[HN Gopher] Industrial photographer Christopher Payne spotlights...
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Industrial photographer Christopher Payne spotlights the good in
American labor
Author : speckx
Score : 155 points
Date : 2025-01-06 14:04 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scopeofwork.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scopeofwork.net)
| ggm wrote:
| A couple of other industrial photographers worth looking at:
|
| Maurice Broomfield: https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/maurice-
| broomfield-industr...
|
| Wolfgang Sievers:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=WOLFGANG+SIEVERS&sourceid=ch...
|
| And the one mentioned in the article (Alfred Palmer)
|
| https://www.sfomuseum.org/exhibitions/women-work-world-war-i...
| 0xEF wrote:
| Thank you for this. I had no idea there was such a thing as an
| "industrial photographer" let alone several.
|
| I work in the manufacturing sector and there are times, despite
| the grime, frustrations with management/bureaucracy or general
| environmental concerns that I find what we do quite beautiful,
| in a way. When you see the choreographed dance of a production
| line, be it the size of a building or a small automation cell,
| it's really quite something that we were able to put that all
| in motion without catastrophic failure. The photo of the Global
| Foundry is really something, illustrating the intricate
| complexities I have encountered in so many factories that just
| look like monolithic beige boxes from the outside, housing
| virtual cities of activity within.
| jefc1111 wrote:
| I saw the Maurice Broomfield exhibition and have the book of
| the same name (Industrial Sublime), which is still widely
| available and recommended for anyone interested in this area.
|
| On the same visit to the V&A I also saw some of Bernd and Hilla
| Becher's work (water towers etc) which has since sent me on a
| journey of discovery of The Dusseldorf School of Photography.
| The style of some photographers from this genre (especially the
| Bechers, Andreas Gursky, Candida Hofer) may well appeal to
| anyone interested in industrial photography, while perhaps not
| strictly of the same genre. I am headed to a small Candida
| Hofer exhibition in London this weekend. Definitely have been
| enjoying this particular rabbit hole immensely!
| ggm wrote:
| It may be one of these who do post industrial, smelter
| towers, decaying mine shafts.
|
| There's another one who photographs electricity pylons.
| Stunning shots, b&w.
| spieswl wrote:
| Great links, thank you for this.
| dcrazy wrote:
| It's slightly funny that your last link is to the website of a
| museum at SFO airport. I like SFO a lot for having such
| installations and an overall calm vibe.
| anon291 wrote:
| Any advice or resources on how to scale a manufacturing business
| other than outsource it all to China? I have some ideas of things
| I can make myself, but then when it comes to shipping them off to
| a factory in Shenzen, I lose interest.
| SteveVeilStream wrote:
| There are a lot of categories of products where it still makes
| sense to do the manufacturing close to the customer. Take a
| look at the window industry for example.
|
| There is still a lot of manufacturing in North America, both
| small and large. Zoom into the industrial area of any major
| center and start looking at names to get some ideas.
|
| There are also some folks that are trying to break the mold
| entirely. Check out https://www.srtxlabs.com/
| _glass wrote:
| This is a really good idea. This spatial exploration seems to
| be a normal thing, here for my location in Hamburg, Germany:
| https://hamburg-business.com/en/commercial-real-
| estate/comme...
| grp wrote:
| Nearly without joking: Karl Marx..
|
| As you seem to want to acquire or manage the means of
| production: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production
| anon291 wrote:
| Well yeah, I'm a capitalist. A good capitalist wants
| centralized control of the means of production, like the
| communists.
|
| They're just honest in their intentions
| michaelt wrote:
| One option is contract manufacturing - which avoids the need
| for you to set up your own factory and hire your own employees.
|
| At least in the electronics sector, there are contract
| manufacturers in the west that are happy to deal with small-to-
| medium-volume production runs.
|
| Their websites will sometimes make them sound a bit aloof,
| making out they're big and high tech and expensive, but that's
| just marketing. If an electronics contract manufacturer says
| they work in aerospace, defence and security, medical, oil and
| gas and their website has photos of jet fighters and operating
| theatres? What they really mean is they're set up for
| production runs as small as a few hundred items, they're happy
| to deal with a bit of bureaucracy on your end, and they'll
| guarantee they won't cut corners (like substituting components
| with cheaper or more easily available ones) unless you tell
| them to.
|
| A catch, of course, is the minimum orders involved. Automated
| assembly machines may have the same running costs regardless of
| the wages of the country they're in - but those machines need
| to be set up and reconfigured when changing between orders. I
| don't know what wizardry lets PCBWay offer surface mount PCB
| assembly for $30 for 20 boards, but you can't match it while
| paying western skilled worker wages. So if you ask a western
| contract manufacturer for <300 boards, the price will be
| substantially more expensive than Chinese manufacturing.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| I imagine the wizardry is an industrial robot and some custom
| software
| pjc50 wrote:
| > surface mount PCB assembly for $30 for 20 boards
|
| Often uneconomical to set up pick and place for just 20
| boards. Quite often the wizardry is a little middle-aged
| Chinese lady who wields a vacuum tweezer like a chopstick,
| from 9am to 9pm six days a week.
