Assembly process video + more stuff

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Porsche 911 GT3 assembly process video

I am a sucker for a manufacturing assembly process video. Over time I have shared videos showcasing Nokia’s largely automated smartphone manufacturing lines that they had before the Microsoft disaster and old time metalworking archive footage as assembly process videos. So I had to share this timelapse assembly process video for the Porsche 911 GT3. This Porsche 911 GT3 I am reliably informed is the car that petrolheads most want to own out of the 911 range due to it being available with a manual gearbox. It is almost as fast as the top of the range 911 Turbo S, has worse fuel economy and emissions.

Around the 23 second mark you can see the start of the chassis assembly using a manufacturing cell of four robotic assembly arms. Then an assembled floor pan is placed into a jig for welding to begin. The jig fits upside down to allow welding on both sides of the car. What’s less clear if these are seam or spot welds. In the assembly process video we can see the modular nature of the manufacturing line that would allow it to be restructured relatively easy to match different production requirements. The classic give away is modular protective partition walling around the robots.

A good deal of the movement that the robot arms are doing is checking and measuring the existing parts before additional assembly happens. At 50 seconds in the assembly process video, the car starts to look like a Porsche as the floorpan and front chassis are connected to the roof and rear quarter chassis. You can see only spot welds happening at this stage. It was interesting to see the doors go on before painting. Just before the first minute in the assembly process video we start to see the first human welders doing hard to get joints on the interior front bulkheads and where the roof pillars join the body. The door set up is resolved before the front wings are fitted to the car.

The whole front end of the chassis isn’t shown being attached to the car and suddenly appears as the front wings are fitted to the car. The assembly line seems to move from station-to-station every four minutes or so. We don’t see the chassis being galvanised, but we do see the chassis being dipped in primer paint as part to the assembly process video. Automated spray booths are no common in car manufacturing. It was interesting to see how important inspectors running their hands over the paint work were to the process. I presume if there was a problem the car would be taken off the line and paint problems fixed manually. The front of the the chassis is not painted beyond primer by the robots in the assembly process video, yet suddenly seems to be painted when we get to 2:16 in the assembly process video.

The engine, transmission drive train and suspension come on a jig and are mounted to the chassis in one operation. The assembly process video shows the wheels being put on manually. I suspect this is about industrial safety, not mixing up human and robot workstations. The doors are re-hung on the car during final assembly.

Air Max Day

Digital outdoor advertising that wraps itself around the corner of a building lends itself to fantastic 3D ad campaigns. The build of these boards seem to be in Asia. I know of ones in Malaysia, Japan, Korea and China. This advert for Nike Japan on Air Max day makes really good use of the format.

A word of thanks

Cathay Pacific has seen its brand battered by the Hong Kong government, so it did a nice bit of content showcasing the important work that its staff have been doing during the COVID-19 crisis in Hong Kong. I suspect that this is aimed at both internal as well as external audiences.

Yuen Long

To an external observer, one would believe that the triads only really exist in movies now rather than on the street in Hong Kong. Up until the 1970s criminality and corruption were a part of daily life. The Peter Godber scandal forced the British government to act, cleaning up the government and business and then launching anti-triad operations with the OCT department of what was then the Royal Hong Kong Police.

By the 1990s and 1990s Hong Kong was less corrupt but criminals were connected with business life such as the Carrian Group financial scandal which saw a visiting Malaysian bank auditor killed and buried in a banana tree field and lawyer John Wimbush who apparently committed suicide by tying himself to the grate at the bottom of a full swimming pool.

Criminals like Big Spender were robbing jewellery stores with AK assault rifles and you saw scenes like something out of the movie Heat playing out on Hong Kong streets. Kidnappings by the likes of Big Spender encouraged Hong Kong oligarchs to get closer to the Chinese government and invest in the pre-WTO China.

In recent years Hong Kong criminals tended to only appear at times convenient to the government to intimidate and assault critics. This was escalated in 2019, when they came out in force in Yuen Long to beat commuters returning from college, work and democracy protests. This became known as the 721 incident.

Its interesting to see Vice News covering this story three years later, I guess later is better than never.

Rumination

I am a bit late with this due to the Moviedrome taking so long to put together. Producer and analogue synth maker put together this 60 minute piece of music that reminded me a bit of Autechre and Phillip Glass.

60 minutes of Ambient Drone at 60 BPM with all oscillators tuned to multiples of 60Hz. 

This piece was recorded to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the National Autistic Society in the UK and World Autism Acceptance Week 2022. 

Bandcamp page

Find out more here.

Heinz Australia

Amazing animated video telling of the love for Heinz Baked Beans. Animation is ideal for FMCG brands like Heinz because if a different voiceover it can transcend cultures. This is something that we looked to do when I was involved with the plant based relaunch of Flora margarine prior to its sale by Unilever.

Windows 95 launch

I watched this and was reminded of my old employers Waggener Edstrom, whose claim to fame was orchestrating this launch, but this was way before my time with them. This was way before my time. At the time Jay Leno was a big time TV host rather than that car guy. The internet wasn’t really on Microsoft’s radar either, though you could get Internet Explorer 1 with a ‘Plus’ pack of more powerful multimedia features. This was peak Microsoft. What people tend to remember less was that Windows 95 was less stable than what had gone before until at least the first service pack launched a year later. We are starting to see echoes of this old Microsoft coming back with the bundling of Microsoft Teams with Office 365 to combat Slack and bundling of security products.