Word: processing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Chinese peasants. Instead of shipping the tubs from California, you simply ship the VEC unit, or cell. To make the tubs, two composite skins are draped over a foam model, and a thermochemical reaction causes them to harden into shape. (Because no metal bending is involved and the "thermoset" process uses chemistry, not immense heat, the molds cost a fraction of the conventional version.) The skins are then attached to a universal frame. The cell is closed and filled with pressurized water, which braces the skins together. Then composite materials are injected into the mold and catalyzed, causing the materials...
...Kirila sold his company to fitness giant Cybex and started Pyramid Operating Systems. That's when he and his engineering chief, Bob McCollum, devised a software program to control each step in the manufacturing process. A company offered them a lucrative contract to build storm drains, but Pyramid didn't have the $2 million needed to fashion or tool the proper steel mold to shape the pipe. That's when McCollum came up with a startlingly simple--and cheap--idea. Instead of a metal mold, why not fashion two pieces of composite in the shape of the product, inject...
...accounts, the gamble has already proved worthwhile. For 25 years, the Genmar factory at Little Falls, Minn., has used the same caustic, grubby process to churn out Wellcraft and Glastron fiber-glass runabouts. Men and women in blue coveralls layer or spray fiber glass over each hull. Half-finished boats are scattered around the warehouse, overshadowed by stacks of used molds. The stench of styrene is overpowering. The manual layering process is so imprecise that each hull is different; imperfections have to be corrected by hand...
...process could reorder manufacturing because it allows low-volume manufacturers to cut retooling costs for new products. If the boatbuilding example is any indication, it could mean labor reductions of up to 50%. Most of all, it shows that intellectual capital can be transmitted anywhere to make anything...
...Klumps have bigger roles in Nutty II. "The process was algebraic from a scheduling standpoint," says director Peter Segal. Of 85 shooting days on the sequel, about 75 required Murphy to play a Klump. (To give Murphy's face time off from adhesives, a Klump-free day was scheduled each Wednesday.) It took an average of four hours to sculpt Murphy into a Klump--via foam-rubber facial appliances that had to be replaced each day and kept consistent through months of filming--then hours more for the end-of-day Klump-ectomy. "The edges are so thin...