Episode 72: Steve talks about his first time in Detroit! The good, the terrifying, and of course, the reason he was there in the first place: a trade show. Ben shamelessly plugs this episode’s sponsor: IMTS+ (us). Stephen introduces an article about a Japanese electron microscope company that has gotten into metal additive. Benjamin gets geared up for Industry 5.0. Steve has things to say about Harley Davidson. Ben shows excitement for a vast materials database. Stephen closes with the pain and drama of delayed flights.
https://jalopnik.com/harley-davidson-stops-building-gas-powered-motorcycles-1848950392
https://news.mit.edu/2022/topological-materials-database-0519
Tune in to the AM Radio podcast https://www.additivemanufacturing.media/zc/am-radio-podcast
For the latest in Manufacturing Technology news https://www.amtonline.org/resources
Transcript
Benjamin Moses: Welcome to AMT Tech Trend and podcast, where we discussed the latest manufacturing technology research and news. Today's episode is sponsored by IMTS+. I am the director of technology, Benjamin Moses, and I'm here with-
Stephen LaMarca: Steven LaMarca, technology analyst.
Benjamin Moses: Steve, you're looking swab as usual. I'm disheveled Friday.
Stephen LaMarca: Dude, I'm struggling.
Benjamin Moses: We're recording off schedule because I got travel coming up, but I'm in casual attire today. To be honest, if you ever see me in a polo shirt, my collar is always busted. So keep that in mind.
Stephen LaMarca: I was supposed to be back in DC at 7:30 PM yesterday.
Benjamin Moses: Yeah. What happened?
Stephen LaMarca: American decided to delay its flight over and over and over again for six hours straight.
Benjamin Moses: The tease of a delay.
Stephen LaMarca: And I ended up getting here, well not six, five and a half.
Benjamin Moses: Ah, six round up.
Stephen LaMarca: Yeah, I got back at 1:00 AM this morning and I was like ... The entire time I was like, I'm just going to message Ben. We can't do it tomorrow. Then I kept thinking about the podcast, and then I thought about how I've got a Road Tripping With Steve season three planning meeting today.
Benjamin Moses: Nice.
Stephen LaMarca: I can't miss any of this stuff.
Benjamin Moses: Can't miss it.
Stephen LaMarca: We can't put off either of these.
Benjamin Moses: Yeah. You got to give the people what they want, Steve.
Stephen LaMarca: So you know what? I came in looking this. Fortunately, fortunately, nothing here is against the wall.
Benjamin Moses: That's true.
Stephen LaMarca: I mean against the rules. To my look, it is above ... Well, the weather says it should get above 90 today.
Benjamin Moses: Sure.
Stephen LaMarca: And it's a Friday, meaning I'm allowed to wear shorts.
Benjamin Moses: Yeah. Nice.
Stephen LaMarca: And Doug is too. So he's falling the rules too.
Benjamin Moses: Why were you traveling?
Stephen LaMarca: Was traveling for Rapid. So Rapid is an additive trade show put on by SME.
Benjamin Moses: Yep.
Stephen LaMarca: It was awesome. This was my first Rapid. This was my first time in Detroit. So I finally got to experience Detroit, but Rapid, let me go into just a quick description of Rapid. It's an additive trade show, with around ... it's called Rapid because it's around the topic of rapid prototyping.
Benjamin Moses: Okay.
Stephen LaMarca: Which is one of the use cases of additive manufacturing. It's not the only use case, but it's the use case that they focus on at the trade show, rapid prototyping.
Benjamin Moses: Cool.
Stephen LaMarca: When it comes to us at AMT, we're not necessarily ... we're interested in prototyping, but it's not the bread and butter. We're in full scale production. We track that kind of stuff.
Benjamin Moses: We're an all use cases additive.
Stephen LaMarca: But Rapid is so hot right now because additive is still so hot.
Benjamin Moses: Fair.
Stephen LaMarca: And frankly, they've cornered ... there's another one. I forget. It's because they might not be friends with us right now. I'm not going to mention them. I still like them. I still want to go to your show. Please let me in. Let me in. But yeah, Rapid, they're still tight with us.
Benjamin Moses: Nice.
Stephen LaMarca: So it was a real pleasure going there. It was sick.
Benjamin Moses: Yeah. Give me some highlights from the event.
Stephen LaMarca: So let's start. I'm going to go try to speed run the whole thing.
Benjamin Moses: Do it.
Stephen LaMarca: Land in Detroit. I'm like, yes. I've never been to Detroit. This is my first time. I'm driven through there and it's dead. There's no traffic. There's nobody on the streets.