| michaelt wrote:
| Manual assembly is indeed a common practice.
|
| But it's skilled work, so it'll be paying skilled wages.
| And you need an inspection step - especially if you're
| working with BGAs and other difficult components.
| Presumably for $30 they're shipping out boards without
| doing a power-on test - which makes visual/x-ray
| inspection even more important.
|
| And even when the assembly is manual, you've still got to
| get the right parts to the right assembly station at the
| right time. Can't be putting in a 5% 10k 0805 resistor if
| the design calls for 1%.
|
| Even with manual assembly, if they're making a profit at
| the prices they're charging they must be running a very
| efficient operation indeed.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Thats where the custom software comes in - you can
| program a robot to move in a pattern through setting it
| or through sending coordinates to it (I have done that as
| part of a job).
|
| You could have software that converts the instructions
| for the PCB into instructions for the robot to do pick
| and place.
| krisoft wrote:
| It is probably not the full answer. I think they are just
| willing to go the extra mile for what we here in the west
| would consider "not much money".
|
| Just few weeks ago I ordered my first design from pcbway.
| (Both first order from them, and the first PCB I ever
| designed.)
|
| Turns out I was a muppet and made multiple mistakes with my
| component footprints/selection. One of the connectors just
| simply didn't fit, the other connector was colliding with a
| resistor and an IC next to it. Complete shambles and
| absolutely my mistake.
|
| They were super nice about it. Sent a detailed excel sheet
| with photos and arrows on the photos illustrating the
| problems. The sheet had detailed english description of
| what is wrong and they even had suggestion how they could
| "bodge" things to still get it working as well as they can
| given my design mistakes.
|
| We exchanged emails about options and eventually figured
| out the best way to do it. They did as good a job as they
| could with my faulty design and now I'm a happy owner of
| the assembled PCBs.
|
| The whole thing cost $85 for my five boards, components,
| and assembly. (I think shipping was not included in that
| price.) Which is "not a lot of money" where I am , and I
| would certainly not go to this much trouble for that much.
|
| What I'm saying with this story is that "industrial robot
| and some custom software" doesn't get you this part of the
| service. Where someone messages you back and forth to
| figure out how to salvage the poxy design sent by someone
| incompetent like me.
| Danieru wrote:
| Sounds like the classic strategy of good-customer-
| service.
|
| 85$ is not a lot of money in China either. Double so for
| English speaking help. Triple so when you get assembled
| PCBs at the end.
|
| The theory I've heard is that where American business
| culture prioritizes profit, Chinese businesses are
| chasing market share. Thus you get combinations like
| Rumba and Kin Yat. Roomba subcontracts all manufacturing
| to China, earns incredible gross margins, while the
| Chinese manufacturer is free to make competitors. In time
| the competitors tech reaches and exceeds the original.
| Now Roomba is left with low/mid tier product lines and
| Chinese companies control the majority market share.
|
| Great while it lasted. Lots of profits for over a decade.
| The profit maxing strategy just lacks a future.
| pphysch wrote:
| > The profit maxing strategy just lacks a future.
|
| That's pretty much it. The best way to make a strict
| "profit" in many cases is to buy large messy bundles of
| assets/debts (companies), destroy the integration, and
| sell off the individual assets; that is, the private
| equity playbook.
|
| But destroying is easy, building is hard.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Completely different kind of business but I have a friend
| who runs a small business doing industrial print work
| (stickers, metal plates with serial numbers/qr codes,
| etc.). Pretty niche but very interesting. He uses premium
| materials and machines and rapid response times to
| customers is one of his key selling points. Next day
| deliveries and those kinds of things via premium delivery
| services. Business is going well for him and I've talked
| a lot to him about how he runs things.
|
| His machines are expensive (hundreds of thousands of
| euros) and his key challenge is keeping those busy and
| having redundant capacity when they break down or need
| servicing. Meaning that he has a lot of idling machines.
| He's mostly floorspace constrained and he just doubled
| his floor space so he can get more machines and improve
| utilization.
|
| So, I asked him if he was going to get more people as
| well. And to my surprise his answer was, not really. The
| machines do most of the work. Setting them up is not his
| biggest challenge. Availability of the machines is.
| That's why he's doubling floor space. He was estimating
| that he would be able to operate the new machines with
| the same staff. Most of what they do is preparing print
| jobs, supplying materials, packaging up finished stuff,
| etc. Having more space simply means he can respond
| faster.
|
| He also went through the process to become iso certified.
| Meaning he has quality control and processes. Basically
| any machine downtime costs him money. So, he has at least
| two of each. And he's good at small batch sizes. He has a
| lot of repeat customers that order small batches
| regularly. For example, cutting out metal plates means he
| has to put in a big metal sheet. Regardless of whether
| it's 3 or 300 metal plates that are being ordered. He's
| going to sacrifice at least one of those sheets. But he
| can do some clever things with combining orders from
| different customers in one print job (he's a software
| guy) which works around this. And he has supplies of pre-
| cut plates for his repeat customers that are ready for
| printing when they order 2 more plates. They pay for
| quality and speed. A lot of his competitors are slower.
