Allen Dorsey

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Printing Ideas: Innovating Ford’s Product Development Cycle through Additive Manufacturing
Allen Dorsey
Last modified on November 12, 2018 at 11:47 pm
How additive manufacturing (3D Printing) has become ingrained in Ford's product development cycle through rapid prototyping.

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On November 14, 2018, Allen Dorsey commented on Skolkovo, Russian Silicon Valley vs. Corruption: how innovation can thrive? :

If Skolkovo succeeded, many would be trying to copy this model of building a new startup city. What conditions do you think are must present to foster a startup city? What conditions do you think caused Skolkovo to fail? It seems that the brightest minds locked in a room is not the answer. How can help the next attempt at cities like Skolkovo succeed?

On November 14, 2018, Allen Dorsey commented on 3D Hubs – Building a Global 3D Printing Network :

Love 3D Hubs. Just used this site to print some prototype parts.

One challenge I found on 3D hubs is the lack of selection who prints the part and a lack intermediary steps to ensure your part was printed to specification. It seems an underlying algorithm selects the height of printed layers and thus the tolerance of the part. Do you see this lack of control on printing to specification potentially deterring small businesses from using 3D Hubs for larger volume orders than hobbyists?

On November 14, 2018, Allen Dorsey commented on CircleUp – Identifying the next “Big Thing” using Machine Learning :

Came for the picture of ice cream, stayed for the great article.

In your article you recommend CircleUp stays ahead of its competitors with a first mover advantage. This seems to hint at that speed and more data is the advantage. Would you agree that should CircleUp focus on building robust algorithms, watch guarding for biases in the data, and observing the current investments’ success to update the pool of data influencing their company selection algorithm?

On November 14, 2018, Allen Dorsey commented on Disruption in the automotive business: how distributed innovation can change a 100-year-old industry? :

I see two challenges with open innovation like local motors has adopted in the automotive industry.

1) The automotive industry is filled with historic knowledge that many don’t have access to in a class room. While open innovation can rapidly lead to great new ideas. How do we incorporate previous findings over the past 100+ years? Can automotive technical experts act as the gate keepers at the end of this rapid innovation?

2) How do we mitigate risk around safety? Vehicles are expected to meet safety standards. How can we ensure our open source design progresses towards the highest standards of safety? How do we communicate crash safety results to the open-source team?

Maybe some of these risks are eliminated by relying on open innovation earlier in the development cycle and blending more traditional development cycle processes closer to product.

On November 14, 2018, Allen Dorsey commented on XPO Logistics (XPO): Attempting to Bring the Truckload and Less-than-Truckload (LTL) Industries into the Twenty-First Century :

Do you think we need to wait on autonomous vehicles to fix the driver shortage? Some predictions will tell you we are 5 years away from fully autonomous vehicles on the road. Other predictions require infrastructure and legislative updates before we see wide spread adoption of autonomous vehicles; placing adoption of truly driver-less vehicles at 2-3 decades away. Currently, only 11ish states allow testing of autonomous/semi-autonomous vehicles on the road today (I believe the line is drawn at L4/L5 automation). The driver shortage has remained the number 1 issue in the trucking industry for 5-10 years and is ripe for a solution.

I think XPO takes a step towards a possible intermediary solution with their competitive pricing of revenues and wages. I wonder if they could use their dynamic route planning algorithm to plan routes that allow trucks to get home to their families every night and alleviate some of the difficulties of being a long haul truck driver.

On November 14, 2018, Allen Dorsey commented on Adding Value In Nike’s Production Line :

Great article! Compelling argument on why a company that cranks out 200M shoes per year is focused on unit cost. Initially my thoughts on 3D printing in the shoe business jumped to custom colors on classic shoes. This would enable teams and individuals to match shoes to their uniforms and/or outfits. Possibly removing issues of “Nike doesn’t have this in my teams colors.” Customization might attract new interest to your brand or remove barriers to buy a new pair of shoes, but it cannot come at the sacrifice of higher cost when you make 200M shoes per year.