Benjamin Moses: Yeah, which sometimes good.
Stephen LaMarca: Which is sometimes good, but the only other big American city that I know of that's like that, and this was pre pandemic by the way, the city that I went to Cleveland.
Benjamin Moses: Wow. Yeah.
Stephen LaMarca: I went to Cleveland, but for whatever reason, people don't ... I like Cleveland. Some people don't like Cleveland.
Benjamin Moses: Very friendly.
Stephen LaMarca: I love any big feeling city that doesn't have a lot of traffic. So I'm like, but what is going on here?
Benjamin Moses: It reminds me of Walking Dead when cities are completely empty like that. I do get a little scared.
Stephen LaMarca: It's a little uneasy. So the Lyft is taking me through Detroit and then we come across this big building complex. I'm like, oh my God, that's the GM headquarters.
Benjamin Moses: Nice.
Stephen LaMarca: But I have seen pictures. I recognize it only because I've seen the pictures of the headquarters before.
Benjamin Moses: Right.
Stephen LaMarca: Those artist renderings, those photo shop pictures of the GM headquarters make it look way lighter and brighter and more silvery than the building is in real life.
Benjamin Moses: I understand.
Stephen LaMarca: It was all dim and yellowed from UV rays from the sun over so many years. I'm not going to lie. I was a little put off by Detroit at first. I was like, this is like a US version of [inaudible 00:04:56], North Korea.
Benjamin Moses: It's a little rough.
Stephen LaMarca: Yeah.
Benjamin Moses: Yeah. I know what you mean.
Stephen LaMarca: During the event, when we would get a chance to leave and go get lunch somewhere, or dinner, at one point Nina and I went for lunch. We left the show because we just needed to get out of the craziness. It was packed.
Benjamin Moses: Yep.
Stephen LaMarca: It really was. Nowhere else in Detroit was packed, but the show was packed. So we decided to ... she had found a taco place on the way in, so she wanted to go there. Our Lyft driver who's taking us there, which it took forever to get Lyft drivers out in Detroit, by the way.
Benjamin Moses: That's [inaudible 00:05:40].
Stephen LaMarca: You wait at least 15 minutes to get a ride, just because they don't have that many. There's just not that many people driving around. They take us to lunch and this Lyft driver's pointing out other restaurants in the area as we're getting out there that are good places to eat. Didn't think I needed to know that at the time. We only had four days to take in the city, and the show of course. But the Lyft driver, nice lady, she dumps us off at the restaurant. We're trying to go to. It's closed.
Benjamin Moses: Oh no.
Stephen LaMarca: Google says it's open.
Benjamin Moses: They let you down.
Stephen LaMarca: The sign on the door says it's open. There's a handwritten sign that says power's out. I have never been anywhere in the US where there's been a power grid issue. I've read stories about power grid issues in Texas, but they have their own power grid.
Benjamin Moses: Right.
Stephen LaMarca: Detroit does not. They're on the east coast grid.
Benjamin Moses: Right.
Stephen LaMarca: This is wild. How close are we to Flint? Do we have clean drinking water too? It was just wild. So we go to the lady who dropped us off the Lyft driver. We were like, okay. Some of the other restaurants that she pointed out that she said we're nice.
Benjamin Moses: Let's try those.
Stephen LaMarca: Let's try those. We go to those. Same sign on the door.
Benjamin Moses: Oh no.
Stephen LaMarca: Powers out. So it's definitely the power grid. It's was not a fluke with that particular restaurant.
Benjamin Moses: Was it the same handwriting?
Stephen LaMarca: No.
Benjamin Moses: Just kidding.
Stephen LaMarca: That's funny. It was just discerning.
Benjamin Moses: That stinks.
Stephen LaMarca: It was like, Hmm, it couldn't have possibly been some big evil corporation that failed so many times and destroyed a big booming city, and has survived only on government bailouts alone. It couldn't have been that at all.
Benjamin Moses: Tell me about the good food music you had.
Stephen LaMarca: Okay. What I loved about Detroit. The food. If your family comes over from what India or whatever.
Benjamin Moses: Sure.
Stephen LaMarca: You have a bunch of foreign family come to the US and they are like, "We have a week or so to see the entire US. Where do we get ... where's the proper American food?"
Benjamin Moses: Okay.
Stephen LaMarca: Where's American style fare?
Benjamin Moses: Besides the country fair.
Stephen LaMarca: Besides the country fair. You're going to want to send them to New York and to DC. To DC to see the capital. To New York to see the big apple.
