How it's made

[Tai Fu]

Does anyone here watch that show? If you do has anyone noticed any obviously dangerous things happening?

I saw one about barber chairs, a worker feeds a piece of steel plate into a roller to bend it into a circle, and that guy's hand looks like it was seconds from being drawn in and crushed, since the roller seems a bit fast.

[Bruce Page]

It's one of my favorite shows. Coming from a research laboratory environment a lot of what they do makes me cringe a little, but it is real world production. I am often amazed at how much work goes into making things that we take for granted.

[Tai Fu]

Or how much technology it takes to produce seemingly cheap items...

[Brian W Smith]

Love watching the show from a sort of twisted viewpoint.I am a student of shop design(have built a bunch,professionally) and have to get past certain embarrassments........how safety works with shop profile and it's general flow.Taking a pce of plywood and using it as a scatter shield between work stations not only increases safety,if done correctly it serves the equipment as part of their overall stations....and costs about a 1/2 sheet?Putting freakin tape on the floor to keep people the heck out of my work station?Priceless.

[John McClanahan]

I think a lot of what you see is prototype, or one off production so you can see the steps clearly. It also allows the manufacturer to not show the real manufacturing, and company secrets.

John

[Jim Matthews]

My wife derides the show as "Romper Room for grown men".
(Those of you not old enough to get the reference likely have your phones out, already.)

The first years were really interesting, with advance processes on display.
As they go along, the material gets a little less involved...


"How it's made - Soap."
"How it's made - Mulch."
"How it's made - Dirt."

[Bill Huber]

I like the show and DVR it all the time and then set and watch it when I get a chance. I agree there are somethings that I see that look a little unsafe but I guess the company has never had a visit from OSHA,

I do think it is funny at times when the guy that narrates it makes a statement about a punch press and the guy on the show is using a break.

I guess what gets me the most is some of the machines that are built that do some of the neatest things, like the chain making machine.

[John Pratt]

The products made are not what amazes me on that show; it is how complex some of the machinery is to produce seemingly simple items. The number of tasks that one machine can produce in the assembly process. I want to see a "How Its Made" on the machine in the plant that makes the products. Some engineers are truely blessed to be able to see the necessity and process in their head, put it to paper/design, and have a complex machine in the end.

[Tai Fu]

Actually some of those machines are just amazing. For example machines that heat seals and packages products at the same time while the parts are moving at like 3000 rpm, shooting completed products at that speed without missing a beat. Though I do see products like that (individually wrapped chopsticks, forks, toothpicks, etc.) where the product is completely missing (empty heat sealed package)... so I suppose when things happen that fast mistakes do happen.

[Matt Meiser]

A few of my clients have been featured on those shows. In those cases you really are seeing how its made. One client that was on there they used high speed photography then slowed down so you can see the process. Normally it happens so fast you can't even see the product.

The processes for making bottles, potato chips, etc are pretty similar from company to company. Often they are using the same equipment from a 3rd party--for example just about every bottle making or bottling plant I've been in has equipment from Krones. The secrets are in their formulas and process conditions. Sometimes they do internal R&D or work with an equipment manufacturer to make custom equipment for revolutionary ideas.

[Tai Fu]

Often if there's a secret they will say so. I suspect in food service the process is all the same, it's the ingredients that are secret.

[Dan Hunkele]

The quantities they make are mind boggling too. Example: We can make 3,000 screw drivers and hour, okay where do they all go?

[Mel Fulks]

I think the the old INDUSTRY ON PARADE films were much better. Hate the "music" they use on HIM. Dislike the style of
voice over and tendency to only explain what is obvious.

[Michael W. Clark]

Like Matt said, it is cool to see places I have been to and customers. I have seen a few on Dirty Jobs too when they go to manufacturing plants.

[Brian Elfert]

The lack of safety equipment is evident on many TV where things are made. On DIY type shows they often remove the safety devices on purpose. Other shows the workers don't use proper face shields or safety glasses.

I toured a plant many years ago that made pallets from logs. They rotary sliced the logs like you would for veneer to get the thin boards for the tops and bottoms of pallets. Every single guard was removed in the entire plant. They said it took two weeks to prep for a scheduled OSHA inspection. They wouldn't fare too well with an unscheduled inspection. I wonder if they gained enough productivity between inspections to justify the time lost re-installing the guards.

[Curt Harms]

I like the show and DVR it all the time and then set and watch it when I get a chance. I agree there are somethings that I see that look a little unsafe but I guess the company has never had a visit from OSHA,
..................................


I agree, one of the best shows on T.V. The companies being filmed may not be in the U.S. or Canada and may not be subject to governmental safety regulations for whatever reason.

[Tai Fu]

I think for the most part the companies are in "first world" countries... if not in the US/Canada it's Europe. There were a few that are in Thailand but a lot of them are specific to that culture.

