2018-05-28

Planning & Strategy.

• The city of Shenzhen is on a crazy tear, pushing a lot of the vehicles on its streets to be converted to EVs. By the end of 2018, all taxis and 20,000 light diesel trucks will be replaced with electrics, and 5,200 taxi charging stations will be built.
• Andy Rubin's Essential Products is up for sale, having spent about a third of the $300MM they raised.
• Some data on acquisition multiples for manufacturing businesses - 5.8-7.3x EBITDA, depending on size and whether or not the acquirer was making an add-on acquisition.

Making & Manufacturing.

• A patent for being sure how much you've polished a workpiece by first scribing marks of known depths and then periodically checking to see whether you've polished off the scribe marks.
• Additive Works' new Amphyon release claims to "include an automated process for first-time-right support generation for Laser Beam Melting." This is some highly multidimensional optimization; I'd be interested to hear reviews.

Maintenance, Repair & Operations.

• NYC Transit's new chief, Andy Byford, unveiled a big plan to upgrade all of NYC's lines to CBTC, buy a bunch of new cars, and make a series of ADA compliance and other upgrades. Both Emma Fitzsimmons' (NYT) and Dan Rivoli's (Daily News) coverage of this is good. I also recommend Aaron Gordon's Signal Problems this week, which includes additional MTA & NYC politics updates.
• Related, the MTA's elevators continue to not work well, partly due to the fact that the agency has over a hundred unfilled elevator repair positions unfilled. "The number of elevator installer and repairer positions in the metropolitan area increased from just below 2,500 workers in 2012 to about 3,800 in 2016. During that time, hourly base wages in the private sector increased as the MTA’s wages remained flat. By 2016, there was about a $9 difference — $43.39 in the private sector, compared to $34.50 at the MTA."

Distribution & Logistics.

• A very good, thorough piece on Seattle's bus system - which, having never ridden it, comes across as remarkably effective and which the city has put an admirable amount of investment into recently. "The percent of Seattle households within a 10-minute walk of 10-minute or better transit service—the city’s established metric for judging success—grew from 25 percent in 2015 to 64 percent in 2017."
• The US trucking market is still tight, moving some shippers to rail. You'll recall that truckers often move to other low-skill jobs when the labor market gets hot, and that in addition the trucking industry is still adapting to new federal rules requiring electronic monitoring devices.
• Photos of dockless bike & scooter share parking spaces, which apparently are being created by the cities of Seattle and Austin.
• The port of Charleston South Carolina exported more than it imported last month, partly due to BMW shipping partly assembled cars to emerging markets to avoid import duties there.
• More ships, carrying more sorghum, doing more U-turns as Chinese trade policies flip-flop in response to the US.

Inspection, Testing & Analysis.

• Although they publicly maintained the opposite for years, "one of the major concerns Apple identified prior to launching the [iPhone 6 and 6 Plus] was that they were ‘likely to bend more easily when compared to previous generations.'"
• Apparently Ford's Chariot vans (which are often seen around Greenpoint, Brooklyn and which seem to target yuppie commuters who have inconvenient subway commutes) are driving around mostly (or completely) empty. Worse yet, they have to contend with traffic on the Williamsburg Bridge - which routinely sucks.

Tangents.

• America is losing the battle against robocalls.
• A short history & status update on the pint glass.

NASA's Curiosity drilled its first hole in Mars since October 2016.