Benjamin Moses: Sure.
Stephen LaMarca: But in terms of food, those all have gentrified food.
Benjamin Moses: Sure.
Stephen LaMarca: They've taken other cultures' foods, other ethnicities foods and made it popular there. You can get every other country's food in DC and New York.
Benjamin Moses: Right.
Stephen LaMarca: Detroit has exclusively American food. This is American stuff. That was my favorite thing about it.
Benjamin Moses: That's fine.
Stephen LaMarca: It's just every restaurant is American comfort food. And not like Southern, back in the day on the plantation Southern food.
Benjamin Moses: Right.
Stephen LaMarca: Stuff that you would get at McDonald's, but made properly and nice. It was like that. So I loved Detroit for that.
Benjamin Moses: That's fun. Yeah.
Stephen LaMarca: Then I also liked.
Benjamin Moses: I'm going to have to lose some weight before I go to my trip to Detroit.
Stephen LaMarca: No, not really. It's not like Louisiana.
Benjamin Moses: Okay. Okay.
Stephen LaMarca: It's not like New Orleans where, if I go to New Orleans and stay there for a good pound amount of time, all that Cajun food, all that Creole food, I would be 300 in a heartbeat. 300 pounds easy.
Benjamin Moses: Yeah.
Stephen LaMarca: I could do that in a week. I could get there in a week.
Benjamin Moses: Tell me about music.
Stephen LaMarca: The music. My favorite thing, of course it's Motown.
Benjamin Moses: Sure.
Stephen LaMarca: I didn't hear any classic Motown while there, which is funny enough.
Benjamin Moses: That's understanding.
Stephen LaMarca: But every Lyft driver that we had, every place that we went to, restaurant, whatever, what have you had an incredible playlist.
Benjamin Moses: Nice.
Stephen LaMarca: We went to this nice restaurant called Union Assembly, which is a nice name for restaurant in the motor city.
Benjamin Moses: Clever.
Stephen LaMarca: We didn't actually go to Union Assembly. We went to their side project, which is you order from the alley, but it's the same restaurant.
Benjamin Moses: Sure.
Stephen LaMarca: You order from the alley. It's called Mom's Spaghetti. It's a side project and in honor of M&M. One of Detroit's finest.
Benjamin Moses: Sure.
Stephen LaMarca: All they serve as spaghetti. You buy in a dark alley, and you can go in and sitting down in the place, but the music. Enough about the food. Every place just had a great ... people in Detroit have the best taste in music. They just do.
Benjamin Moses: Yeah. I'll have to keep that in mind. So I'm headed to Detroit for Automate first week in June. So I'm excited to get that full experience. I have a car rented instead of taking the Lyft.
Stephen LaMarca: Nice. That will be helpful.
Benjamin Moses: We drive around in that. I think I have to see where I'm staying at the convention center. So I'm looking forward to that full experience.
Stephen LaMarca: Yeah.
Benjamin Moses: Steve, can I talk about our sponsor?
Stephen LaMarca: Before you do, I have one more thing to talk about Rapid.
Benjamin Moses: Tell me.
Stephen LaMarca: I totally forgot about it. I've got these awesome parts here.
Benjamin Moses: Yeah. Tell me about these parts.
Stephen LaMarca: This was the best swag that I brought back from Rapid. I've got this 3D printed from a generatively designed design.
Benjamin Moses: That you just broke.
Stephen LaMarca: No, it's fine. It's a generative design, 3D printed metal bottle opener. It Weighs nothing.
Benjamin Moses: And it looks cool.
Stephen LaMarca: I can't wait to put it to the test to see if it's strong enough to open bottle after bottle. But it's really nice.
Benjamin Moses: I wish they gave more hand support. More finger support.
Stephen LaMarca: Yeah. I think they were going to show off, this is a pretty strong tool, but lightweight. We'll see how strong it's though.
Benjamin Moses: We'll put it to the test.
Stephen LaMarca: The next one, this is a spinal implant that was printed in mass. It was a mass production part spinal implant. They showed us the batch that comes off of the powder bed fusion build plate.
Benjamin Moses: Right.
Stephen LaMarca: There were hundreds of them on the build plate.
Benjamin Moses: Oh wow.
Stephen LaMarca: And they don't require any support. Mass production, and this is a piece that this [inaudible 00:12:07] when you implant it into somebody's spine, that has whatever kind of ... I don't know what kind of spinal issue this would cure.
Benjamin Moses: Who knows.
