Breaking the Bottleneck | Issue 55
[7/22/2024] Space X Bottleneck, HMLV Strategies, Agility + Spanx, & Augury State of Production Health
Breaking the Bottleneck is a weekly manufacturing technology newsletter with perspectives, interviews, news, funding announcements, manufacturing market maps, and a startup database!
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Content I Enjoyed Last Week 🏭🗞️🔬 📚
News:
What is next for Space X’s Falcon 9? [MIT Technology Review]
During a launch from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base, ice accumulation on the Falcon 9’s engine caused a liquid oxygen leak, leading to a malfunction that dropped satellites into a lower orbit than planned. The incident highlights the aerospace industry's heavy reliance on the Falcon 9, which, along with the Falcon Heavy, accounted for 83% of US launches in 2023. During a launch from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base, ice accumulation on the Falcon 9’s engine caused a liquid oxygen leak, leading to a malfunction that dropped satellites into a lower orbit than planned. Despite its excellent safety record, having launched over 300 times since 2010, the Falcon 9's recent issue underscores the inherent risks in rocket technology. MIT aerospace engineer Paulo Lozano attributes the rocket’s success to advanced engine technologies and additive manufacturing, though he acknowledges the challenges due to the extreme conditions in which rockets operate. “These engines produce more power than small cities, and they work in stressful conditions,” says Lozano. The grounding of Falcon 9 has significant implications for upcoming missions, including the Polaris Dawn, an all-private mission involving a spacewalk, and NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the ISS. The Europa Clipper mission to explore Jupiter’s moon may also face delays.
Improving Productivity in Low-Volume, High-Complexity Mfg [McKinsey]
Industrial companies producing low-volume, high-complexity (LV/HC) products, such as passenger airplanes, paper machines, forklifts, and construction cranes, face unique manufacturing challenges. These products, typically customized and produced in small quantities (between 10 and 10,000 units annually), are critical to customers' missions and come with high costs due to component expenses, stringent quality requirements, and the need for specialized manufacturing facilities and equipment. Labor costs are also significant, as fewer tasks can be automated. In commercial aerospace, the sector most disrupted by the pandemic, the demand increase has exacerbated existing backlogs. For instance, Airbus needs about ten years to fulfill its backlog of 7,200 A320 aircraft orders, while Boeing faces a similar ten-year timeline for its 4,800 737 aircraft orders. Increasing output is logical given the current demand, with aircraft production expected to rise significantly through 2029. McKinsey’s analysis identifies six critical focus areas for successfully scaling production: sales and operations planning, supply chain, inventory management, shop floor operations, talent, and change management. Companies excelling in these areas have increased production volumes by 10% and improved rework efficiency by 40%.
Tracking North American EV Battery Factory Construction [Techcrunch]
An excellent breakdown from Techcrunch on the investment from automakers and battery manufacturers resulting from the IRA. Specifically under Section 45X, where the production of battery cells qualifies for a credit of $35 per kilowatt-hour of capacity, and the production of battery modules qualifies for $10 per kilowatt-hour. Together, automakers and battery manufacturers promise to deliver an annual capacity of close to 1,200 gigawatt-hours before 2030 if each factory reaches maximum capacity. That’s roughly enough batteries for 18 million EVs, based on previous Tesla predictions that say about 100 GWh capacity can power around 1.5 million EVs.
How Will Autodesk Use AI for Product Design? [Engineering.com]
Stephen Hooper from Autodesk discusses AI integration in future Fusion product versions. Fusion's upcoming release will feature a drawing automation service, which automatically breaks down assemblies into parts and automatically creates layouts, scales, orientations, and annotations. This cloud-based service offers options for dimensioning, allowing user interaction to adjust dimensions to their preferences. Although it performs well in creating drawings, it currently lacks geometric tolerancing and dimensioning capabilities, which Autodesk is working on. To improve the AI model, Autodesk uses vast internal data on drawing specifications and styles and user interaction data to improve their models. For example, if a user adjusts a leader line, the model will be retrained to avoid the same error in the future. This iterative refinement aims to enhance the product's accuracy over time.
