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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.'"
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?
Spoken like someone who knows nothing about plastic injection molding, but assumes it's simple. (In typical slashdot 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.