Stephen LaMarca: The metal is all porous and designed like this, so bone can naturally grow around it and stuff.
Benjamin Moses: Yeah. We talked about that a couple episodes ago about the benefits of the surface finishing and different materials.
Stephen LaMarca: Exactly. That's right. When Nina and Dayton and I arrived at Rapid in Detroit, before we even went to the show, we had a visit with one of the manufacturing USA institute's, Lift.
Benjamin Moses: Yeah. Cool.
Stephen LaMarca: Got to meet their president and CEO, the founder.
Benjamin Moses: Right.
Stephen LaMarca: I also got to meet Nigel and Noel, their chief technology officer. I think that's his title. The two heads of Lift. It was just really cool. This was one of the pieces of swag that I brought back. They have an incredible facility.
Benjamin Moses: Yeah. I like it.
Stephen LaMarca: They have a full production facility.
Benjamin Moses: Oh.
Stephen LaMarca: But it's for research. They do a lot of government contracts, and not just government contracts, but the contracts with other companies in general. They have a really advanced manufacturing facility. They also do a lot of work with education.
Benjamin Moses: Yep.
Stephen LaMarca: So hey have high school students that come in and do robot programming on a digital twin. When they graduate and they do good enough job on the digital twin, then they can go in the actual automation production cell and program the robots in there.
Benjamin Moses: I thought you were going to say-
Stephen LaMarca: Once they've proven they're competent in the digital twin, they have the physical twin that the digital twin is based off of. Then they can actually go work in that. That's more valuable than the degree.
Benjamin Moses: I thought you were going to say, once they graduate, they get a robot.
Stephen LaMarca: No.
Benjamin Moses: That would be cool.
Stephen LaMarca: That'd be sick though.
Benjamin Moses: Thanks for this piece. And there's one more.
Stephen LaMarca: The last part, the last one, this is from EOS, really showing that big energy. There's six parts in this, but it was printed as one part. It came from one program.
Benjamin Moses: Nice.
Stephen LaMarca: There was no assembly because that's the beauty of additive manufacturing. No assembly required, but there's six moving parts in here. There's three planetary gears. One thing in the middle, another sub housing or sub frame, and then the other main frames. There's three full on parts. You can see the planetary gears on the bottom of it. In the top, it's a [inaudible 00:14:44]. It kind of looks like a turbo fan engine on a plane, and you have the blisk. And when you rotate, the blisk turns really fast.
Benjamin Moses: That's fun.
Stephen LaMarca: It's cool. It's geared. So you turn it at one speed and the blisk actually rotates at twice the speed you're turning it.
Benjamin Moses: That's pretty cool. I do like the [inaudible 00:15:04] where the assembly is self-assembling basically. It's fun.
Stephen LaMarca: Rapid was a blast. I also covered some more of the companies that I saw in detail, as detail as I get in this week's tech report that came out today.
Benjamin Moses: Yep. I'm glad that event went well. It sounds like SME put on a very good event and there was a lot of good-
Stephen LaMarca: This is coming up next week. Last week's tech report.
Benjamin Moses: Yes. The one that released today.
Stephen LaMarca: Yeah. Go back. You got to go back.
Benjamin Moses: Oh, you got to go back.
Stephen LaMarca: Got to go back if you want to see it.
Benjamin Moses: It's on AMT online if you want to see it.
Stephen LaMarca: AMTonline.org/resources.
Benjamin Moses: Today's sponsor is IMTS+. IMTS+ is your one stop shop for manufacturing, digital content to get you ready for IMTS and after. That's the key, I think, right? W.
Stephen LaMarca: Yes, sir.
Benjamin Moses: IMTS is right around the corner, but we're going to continue providing content on that platform well after the actual event. So we're hosting videos and articles on topics relevant to manufacturing technology, which we're definitely interested in and business of manufacturing. It's all free. I personally guarantee you'll find something you like. Go to imts.com. Do it.
Stephen LaMarca: Now. No, finish this first. Then go. Finish this podcast first.
Benjamin Moses: Listen to us on the way. We're a podcast, Steve.
Stephen LaMarca: Well, by the time this episode's over, you'll have found your way to the content that you want to see on IMDS+.
Benjamin Moses: Walk us through the first article. You got something on Jeol.
Stephen LaMarca: Oh yeah. Jeol. You guys should meet Jeol. So anyway-
Benjamin Moses: He's from Rapid.
