Blog

Extreme Manufacturing

We are proud to announce the beta release of an the Extreme Manufacturing platform for Open Source Ecology. We are now testing the platform.

Extreme Manufacturing (XM) is an open source hardware development methodology based on the principles of Extreme Programming in the field of software. XM focuses open source design and collaboration, and the revenue model is Distributive Enterprise. Extreme Manufacturing is lean in all respects, while retaining sufficient structure to anable scalability. The platform is currently in development. Joe Justice of Team Wikispeed and I have coined the term. We’re here to change the paradigm of how things are made – by unleashing economic collaboration and eliminating competitive waste. My fundamental motivation stems  from a conclusion that the rate of innovation could increase significantly – if open collaboration were the norm for doing business.

We are taking baby steps to arrive at the open source economy. The XM Platform is our first attempt to take all that we learned over the last 5 years about open hardware development – and shake our techniques down for extreme results – extreme development velocity while retaining strict standards of quality control. We are aiming for parallel development of 25 GVCS tools by July 1 – on a 3 month prototyping cycle – to deliver the complete set of 50 GVCS tools by year-end 2012. Our goal is to develop a scalable platform, such that a new process for developing any product or service can be organized on a week time scale. Moreover, this platform may be adapted to any product or service  – such as organizational development of Factor e Farm or OSE. My personal prediction is that this method will scale to a 2% market penetration of all global production by 2018. I am referring to any enterprises started via XM techniques – such as GVCS products, which span a wide range of productive sectors. The assumption is that if sufficient rigor and resources are allocated to the development of a product via open source methods – such a product naturally surpasses the quality and service of any ‘competitors’.

Here is  a brief introduction to the method by Aaron (see script):

.

As quoted from the video:

The magic of this method lies in synergistic, lively, distributed, parallel development – occurring both at Factor e Farm (FeF) and via global collaboration. This platform will combine parallel remote prototyping, Design and CAD Flash Mobs, feedback from advisers, constant vlogging of results, Daily Standups, and Product Demos. The most remarkable feature of Scrum is that ALL STEPS MAY HAPPEN AT THE SAME TIME AND MAY OCCUR IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER. The key to this is modular design – where as long as the interface between components is clearly defined – all components may be developed simultaneously. Moreover, if the effort involves breakdown into very small steps, then any single step is likely to be sufficiently low-cost that performing that step becomes feasible. Massive parallel development also means that any result provides useful feedback to inform other steps. On the Scrum Floor – or the FeF workshop – people are aware of each others’ work, they can pair up to learn, and they can swarm on a problem if needed.

It is worthwhile to note that while we are developing the methods at FeF, the intent is that any group can replicate this effort in other locations – as a new paradigm for economic productivity. The highlight of the platform is extreme collaboration via ongoing  feedback, open process, transparency of results, and sufficient rigor to allow for all necessary development steps to happen – while remaining lean via application of Scrum methods.

The key to success lies in recruiting a team of 10 Scrum Masters and 1-2 Product Owners to run the process –  for  10 GVCS product groups at one time.

This turns the discussion to Extreme Recruiting – an open recruiting process. Our hope is that if we publish our recruiting methods transparently – we can leverage assistance from the global community – on top of the effort that Tom, Aaron, and I are currently providing. There are 2 parts to Extreme Recruiting. First,  if  you are interested in the Scrum Master (or Product Owner) position – here is our Extreme Recruiting application. Second, if you can help us recruit, we are asking you to provide the first round of interviewing for the candidates. Contact us at recruiting at opensourceecology dot org to get involved.

18 Comments

  1. David

    Looks great.

  2. Zach

    Just in case anyone is looking for more updates and isn’t sure where to look, the youtube account: http://www.youtube.com/user/marcinose/ is contributed to constantly.

    Another trick I’ve learned to see progress in motion is to look at the wiki recent changes: http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Special:RecentChanges

    If anyone else knows other sources of OSE information updates I would love the extra sources as I just can’t get enough.

  3. neodynos

    Congrats for inventing XM! Regarding your prototype application for that, you probably are looking for a permanent replacement that is free and open source software (unlike Scrumy).

    Maybe take a look at BetterMeans. It is also based on a Scrum-like column structure where tasks can move from one to another, but is not modeled with Scrum in mind (as long as I know).

    But it’s an awesome software and open source! Esp. they also include collaborative decision making.

  4. Escalas y revolución P2P

    […] y remarcaba en el blog de la P2P Foundation el momento nodal alcanzado esta misma semana con el lanzamiento por «Open Source Ecology» de su plataforma de «Xtreme Manufacturing», una tecnología para el desarrollo y producción local de todo tipo de hardware (desde una […]

  5. […] local de la maquinaria agrícola de uso común? Evidentemente para esto hace falta formar en nuevas técnicas de desarrollo de modelos industriales, estudiar los proyectos existentes, modelos generales de autonomía energética, etc. