2018-07-16

Planning & Strategy.

• Xometry acquired MakeTime. Xometry's big claim to fame is an instant quoting system which works with most of the many manufacturing processes they offer. Historically, they have acted as something of a hybrid job shop/marketplace, making some parts in-house and shopping others out to third party suppliers. MakeTime, meanwhile, was a pure platform, primarily targeting manufacturers who wanted to increase utilization by taking on contract jobs. The new entity claims to be "the industry’s single largest [manufacturing] platform," and stands in contrast to Proto Labs' and Plethora's in-house approaches.
• Tesla signed a deal with the Shanghai city government that allows them to build a factory there without entering into a joint venture with a local firm. "A Tesla spokesman said it would take about two years until the factory begins producing vehicles, and another two to three years before the facility is hitting its annual capacity of 500,000 vehicles." Recall, Tesla's weekly 5k-unit production target of Model 3s adds up to 260,000 of those (plus an additional ~104k S and X models) per year.
• Rocket Lab is looking for a US launch site to augment their operation in New Zealand.
• Boeing apparently issued a formal RFQ for engines for the 797, a new midrange commercial airplane. The plane would have an oval cross section and would be designed to make money not only at purchase time but throughout its lifecycle. "The 797 would complement another Boeing initiative to take more work in-house, from luxury seats to auxiliary power units. Doing so gives Boeing rights to sell the spare parts for those components over a jet’s 30-year commercial life."

Making & Manufacturing.

• On the challenges in keeping Ebola vaccines *very* cold in remote locations, and how Intellectual Ventures tackled them.
• Australia has a space agency, and it is headed by a female scientist: Dr. Megan Clark, a geologist, former head of CSIRO, and Rio Tinto board member.
• A company called SolidEnergy says they'll sell the first semisolid lithium ion batteries this year, targeting the drone market.

Maintenance, Repair & Operations.

• On the post-auto lifecycle for lithium ion batteries, which may have many years of utility as power backup cells.
• Paris' Gare du Nord station, the busiest train station in Europe, is getting €600MM in expansion and improvements.
• The Army Corps of Engineers have proposed five options for protecting New York harbor, four of which involve berms and enormous seawalls/gates across the entrance to the harbor.

Distribution & Logistics.

• A bill in the California legislature would create a single power organization that would span the West Coast, ideally (but not definitely) allowing them to load balance more easily and get better utilization out of their renewable resources.
• An update on the insane growth of Chinese subway systems.
• Photos of NYC's dollar vans, aka jitneys.

Inspection, Testing & Analysis.

• Honeybees have the ability to sense gravity, but they disregard it when choosing an orientation from which to build honeycomb.
• Ben @ Bolt tears down a Sonos and an Echo and ends up going short on Sonos' upcoming IPO. Before you read the article, I recommend asking yourself how bullish you are on voice control. If you were running Sonos, how much of it would you be willing to wager on your future customers' willingness to talk to their electronics? And if the answer to that is "all of it," would you change your mind if that strategy would only be a success if you beat Jeff Bezos out of something that the clearly cares about? As you might expect, I'm ambivalent about each of these questions, though Ben's notes on their high COGS (and the fact that, as this article describes, Amazon has many forms of leverage on Sonos) would probably have me be short Sonos as well.
• An analysis of predominant street orientations in cities across the US and the world. I think I've mentioned it here before, but Kevin Lynch's The Image of the City (referenced in the US piece) makes visiting new places quite fun.
• An argument against touch screens and audio control in cars.
• A technical study on how metal powders flow.

Tangents.

• Thanks to Gemma for including The Prepared in her 30 Newsletters she couldn't live without!

A short film on the Mauritania Railway, which brings iron ore and fish across the Sahara.