Here’s What it Could Cost to Hire a Digit Humanoid [Robot Report]
Humanoid robots, such as Agility Robotics' Digit, are entering commercial markets, sparking debates over their utility and business models. The first paying customer is Spanx. A small fleet of Digit robots has been deployed at Spanx's facility in Flowery Branch, Georgia, where they work alongside 6 River Systems' Chuck autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) to pick up and place totes onto conveyors. The operations are managed through Agility Arc, Agility Robotics' cloud automation platform. Agility Robotics charges $30 per hour for Digit, with an expected return on investment (ROI) for customers within two years. Depending on usage, this equates to an annual cost of about $262,800 per robot if operating continuously or $62,400 for a standard 40-hour work week. Digit has a battery life of up to eight hours, necessitating a 2-to-1 ratio of operating to charging units. However, Peggy Johnson (Agility CEO) mentioned that future improvements aim to increase this ratio to 4-to-1 or even 10-to-1, further enhancing ROI as battery costs decrease and hardware scales. Johnson also noted that Digit is progressing towards "functional safety" and may be able to work near humans within the next 18 months, a development that would represent a significant milestone.
Research:
The State of Production Health 2024 [Augury]
Augury released its second annual State of Production Health report. Below are some of the key insights from the report:
83% of industrial leaders are investing more in AI in 2024, up from 63% in 2023.
Twice as many respondents say they can quantify benefits for machine health/downtime (36% vs. 16%), and three times as many report impact to process health/maximizing yield and capacity (40% vs. 13%).
While manufacturers rank the supply chain as the top production obstacle (cited by 25% of respondents) and a significant AI use case (43%), industrial leaders’ lowest-ranked objective for leveraging AI remains.
Most (91%) industrial leaders worry that retiring veterans exacerbate the knowledge gap in manufacturing.
"Though AI has started proving its effectiveness, nine out of ten industrial leaders say that just 11-50% of their AI pilots have reached scale."
Behind the Firewall [MxD]
MXD’s survey offers insights into manufacturers' current state of cybersecurity preparedness. It identifies critical areas where they can benefit from additional guidance and support in strengthening their cybersecurity infrastructure. Below are some of the key insights from the report:
76% of manufacturers are confident their organization can prevent cyber risks and respond to cyber-attacks
Only 34% of manufacturers have comprehensive system security plans (SSPs) in place - a fundamental cybersecurity requirement and often required for compliance
Just 43% of all manufacturers have a dedicated cybersecurity leader, such as a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) or Director of Cybersecurity
The disparity is stark when compared by size: 88% of large manufacturers (500+ employees) have such leaders, compared to 35% of small- and medium-sized manufacturers (fewer than 500 employees)
Encouragingly, 82% of manufacturers are planning to raise cybersecurity spending in the upcoming budget cycle
Podcasts/Video:
Onshoring Clean Energy Manufacturing [My Climate Journey]
Manufacturing Deals🏭💵
Nearfield Instruments - A dutch company building metrology and inspection solutions for chipmakers
$135 million [Series C] - Co-led by Walden Catalyst & Temasek and joined by Innovation Industries, Invest-NL, and ING M&G Investments.
Standard Bots - A company that designs and assembles collaborative robotic arms alongside its own transformer model
$63 million [Series B] - Led by General Catalyst and joined by Amazon Industrial Innovation Fund and Samsung Next
Peak Energy - A company making sodium ion batteries
$55 million [Series A] - CLed by Temasek and joined by Eclipse, TDK Ventures, Lachy Groom, Tishman Speyer, TechEnergy Ventures, Doral Energy-Tech Ventures, and DETV-Scania Invest
Doinstruct - A german company building a training platform for frontline workers
$7.6 million [Seed] - Led by Creandum
Planned Downtime 🏭🧑🔧
Team USA & the Olympics!