PlayStation 3 Manufacturing Not Started Yet?

aapold writes "Despite reports to the contrary, Sony Computer Entertainment American president Kaz Hirai states in an interview on Gamespot last week that 'We haven't started manufacturing yet. Some of our ops guys were actually just in China, and also in Japan just reviewing the [production] lines and everything else. But they are, again, preparing as we speak to get the manufacturing going. We've not announced and we haven't set really a specific date to say, 'As of this day we're going to start manufacturing.'"

Comments

Re:But you can get a pink (as in ponies) PS2

[Quino]

Actually, this is one of the principles of modern manufacturing: Toyota lean production methods, just-in-time manufacturing, etc.

http://searchcio.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid 19_gci810519,00.html

I'm not saying that I think this is what's going on with Sony, but going away from massive warehousing has been a "revelation" in modern mass production .

Warehousing is *bad*, you're paying for storage for stuff to just sit there, and when you're talking about millions of units the amount of money wasted can be huge. Of course, what you want to do is to have the manufacturing set up to meet demand with the minimum amount of storage possible. The concern isn't theft (maybe it's then 100th concern), but cost.

Here's a summary (copied from the above link) that summarizes Toyota Production Methods (now, of course, widely emulated with varying degrees of success by other companies, industries, around the world):

1. Eliminate waste
2. Minimize inventory
3. Maximize flow
4. Pull production from customer demand
5. Meet customer requirements
6. Do it right the first time
7. Empower workers
8. Design for rapid changeover
9. Partner with suppliers
10. Create a culture of continuous improvement

Vast warehousing is so 1980s! (and a sign of inneficient manufacturing).