Stephen LaMarca: So I was introduced to this company at Rapid, Jeol. Seoul, South Korea, but it's a Japanese company and the company is spelled J-E-O-L. The article that I found from 3Dprintingindustry.com is Jeol to launch JAM-5200 EBM 3D printer in the US. Technical specifications and pricing. It's a bad title. It's really advertisy, But what's cool is to make this a less advertisy article, we saw this in person and they didn't actually have ... They debuted the machine at Rapid. They say in the article that they're going to have it at Rapid. They didn't have it at Rapid. They didn't launch it at Rapid. They debuted it. So you couldn't go to Rapid and actually see the machine, but they will have it at IMTS.
Benjamin Moses: Nice.
Stephen LaMarca: But let's talk about the machine.
Benjamin Moses: Do it.
Stephen LaMarca: Also, the article says specifications and pricing. They don't say a price. There's a link to say, go to this link to get a quote.
Benjamin Moses: That's funny.That's a tease.
Stephen LaMarca: It's like, man.
Benjamin Moses: That's manufacturing equipment for you.
Stephen LaMarca: 3D printing industry is better than this. A lot better than this, but let's talk about the company and the machine.
Benjamin Moses: Yeah.
Stephen LaMarca: When I was talking to you about this, I said that it was electron beam, 3D printing.
Benjamin Moses: You did.
Stephen LaMarca: You were like, oh, that's been done before. But when I went on further to say that it's electron beam melting and specifically metal powder bed electron beam.
Benjamin Moses: That's right.
Stephen LaMarca: The energy source is an electron beam and it's a powder bed fusion system, which you typically see with a laser. They use an electron beam because the company knows their way around electron beams.
Benjamin Moses: That's cool.
Stephen LaMarca: They don't fiddle with the lasers. They do electron beams because the company has a history and a background in metrology devices.
Benjamin Moses: Yep.
Stephen LaMarca: But not necessarily manufacturing industry, metrology devices, but electron microscopes. They're like, Hey, electron microscopes also use electron beams. Let's use these electron beams that were masters of, to melt metal powder in 3D print stuff. They did that. The cool thing is, because they have this track record, they're well established for making electron microscopes. I totally lost my train ... because they do electron microscopes while they're printing with an electron beam power source, they can do [inaudible 00:19:23] monitoring of the print. So that electron beam is used to not just direct energy onto the metal powder, but it's also to measure it and make sure the part coming off of it is good.
Benjamin Moses: That's clever.
Stephen LaMarca: And it's so cool, and I'm so pumped about this company because they really are. They're super Japanese. There were two Americans there, and one of them was the president who was showing us around. But when we did the business card exchange-
Benjamin Moses: Yeah. There's a formality to that.
Stephen LaMarca: Dude. I had to put down my pizza. Yes, I did have a pizza in my hand.
Benjamin Moses: That's the best way to walk the show floor.
Stephen LaMarca: I had to put down my pizza and I was like, oh, snap, this is a Japanese company. I got to do a two hand business card exchange.
Benjamin Moses: Yeah.
Stephen LaMarca: So I received the business card with both hands.
Benjamin Moses: Yep.
Stephen LaMarca: And then I looked at the business card and read every line of it.
Benjamin Moses: Every line.
Stephen LaMarca: Then I handed my business card and they did the same thing.
Benjamin Moses: Okay.
Stephen LaMarca: I was like, oh, we really are doing this. So I made sure to put their business card away when they weren't looking, because apparently you're supposed to hang onto it the entire time. But I had to pick up my pizza.
Benjamin Moses: Pizza over business cards.
Stephen LaMarca: But yeah, they were showing us around. The other thing that was really cool and Japanese about them is they didn't say it, but they definitely had this approach to Takumi craftsmanship.
Benjamin Moses: Tell me about that.
Stephen LaMarca: So the Takumi concept in Japan is an employer or a company, it's very best craftsman. They call Takumi craftsman.
Benjamin Moses: Right.
Stephen LaMarca: They are the best of their trade. They're not just masters, like apprentice master. They are the very best of the best. In the wine world, a level four, court of master [inaudible 00:21:17] would be considered a Takumi [inaudible 00:21:19].
Benjamin Moses: Gotcha. Yeah. I don't understand anything you said about the wine, but yeah, I agree.
Stephen LaMarca: Fair enough. Fair enough. But in another Japanese company Seiko, Seiko has multiple different tiers of products you can buy. You can just buy the standard Seiko watch and then they have the next level up is [inaudible 00:21:37], which has a little bit better craftsmanship to it and less automation to put it together. Then the next level up after that is probably king Seiko. Then the next level up above that is grand Seiko, which Seiko will lead you to believe that's the top of the line.
