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Chinese Manufacturing, Part 2: Getting It Right
While the last entry saw me complaining about an example of shoddy Chinese manufacturing, now we'll look at an example of Chinese manufacturing might. In this six-minute video currently making the blog rounds, we see an astonishing feat of design, engineering and execution: The 30-story T30 Hotel constructed in Hunan Province, taking just 15 days to erect.
Constructed by China's Broad Sustainable Building, a pioneer in prefabricated buildings, the hotel is made from neatly prefabricated parts. (Some ninety percent of the building's components were pre-assembled.) And it's no ordinary building, but boasts some seriously impressive credentials: It will reportedly withstand a 9.0-magnitude earthquake; it has quadruple-glazed windows and other green touches resulting in five times the energy efficiency of an ordinary building; the building's air purification system results in air that is 20 times cleaner than it is outside; and the entire structure was erected while yielding construction waste of just 1%.With stats and documentation like this, it's no surprise that the video has yielded 4 million hits and counting.
The fact that China can produce structures like this at that speed, but cannot or will not make a simple sewing machine handwheel correctly, reminds me of the old American complaint from the '70s that people would utter after minor American product failures: "They can put a man on the moon, but they can't make [TV knobs that don't break / a toilet where you don't have to jiggle the handle / a car that doesn't need to go into the shop every month / etc.]"
What we'll look at in the next entry is an even more impressive—and chilling, to competitors—facet of Chinese manufacturing that will propel them into the future.
Chinese Manufacturing:
» Part 1: Getting It Wrong
» Part 2: Getting It Right
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Comments
pre-fab houses are a topic in germany, but it aint "huge". most of the houses and buildings are still build traditionally "on spot". People build houses cause they want to have something individual. same goes for companies where they often need something tailor made for their kind of production line.
despite that, the reputation of prefabs is less then stellar. a lot of people complain about badly designed houses; leaking, moulding, and being uninhabitable in general.
nevertheless, it seems to be the perfect solution for ordinary office buildings or cheap hotels, where individual solutions are no big issue or people don't stay for long.
cheers, w
What would you think of buying an automobile that had to be made by a bunch of workers coming to your home and assembling it on your driveway? Not very logical, wot?
We built a cottage by premanufacturing 4x8 foot sections in a jig on our basement floor, each complete with whatever - door, window, wiring ... the works. Then we took the sections two at a time 173 miles to our lake on the roof of our car and over a period of two summer months we built the cottage shell complete except for the roof by simply standing the sections in the appropriate places and nailing them down. This could be done infinitely better on an industrial scale, with the right trucks, handling equipment, etc. backed up in a factory making 20 cottages a day - or Lego-type rooms for a house, whatever.
In fact I'd be surprised if that isn't being done right now by firms specializing in prefabbing. Not being anywhere near that biz, I wouldn't know. Does any reader of this know... ?
F.
Color me skeptical. This really doesn't paint a different picture that the one we already have.
I'm not convinced.
And consider the better working conditions and perhaps even quality of the work if your carpenters, etc. are working in a climate controlled environment. No weather-related slowdowns (except maybe at the final install stage).