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calvinmorrisonyesterday at 6:58 PM1 replyview on HN

Factories, were like that. Giant Mills, Planing machines, vacuum forming tooling, welding stations, etc. Configurable, yes. Tooling, yes. It's why ford, singer and a hundred other american factories could start making bombs, guns and anything during WW2. You had machinists who could read a drafting diagram, and drafters who could draft anything up.

Today, could we do that? probably not. Not even - we don't have the basic bootstrapping tools in capacities needed, we don't have a wide group of people with the skillset.

So yes, you can make anything in a factory designed to make mostly anything

With specialization, especially like in the auto industry, you'll have one shop in mexico that gets an order 6 weeks ahead of time and has to deliver down to the day on the production schedule of ford to supply say a car headrest, and thats it. So, could we... today... maybe?


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tsssyesterday at 7:07 PM

China can do it. No car that leaves a factory there is the same. Everything automated and yet customizable.

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