Benjamin Moses: Right.
Stephen LaMarca: But they actually have one more hidden, kind of like Mercedes Mebac.
Benjamin Moses: Sure.
Stephen LaMarca: The highest level of Seiko watch is actually called Credor. Seiko only employs to assemble Credor watches there Takumi craftsman.
Benjamin Moses: Wow.
Stephen LaMarca: Some Takumi craftsman work for grand Seiko.
Benjamin Moses: Sure.
Stephen LaMarca: But if you want a 100% Takumi craftsman assembled and manufactured and built watch, you go to Credor and it's so much so that the only person that's not Japanese that works for Credor is the greatest Swiss watchmaker of our time, that's still alive, Phillip Dufor.
Benjamin Moses: Nice.
Stephen LaMarca: He's hired as a consultant for Credor. He is in charge of the entire line. He's in charge of everybody there, and he approves of designs and stuff like that. And it shows, but the people working under him are Seiko's Takumi craftsman. All of that was said to come back to this. One of the housings of their electron beam, the fuselage of the thing that creates the electron beam is gorgeous, and it's printed on their own machine.
Benjamin Moses: Cool.
Stephen LaMarca: Their own machine makes parts for their machine. It has these intricate designs that can only be made using additive manufacturing. So I had to ask the president, the US president there. I asked him, so are these designs ... what is the function of these designs?
Benjamin Moses: Right. It could be heat sinks.
Stephen LaMarca: It could be heat sink or for heat exchange, stuff like that. Because I was buckling up for an awesome story as to the purpose of those designs, and I instead received a breath of fresh air. He looks at me, he's like, "that's just for decoration. That's just for pure aesthetic beauty."
Benjamin Moses: That's amazing.
Stephen LaMarca: That was so relieving hearing that.
Benjamin Moses: That's fun. Yeah.
Stephen LaMarca: They take Swiss watch pride in the parts that go into this machine. So you can't not be excited. Then on top of that, you and I are huge fans of [inaudible 00:24:07] monitor.
Benjamin Moses: Yep. Absolutely.
Stephen LaMarca: Closed loop inspection of parts. That's their bread and butter, baby.
Benjamin Moses: As fascinating, from designing part for so long about saying as functional as possible, being able to incorporate something that's aesthetically pleasing is a breath of fresh air.
Stephen LaMarca: It's big.
Benjamin Moses: Especially in manufacturing. You really get to see where ... they may paint a machine or something like that, but adding ornate designs to it, that's cool.
Stephen LaMarca: Right.
Benjamin Moses: It reminds me of the old British sailing vessels, or even before that, where they add tons of decorations outside of it. That's cool.
Stephen LaMarca: They're going to be at IMTS and I can't wait to see them.
Benjamin Moses: Look up Jeol.
Stephen LaMarca: Look up Jeol. Jeol, please become a member.
Benjamin Moses: I've got one on industry 5.0. This article makes a claim from machine design about process manufacturing, ready to evolve again. He believes industry 5.0 is right at the edge or partially into it.
Stephen LaMarca: Again, we're not even at 4.0. Just kidding. Our members, the builders, developers, and distributors of the advanced manufacturing technology that is bolstering and supporting industry 4.0 and 5.0, they are ahead. They're 5.0. But man, end users, you got to step up, because they were still on 3.0.
Benjamin Moses: We were talking about the broad spectrum of adoption of this. The articles are making an argument that there's enough maturity in 4.0, there's a lot of lessons learned harvesting innovation and adding the human element of 4.0, that kind of propels us into 5.0, which is cognitive computing and infrastructure combining all that together. So I thought it was an argument, but I agree with you. Where we are industry 4.0, I feel like they're like a teenager. They're kind of growing and kind of spurts and bounce, and now they have hairy armpits that they didn't plan on. They're kind of sweaty. I feel that industry 4.0 is kind of along the same line. We've come a long way.
Stephen LaMarca: Industry 4.0 is an awkward stage.
Benjamin Moses: A little awkward. Yeah.
Stephen LaMarca: Because it doesn't seem pivotal the way mass production industry 2.0 was.
Benjamin Moses: Right.
Stephen LaMarca: Or heart harnessing steam engines or wind or water powered stuff in industry 1.0. It doesn't seem as provocative and obvious as that.
Benjamin Moses: Right.
Stephen LaMarca: But they become less obvious as you go up the levels, only because they're more recent. Once we're on industry six and 7.0, we'll look back at four and five and be like, wow, that was a jump.