[Scott Shepherd]

I cringe when watching most shows where people are building things like cars, motorcycles, etc. Shows like American Chopper, Biker Build Offs, etc. It's amazing how some of those people still have their eye sight and fingers. Things like drilling sheet metal on a drill press with no clamps or vises, just holding down the sheet metal with a bare hand. Makes me cringe just thinking about it.

[Dan Hintz]

I cringe when watching most shows where people are building things like cars, motorcycles, etc. Shows like American Chopper, Biker Build Offs, etc. It's amazing how some of those people still have their eye sight and fingers. Things like drilling sheet metal on a drill press with no clamps or vises, just holding down the sheet metal with a bare hand. Makes me cringe just thinking about it.
When they start chasing everyone around the shop with MIG welders and trying to shock each other... Discovery Channel is happy to show dumb moves like that, adds to the excitement.

[Matt Marsh]

One of my favorite shows too. I worked in the electrical maintenance shop of an OSB manufacturing mill here in Northern Minnesota for about 18 years. I always thought that they should do a show there.

Whenever I took friends and family members on a tour of the mill, the men were always amazed at what was involved, watching the process go from Aspen trees, to logs with the bark still on, to a full, banded lift of 4 X 8 sheets being loaded onto truck or rail. It's pretty amazing to watch a several ton waferizer with a 6 foot diameter cutting wheel, being turned by an 800 HP, 4160 volt electric motor being pushed on rails through a 2-chord with every stroke stack of logs like it was butter. The result is wood wafers with their fibers orientated longitudinally with a thickness accurate to .001". Just think about what is involved there. The PLC must know when to start and stop the cut, it has to keep an eye on all the safeties like overpressures etc., how many knives on the disk, the RPM at which the disk is turning, the velocity that the disk is being pushed into the wood, then compensating and hydraulically correcting several tons of moving machinery for all these changing parameters. And that is just one of the hundreds, if not thousands of equally impressive steps in the OSB manufacturing process.

Most of the women hated the tour. They freaked out having to walk on steel grating because you can see through it, it was too loud, too big, too smelly, too hot, too cold, too dusty, too too! And besides, the hardhats messed up their hair, and the safety glasses made them look like a dweeb.

[Jerome Stanek]

When they start chasing everyone around the shop with MIG welders and trying to shock each other... Discovery Channel is happy to show dumb moves like that, adds to the excitement.

It's all scripted

[Tai Fu]

You know when they were making shovels and pitchforks, how they forge those tools with giant rollers that spins off center with a die on one side? That looks really dangerous because it seems if you place the tool in the wrong place the tool would be forcefully ejected. Not only that but the user could get crushed by it..

[Stephen Tashiro]

The quantities they make are mind boggling too. Example: We can make 3,000 screw drivers and hour, okay where do they all go?

Consider how many screwdrivers you own!

[Tom Stenzel]

Consider how many screwdrivers you own!

If I could buy them that fast I could lose them that fast.

-Tom

[Tony Zona]

One of my favorite shows too. I worked in the electrical maintenance shop of an OSB manufacturing mill here in Northern Minnesota for about 18 years. I always thought that they should do a show there.





The manufacturing is impressive as all get out, but OSB is still OSB.

[Dan Hunkele]

Consider how many screwdrivers you own!

But then you have to consider how many people have none.

[Matt Marsh]

Yep Tony, It's still OSB. But after working and hanging out in the QC lab all of those years, it's obvious that it gets somewhat of a bad rap. Testing it and alternative sheeting will usually show that OSB is better than it gets credit for, and today's plywood isn't even close to being as good as it gets credit for. It ain't your father's plywood anymore.

[Jerry Bruette]

The quantities they make are mind boggling too. Example: We can make 3,000 screw drivers and hour, okay where do they all go?

I used to work at a paper company and we made wrapping paper for Bit-O-Honey and Dentyne gum. Now you know how small those products are and when we made the wrapping paper we would make it in roles that were about 5 feet in diameter and 6 feet in length. A run of either would be about a week long. Not sure how many wrappers were in each roll but I always wondered who was eating that much candy and chewing that much gum?

Now I work at a fire protection company and I wonder who is buying the million fire extinguishers we make a year.

[Joe Tilson]

On diy shows they love to tare on cabinets with a sledge hammer. In some cases it is a great waste of reusable material. I would love to have something like that to build shop cabinets. Recycling is only done after destruction.

[Curt Harms]

But then you have to consider how many people have none.

Which explains why some of the people I meet sure seem like they have a screw loose! :D

[Dan Hunkele]

Which explains why some of the people I meet sure seem like they have a screw loose! :D
Which is only compounded by those who have them and don't use them;)

[Bill Edwards(2)]

But then you have to consider how many people have none.

Like children in Japan? :(

[Pat Barry]

Its a Canadian show - maybe they don't have OSHA oversight in those places??