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Inside the Lego Factory
An anonymous reader writes "Gizmodo has a fascinating report and video tour inside the Lego factory, which is full of robots and controlled by a mainframe. 'This video shows something that very few people have had the opportunity to witness: the inside of the Lego factory, with no barriers or secrets. I filmed every step in the creation of the brick. From the raw granulate stored in massive silos to the molding machines to the gigantic storage cathedrals to the decoration and packaging warehouses, you will be able to see absolutely everything, including the most guarded secret of the company: the brick molds themselves.'"
But this still doesn't answer the "Why is Lego so expensive?" question that I've always had ever since I was a kid. The materials can't cost that much (Obviously petroleum byproducts cost more now than they did 15 years ago, but still...). Also, those looked like injection molds - which AFAIK are one of the cheapest ways to manufacture something. Don't get me wrong - I love, love, love lego. I was just always sad as a kid that I didn't have money to buy more.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
Really... plastics shrink as they're cooled from the mold, and how much shrinkage you get also depends on how much plastic is there. Now notice that all your long Lego trusses are exactly dead straight. Even the ones that are 20, 30, or 40 years old. And the 40 year old pieces interlock perfectly with the brand new ones. That says a lot for the plastics composition too. Go check out the dash on a 40 year old Dodge and see how much it's changed dimensionally. It's all in the details.
Less is more.
It seems lego has been moving more and more over my lifetime of 27 years from interchangable brick type pieces to specialized pieces of plastic that are really only useful with the original kit.
Granted I haven't purchased a pack in 15-odd years, but when i look at them at the store, many of the pieces are very specialized.
Am I wrong?
I wish I had mod points right now.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Yes, when Apple purchases Seagate HDDs, and Intel processors, and ATI video cards, they ensure that they are of a far higher quality than the Seagate HDDs, Intel processors and ATI video cards that Dell purchases.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
1. They're expensive because they are built to a much higher level of quality than is typical for injection-molded plastic toys.
Have you ever seen a defective Lego brick? Or heard of a set with a missing piece? A lot of work (and expense) goes into avoiding that. Hence all the automation - if they had humans doing all that work, Lego would be even more expensive.
The bricks themselves are little marvels of engineering - they use extremely heavy, multi-piece molds, and sophisticated molding machines to keep the dimensional tolerances to within (IIRC) .001 mm.
2. They're expensive because they're very durable.
Despite the relative cheapness of the plastic material itself, you can easily find Lego that's 30 years old, has been played with by dozens (or hundreds) of kids, snapped together and apart thousands of times, and still functions perfectly.
Given that they basically don't wear out, Lego bricks are priced higher than they would be if they were intended to be replaced from year to year.
3. They're expensive because people are willing to pay for them.
As a result of #1 and #2 above, Lego has a well-deserved reputation for quality. Despite plenty of lower-priced competition, Lego continues to sell well.
You can even buy bricks that are inter-operable with Lego for literally 1/10th the price, and they still don't out-sell the real thing. Why? Because they're simply not made as well - they don't stick together or come apart as well as Lego bricks, and they aren't nearly as sturdy.
Even as an 8-year-old, I noticed that the knock-off blocks were not worth building anything out of, and quickly separated them from my "real" Legos.
The only problem is that most countries lack a proper public plan to recycle plastics (mostly only a couple of type of plastics used in some bottle, like PET and PEHD - but not ABS which is what legos are made from)
At risk of going off at a tangent, this is a bugbear of mine. I live in the UK, where the general public is under increasing pressure to recycle, while producers are under very little obligation to make that at all easy, say, by reducing packaging, using more easily recyclable materials, or collecting recyclable materials themselves. Similarly, councils are pushing for powers to punish people for not recycling enough while not providing the necessary facilities.
Most packaging in this country these days has little numbers to say what type of material it is, in a little recycle-y triangle logo. So, for plastics, PE is number 1, HDPE is 2, PP is 5, PS is 6, and so on. So far, so good. It goes awry when you find that a lot of the plastics can't be recycled - PE and HDPE are easy, but I'm thinking particular of PP, which is used for loads of food packaging, bottles, etc. but apparently can't be recycled anywhere.
The labels always have a little bit of text next to the recycle-y number/logo which says "Recycle where facilities available", and I'm like "Where the fuck is that then? Germany?". "Recycle where facilities available", like it's my job to hunt out some mystical place where I can recycle this stuff. Fucking idiots. Where facilities available my arse, build some fucking facilities and I'll recycle your plastic bottles.