just turns into an ooze. Firefox, on the other hand, leaks. Memory that is.

Re:Apologies for dupe

[deesine]

Leaks!? A leak is what your faucet does. When I look and see Firefox's memory allocation well over 300mb, the image of a breaking dam comes to mind. Mozilla's little finger plugging Dutchboy is dead, drowned by a digital tsunami.

Re:Apologies for dupe

[jpmkm]

And yet they both got modded up. :)

How It's Made on Discovery Channel

[Anonymous Coward]

This is like the show How It's Made on the Discovery Channel:

http://www.exn.ca/ontv/series.asp?series=43701526& TZ=0 [www.exn.ca]

Re:How It's Made on Discovery Channel

[kent_eh]

Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
Here's the show's web site [howitismade.net]

It's my 5 year-old's favourite non-animated show.

Re:How It's Made on Discovery Channel

[pipingguy]

It's probably only available in Canada, but it's a pretty interesting show.

It looks like most of the manufacturers featured are from Quebec and Lynn Herzeg performs multiple roles in the production.

Here's the crappy, Flash-only page [howitismade.net].

Re:How It's Made on Discovery Channel

[pipingguy]

Well, you've proven me wrong then. I just assumed that Canadian-produced Discovery shows were not widely available in the USA. I think they tried to capitalize on a "big name" by hiring a Canadian celebrity to do narration, Mark Tewksbury.

The program is about technology, not media personalities, and Herzeg does a great job.

Re:How It's Made on Discovery Channel

[RubberDogBone]

They've redubbed Mark Tewksbury's voice starting with episodes aired mid-December onward.

Yay! His delivery was the voice equivalent of Keanu Reeves' acting, which is to say, like plywood. Lynn's voice has also been erased: a new narrator is replacing both of them. Alas, he's not a lot better than Mark. He sounds like he's asleep.

Anyway, they're just redubbing the same script so the horrible puns and bizarre Canada-only words remain. The episode where they show the assembly of a common PC (a P3 iirc, sh

Re:How It's Made on Discovery Channel

[pipingguy]

I always thought that Lynn's voice lent a certain amount of credibility to it all, since she was also apparently actually involved in the details and research.

The first time I checked the promised "how computers are made" description on Videotron's text explanation, I knew it would be bad.

All the amazingly high-speed machines that are featured seem to have rotation as the key motion.

Thank God for whoever invented the wheel!

Re:How It's Made on Discovery Channel

[agallagh42]

Speaking as a Canadian, I can say with authority that "commutator" is not a common word up here. I had to look it up as well. I don't know why they'd choose that word instead of "switch".

Coral to the rescue

[Saiyine]

Mirror of the video [nyud.net]

Coral has 50MB limit

[augustz]

From the FAQ:

"Because of bandwidth overuse, we temporarily capped off Coral to disallow transfers of files greater than 50 MB."

Perhaps this has changed though, otherwise you just bump over to the server again.

Um

[tomstdenis]

In Canada on the discovery channel we have a "how it's made" series that shows how things are manufactured in about the span of 6-8 minutes. ... welcome to 2001

Tom

Re:Um

[wfberg]

Erm, I recall watching stuff like this on Kid's TV. Sure, the products were more related to average kid's lives (how are cars made, how is bread made, things you see every day), but still.

Also, I seem to remember them not just from Dutch TV, but for some reason also off the German telly (Der Sendung mit Der Maus, IIRC).

Re:Um

[Comatose51]

Oh yeah?! Well here in the US on our Discovery channel we get shows about redecorating people's homes...

Re:Um

[pipingguy]

I think the parent post was an attempt at a plus 1 funny mod (or maybe is confusing TLC with Discovery?).

Re:Um

[Kallahar]

In the US, How it's Made is on the Science channel.

Re:Um

[Jeff DeMaagd]

In the US, I get that show on Discovery's Science Channel, which is offered on digital c-band and probably any digital cable or satellite. Ths show is pretty cool, but I don't think one company should have an exclusive on an idea like this.

