The Hardware Hacker

2. inside three very different factories

It’s hard to understand how a computer works without opening it and looking around inside. Likewise, it’s hard to understand how products are made without going into a factory and touring the line. Although we often think of manufacturing as the necessary but boring step after innovation, in reality, the two are tightly coupled. An inventor thinks about a product once; a factory thinks about the same product day in and day out, sometimes for years on end.

The importance of factories as an innovation node is only growing in today’s connected global economy. The reality is that there is no “Apple factory” or “Nike factory.” Rather, there is a series of facilities that are domain experts in processes (such ...