43. Manufacturing an estimate: Manufacturing vs Software Engineering

December 8, 2021

This week our heroes ask why software teams are often treated like they're working on a manufacturing shop floor. They also ponder if replicators might make manufacturing more like software.

Are manufacturing and software engineering really all that different? What if there were more similarities than might seem on the surface?

When we think about manufacturing, we often focus on the production: The assembly lines, the conveyor belts, the tools, and the safety equipment. But there’s a critical step that comes first. The design.

Before anything can be mass produced, market research is conducted, digital designs are made, prototypes are produced, feedback is gathered.

That’s not too dissimilar from software, is it?

Now imagine you’re in the year 2364. Replicators can instantly manufacture anything you can imagine. Now manufacturing is just like software. ?#mindblown.

Topics:
• 00:44 – Derek and his dips
• 02:40 – What is the manufacturing process like?
• 03:20 – The people financing early software projects were already involved with big industrial projects.
• 05:39 – All of our circumstances are different.
• 06:33 – We always end up doing what we know.
• 06:56 – What is different about software?
• 08:44 – Pretty much all of software is similar to the design phase of manufacturing.
• 09:56 – What’s different is how we deliver our products to people.
• 11:19 – In software, we can change our products almost instantly.
• 12:56 – How similar was early software development to manufacturing?
• 14:25 – The internet changed everything.
• 15:20 – How many people are still in charge that have been around since the days of disk drives and on-premise?
• 17:34 – The medium has changed, but our brains didn’t all change at the same time.
• 18:00 – Truly great software can be changed as quickly as possible. This is new.
• 18:36 – what happens when we try to apply software principles to manufacturing?
• 19:56 – How do we change the manufacturing mindset?
• 22:37 – Understand every way your system can change.
• 25:23 – As technology increases manufacturing becomes more like software.
• 27:42 – Star Trek has already figured this out.
• 28:17 – Because tachyons

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Episode thumbnail by Remy Gieling on Unsplash