Re:Um

[JeffTL]

Welcome to the 20th century in both Canada and the US. Ever heard of a show on public TV called "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood"? It featured (features, in fact, as I believe it is still in rerun) segments not unlike this, though the narration is targeted at the show's preschool audience.

The Music

[KingDaveRa]

I bet the music on this is nowhere NEAR as good/crap as the music on How It's Made. Even the announcer on Discovery has commented about it once or twice.

Re:Um

[pe1chl]

There used to be a (British) series called "the secret life of machines" on Discovery here that showed "how it works".
It was kind of like the Mythbusters, in that it always ended in destructing the topic of investigation using explosions and fireworks.

Re:Um

[RubberDogBone]

Secret Life of Machines = best. show. evar.

The series was a masterpiece. And I have to say, it's available on DVD now too.

35/6

[sam1am]

A 35 minute film broken up into 6 minute segments? Interesting.

made for TV

[relifram66]

Obviously this falls into the same category as the 42 minute hour.

Because we need a museum

[michaelmalak]

It's good that we have an online museum like this because we in the U.S. will need to remember how to manufacture again once China floats the Renminbi.

Re:Because we need a museum

[Heembo]

At least the US will still own the Intellectual Property! :)

How to do it...

[Ignominious Cow Herd]

Alan: Well last week, we showed you how to become a gynecologist. And this week on "How to Do It" we're going to show you how to play the flute, how to split an atom, how to construct a box girder bridge, how to irrigate the Sahara Desert and make vast new areas of land cultivatable, but first, here's Jackie to tell you all how to rid the world of all known diseases.

Jackie: Hello, Alan.

Alan: Hello, Jackie.

Jackie: Well, first of all, become a doctor and discover a marvellous cure for something, and then, when the medical profession really starts to take notice of you, you can jolly well tell them what to do and make sure they get everything right so there'll never be any diseases ever again.

Noel: Great, great, Alan. Well, next week we'll be showing you how black and white people can live together in peace and harmony, and Alan will be over in Moscow showing us how to reconcile the Russians and the Chinese. So until next week, cheerio!

All: Bye!

RE: -1 Flamebait

[Ignominious Cow Herd]

Mmmm...Christmas Crack

That's one jet airplane I won't be flying in

[alien-alien]

Anyone know how long it takes other manufacturers to make their jet airplanes?

Re:That's one jet airplane I won't be flying in

[jftitan]

skimming through the article's website, and noticing the whole jet airplane built. One thing came to mind. "If that jet can be made in 6 minutes, then I won't be stepping on one of those." oh and "What is the class number, and make of that jet, so I know which one to NEVER get in."

Re:That's one jet airplane I won't be flying in

[smellsofbikes]

If you're curious, you should check out the book "Free Flight" by James Fallows: it's largely about the building of the Cirrus (a composite airplane that's outselling Cessna in the small general aviation field) and the Eclipse. The Eclipse company was started by a couple Microsoft executives: they're planning on making jets for just about $1M. Cessna and Raytheon and others make comparable stuff starting at about twice that, although Adam Aircraft and a few others are hoping to field things similiar to th

Re:That's one jet airplane I won't be flying in

[GumphMaster]

Boeing (Renton) complete final assembly of a 737 in about 12 days on a production line that is constantly in motion. The line spits out in the order of 25 new aircraft a month.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/223741_air1 1.html [nwsource.com]

Paleolithic nonsense...

[Baldrson]

What is this nostalgia for making things?

When are all these paleolithic types going to recognize that loss of manufacturing is progress to a services economy [google.com] -- that deficits don't matter [google.com] and that there is a Santa Claus?

Show on Science Channel

[furry_wookie]

Doesnt anyone else watch the "How its made" show on the science channel?
http://science.discovery.com/ [discovery.com]
http://science.discovery.com/tvlistings/series.jsp ?series=103469&gid=0&channel=SCI [discovery.com]

"How its made" and "Survivorman" are two of the coolest shows on TV, you have GOT TO watch survivorman if you have not seen it yet. It rocks.

http://science.discovery.com/convergence/survivorm an/survivorman.html [discovery.com]

How it's Made

[scattol]

Discovery Canada (and Canal Z in french) show How it's Made [howitismade.net].