|
| There's a fixed overhead per job (set up time, packaging,
| customer support, etc.). But he's good at that stuff and
| gives a lot of quality support to his customers. Big
| batches mean he utilizes the machines for longer and that
| they generate more revenue. His staff can use the time to
| prepare the next job and take care of customers. A lot of
| the small stuff ends up being bundled up.
|
| I imagine electronics manufacturing contracting is a bit
| similar to this.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Are you trying to have a product made? Or are you really just
| interested in the manufacturing process itself?
|
| It depends on the product, obviously. For many things you have
| domestic manufacturing options, but people either overlook them
| or immediately seek out the cheapest alternative (often China).
| There are small contract manufacturers all over the United
| States.
|
| Doing your own manufacturing of electronic goods is a common
| trap for people with just enough experience to know that it's
| possible. Nearly everyone who has done it will recommend
| against it. You have to choose if you want to be in the
| business of making and selling a product, or in the business of
| setting up and operating a lot of difficult manufacturing
| machines and processes. People who try to do both at the same
| time usually get overwhelmed, delayed, and burned out.
| anon291 wrote:
| Interested in the manufacturing process itself
| pencerw wrote:
| (note: i wrote the link in the OP)
|
| as it happens, i spent about a decade working on an electronic
| product that, for complex reasons, wasn't suitable for
| outsourcing overseas. i wrote a reasonably long and detailed
| post about this process recently, which you can find here:
| https://scopeofwork.net/proof/ i also wrote about it a bunch on
| my personal blog; you can find the relevant posts here:
| https://pencerw.com/feed?tag=thepublicradio
| bsder wrote:
| Look for any and all of the sponsors/people who work with the
| Battlebots groups.
|
| While some of them are big names (Solidworks) you will also
| find lots of little guys flagged in there who are doing the
| contract manufacturing.
|
| But, it won't be $100 like China. Expect minimum NRE of about
| $5K to make it worthwhile to them.
|
| And, please understand that, even so, you are still an
| unprofitable nuisance--so be _SUPER_ polite when dealing with
| them. Also please understand that the manufacturer talking to
| you is at the top of a pyramid of problems being caused by your
| choices, part manufacturers, material suppliers, etc.--their
| bad day is generally due to everybody else (including you!)
| However, since you are dealing with real people fact to face
| and being really nice, you will find that they often will go an
| extra mile for you that you would never get otherwise.
|
| (One shop I worked with had yield problems on assembling a
| board. It turned out the big manufacturer created a really
| brain damaged part whose footprint just sucked terribly--it was
| so bad that the EOLd the part and changed the footprint. We had
| ordered 100 boards expecting that we needed
|
| Any company willing to deal with you at low volumes should be
| treated like you have found gold nuggets--because you have.
| SteveVeilStream wrote:
| I had an opportunity to do some industrial work while putting
| myself through university. I do wish there were more
| opportunities to do industrial work on a part time, temporary, or
| casual basis. There is something particularly rewarding about
| working with your hands as a part of a team and in combination
| with a large machine to produce something tangible.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| My first job was as technician, then, as an EE (well, I lie, my
| first job was as a dishwasher, at a nursing home, but that was
| when I was 16).
|
| The nice thing about that job, was that I got to do both the
| hardware and the software. In my case, I designed the
| electronics, and things like the chassis, so I was working with
| the metalshop, and whatnot.
|
| I linked to my first project, in a previous post:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42637454
| spieswl wrote:
| I fell into industrial work right out of undergrad as a EE, not
| intending to work in the rust belt or manufacturing or anything
| of the like. I erroneously assumed it was not important, not
| sexy, not interesting. How wrong that was.
|
| How things are made is so important, not only for our society
| but also as learning experiences for engineers, planners,
| logicticians, and more. As a career roboticist, the time I
| spent in the manufacturing industry seems invaluable to me now.
| surfingdino wrote:
| Also worth looking at: Bernd and Hilla Becher
| https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-photographer-c...
| maCDzP wrote:
| What a lovely community, right up my alley. Thank you!
| cratermoon wrote:
| Is it just me or does anyone else read the headline as damning,
| with faint praise, the state of labor in America? Think Amazon
| warehouse workers, Wal*Mart retail employees, UPS delivery
| drivers, and the entire gig economy.
| criddell wrote:
| The title on HN is the subtitle of the article. The main title
| is "The Honorable Parts".
| kepano wrote:
| It has become so easy to live life abstracted from all the
| manufacturing, farming, and logistics that makes it possible. As
| technology increases leverage, and allows things to become more
| complex, it feels like we're constantly getting farther away from
| understanding how the world works.
|
| Photography like this is necessary to remind us of everything we
| take for granted. I talked to Chris Payne once. He's a genius. To
| me he is today's Margaret Bourke-White. It takes more than a good
| eye to get those photographs. There are so many talents coming
| together.
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