Benjamin Moses: I think he is jumping the gun a little bit.
Stephen LaMarca: We won't be around then.
Benjamin Moses: Yeah. That's true.
Stephen LaMarca: Inconel will still be viable.
Benjamin Moses: My Inconel parts that I designed 20 years ago will still be around. Yeah, I think he's jumping the gun a little bit. I feel like he's trying to create a new kind of category, new buzzword related this. I think some of the stuff he's talking about about artificial intelligence being applied on the infrastructure for the manufacturing plants is kind of an extension of 4.0. It's not a clear cut line that he's making. I think he's doing themselves a little service and trying to segregate himself from 4.0. I think 4.0 is so broad and advanced that we're going to keep talking about it for a while. And then the next leap has to be much more a clear cut line.
Stephen LaMarca: It's funny. I was just saying that whole rant of how pivotal the other industries levels were. I think industry 5.0 will be everything from 4.0, but finally working.
Benjamin Moses: Everything works.
Stephen LaMarca: That's mean.
Benjamin Moses: Tell me about Harley Davidson, Steve.
Stephen LaMarca: Harley Davidson. My second and last article.
Benjamin Moses: That's your favorite manufacturer or bike manufacturer.
Stephen LaMarca: Yeah. I've already ranted enough today. I don't need to rip into them. I'm going to try to keep this light.
Benjamin Moses: All right.
Stephen LaMarca: [inaudible 00:28:20] released the article, Hartley Davidson stops building gas powered motorcycles over regulatory compliance issue.
Benjamin Moses: Oh. Are they pivoting to electro bikes?
Stephen LaMarca: So they have an electric bike and it's very successful.
Benjamin Moses: They do.
Stephen LaMarca: The live wire.
Benjamin Moses: Live wire. That's what it's called. Terrible name for a bike or electrical driven machine.
Stephen LaMarca: I get their mentality.
Benjamin Moses: Sure.
Stephen LaMarca: Harley Davidson is a brand that markets to a bunch of old white dudes that have no business on a chopper or something like a Harley Davidson.
Benjamin Moses: Right.
Stephen LaMarca: Which those became popular by biker gangs who were formed by veterans that came back from very hard times and were looking for that brotherhood and comradery that they did not get back in peaceful America.
Benjamin Moses: Yeah.
Stephen LaMarca: Then Harley Davidson sells brand new bikes to old white dudes that try to look like that, but are in fact fortunate sons.
Benjamin Moses: Right.
Stephen LaMarca: All right. I promised I wouldn't, but I did. Was your question?
Benjamin Moses: Are they pivoting to electric bikes?
Stephen LaMarca: So, okay. They have the live wire. That's right. The name of the live wire came from the taste in music of old white dudes. ACDC.
Benjamin Moses: Fair.
Stephen LaMarca: Live wire. It has to do with, oh, ACDC, another great electric reference, antichrist devil's child.
Benjamin Moses: So what are they doing here? Are they making new electric bikes?
Stephen LaMarca: So you would think that. The title makes you think that.
Benjamin Moses: It does.
Stephen LaMarca: Oh wow. They're doubling down on electric, even though we know that's not true.
Benjamin Moses: Right.
Stephen LaMarca: Because a couple months ago they decided that they were going to stop production of the live wire. Not because it wasn't a success. It was because they don't want an electric bike to sort of solely the Harley Davidson name, the obnoxious exhausted rumble name of Harley Davidson. They're contemplating starting a new line of bike, and they might even call it live wire for all of their electric bike range.
Benjamin Moses: Right.
Stephen LaMarca: They're planning an electric bike range. Right now they just have the one and it is awesome. But no, the truth is they're just halting manufacturing until they get their lobbyists, which Harley Davidson has the very best lobbyists since the pharmaceutical industry.
Benjamin Moses: So they're just stopping production.
Stephen LaMarca: They're stopping production and they're, look what we're going to do to the GDP, because guess who has all of the money? Old white dudes. And if we don't sell them bikes, then it's not going to the economy.
Benjamin Moses: Silly Harley.
Stephen LaMarca: So they're going to manipulate the government like that to get their way like they always do.
Benjamin Moses: I was hoping for a market shift where it was more-
Stephen LaMarca: Man, they suck.
Benjamin Moses: ... shifting towards electric vehicles. But I would like to see a hybrid bike.
Stephen LaMarca: I'd like to see any sort of money go to research and development in Harley Davidson.
Benjamin Moses: I do like the charged motors on some of the bikes, like adding a turbo charger or supercharger.