There is nothing to download, you can't purchase them on DVD either but maybe they are available somewhere on bittorent.

At 3 subjects per 24 minutes you get an entire 8 minutes (not 6!) dedicated to a specific topic.

Too bad Discovery US doesn't pick it up. Their loss!

Re:How it's Made

[Anonymous Coward]

The Science Channel (formerly Discovery Science) in the US has it, though.

I hear the one of ....

[gardyloo]

...how babies are made is especially interesting, but it's only 30 seconds.

Re:I hear the one of ....

[lysergic.acid]

Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't that short by about 9 months?

Baby != fetus != embryo

Direct Mirror

[augustz]

http://69.56.247.237/download/howitismade.m4v [69.56.247.237]

Re:Direct Mirror - pushing 100mb/s

[augustz]

Pushing 100mb/s which is my max. Probably best to hold off this one during the initial rush till Tues

Re:Direct Mirror - pushing 100mb/s

[nurmr]

how about people use the coral mirror of your direct link?

http://69.56.247.237.nyud.net:8090/download/howiti smade.m4v [nyud.net]

Re:Direct Mirror - pushing 100mb/s

[augustz]

You can't coral big files like this I don't think:

"Because of bandwidth overuse, we temporarily capped off Coral to disallow transfers of files greater than 50 MB. "

Maybe this has changed or the implementation no longer implements this limit?

Re:Direct Mirror - pushing 100mb/s

[nurmr]

yup, you're right. Pity.

Encyclopedia Britannica

[plopez]

Did some interesting documentories that I saw on PBS, probably done in the 70's. No narration, just let the images speak for themselves (and therefore, in theory, no language barriers). The one I am thinking about was about a slaughter house. It was very graphic and covered everything from the judas goat leading the sheep into the killing pens to chopping up the shanks and extracting the brains. It almost turned me into a vegetarian. But it was a good view of what a meat processing plant does.

Re:Encyclopedia Britannica

[Cruciform]

There's an interesting BBC documentary about Slaughterhouses and the people that work in them.

It's called "Task of Blood" and it pretty disturbing in places.

It's out there in torrent form, if you look hard enough.

Another site with manufacturing videos

[killerkalamari]

Stanford University hosts another cool free site with manufacturing videos, entitled "How Everyday Things Are Made"

http://manufacturing.stanford.edu/ [stanford.edu]

Here is the site's description:

"If you've ever wondered how things are made - products like candy, cars, airplanes, or bottles - or if you've been interested in manufacturing processes, like forging, casting, or injection molding, then you've come to the right place."

The videos play using Flash; some are longer than others. Since the videos are donated (they aren't made by Stanford) some of them spew a bit of propaganda, but overall they are excellent.

A 6 minute video of OSS software manufacturing...

[paj1234]

...would consist of very dark messy room with an unwashed dude eating pizza and scratching his bollocks...

6*x=35 ???

[Valcoramizer]

So, if it is in 6 minute segments, and is 35 minutes long, what happened to the last minute/what do they do with the extra 5 minutes?

mmm

[BlackShirt]

candy

6 Minutes = $2 per Part

[helfire57]

Just a FYI as a past owner of a similar type of business: take an average wage of $10 / hr and double it for all employee / employment related costs and a 6 minute part means that they can make ANYTHING (within reason for complexity) for about $2. They are trying to show (too subtle marketing in my opinion) that they can compete as a global player with China and India.

It IS possible.

Way to go guys!!!

Video Quality

[Alrescha]

Interested parties should note that the original M4V is of decent quality, however the MOV that people are referring to is not nearly as good. If you care about video quality, grab the original file (Quicktime will play it if you call it mp4).

A.

How you do it...

[LouisZepher]

Was I the only one that read the title and pictured John Cleese as the host?