Stephen LaMarca: Oh, oh, I am so glad you mentioned that. Like the Kawasaki Ninja H2, how it has supercharge. Before Kawasaki even did that back in the eighties, Honda was killing Harley so bad. They were decimating them in sales so bad that Harley cried to the US government being like, you need to put a tariff on Japanese motorcycles because they're killing us right now, and make a law that Japanese motorcycle brands can't import anything over one liter in displacement. Meanwhile, Harley is making bikes that have more than twice the displacement of Japanese bikes, yet delivering less than half the power and torque of Japanese bikes. It's just a pathetic company.
They've done nothing in research and development. So Honda's retort to show them whose boss was like, fine. We won't make later bikes anymore. They put a turbo charger on a motorcycle. Those nut cases in Japan put a turbo charger on a motorcycle. We're just like, guess what we can do? We're still crushing Harley Davidson in terms of performance and getting good gas mileage.
Benjamin Moses: If you're in Detroit, we can have a drink and discuss who's kookier, Japan, Germany, or Italy.
Stephen LaMarca: Japan hides it. This would be a good discussion. Not for this podcast.
Benjamin Moses: My last article is from MIT, straight from their website or mit.edu. Yeah, their news website. The title is, is it topological? A new materials database has the answer. So the idea of something of topology stems from a branch of mathematics that studies a shape that could be manipulated or deformed without losing its core properties. So the idea, the example I walk through is a rubber donut. Due to the elastic properties, you can squish it, you can twist it around to a certain extent, but they always go back to a donut shape. What they've created is an online database that anyone can search against. It says 90,000 materials that will retain its properties after being disrupted, as in manufactured processed or anything along those lines. So I thought it was fairly interesting that they've gone down this path.
They mainly talk about electrical properties. So more towards electronics obviously, but it's free database that anyone could search against and use. They said the organization is very similar to a periodic table and they would want to kind of explore the broader spectrum of different materials as opposed to going to these rare earth materials for electronics. So they want the user base to harness and build ultra low power transistors, new magnetic memory storage devices, and other electronics that you can increase their robustness by using these materials that will hold their property no matter how they're processed. So, that was pretty cool.
Stephen LaMarca: Okay.
Benjamin Moses: Something very valuable again, from MIT.
Stephen LaMarca: MIT would have something about topology, because it makes no sense to me.
Benjamin Moses: I recommend you check out the article. The author does a great job explaining it.
Stephen LaMarca: I'm going to have to read that and it's going to take me an hour.
Benjamin Moses: You and Dayton should check out the material database, since he's a materials nerd.
Stephen LaMarca: Dude, I love that we have him because I thought I knew good amount about materials and he knows all of the things.
Benjamin Moses: There's a whole science.
Stephen LaMarca: It really is.
Benjamin Moses: Steve, where can they find more info about us?
Stephen LaMarca: Well, like I said, I'm struggling. My flight was delayed five and a half hours. Oh, let me tell you more about that. On the flight home from Detroit, so everybody that was still on that flight, a lot of people left.
Benjamin Moses: Right.
Stephen LaMarca: And was like, okay, we're getting a flight somewhere else. So by the time the flight finally boarded and we took off, it was half the people were on the plane. But all of these people trying to come back to DC were waiting at the gate and nobody wants to be there. You just want to be home already. This one guy who was from Rapid. Not the organization that puts on Rapid. Not SME. This guy is a obliterated drunk. The people working at the gate say, "Did somebody leave a phone in the bathroom?" This guy goes up to say it's his. He's getting into a fight with them, trying to unlock his phone. Then there were racist remarks thrown.
Benjamin Moses: Oh no.
Stephen LaMarca: So they called the police thankfully, and got him out of there. But we don't need any of that. It was just a pain.
Benjamin Moses: That was a lot going on.
Stephen LaMarca: There was too much going on. I've had a rough night.
Benjamin Moses: Well, day's almost done, Steve. We got the weekend here.
Stephen LaMarca: Looking forward to it.
Benjamin Moses: We can make it.
Stephen LaMarca: But you can find more good stuff and hopefully no flight delays AMTonline.org/resources.
Benjamin Moses: Nice. If the [inaudible 00:36:34] keep listening to us.
Stephen LaMarca: Oh yeah. Go to AMTonline.org/resources to find some ultra premium content to keep you occupied while you're waiting for your flight.
Benjamin Moses: Most def. Thanks. [inaudible 00:36:47].
Stephen LaMarca: Thanks Ben. Bye.
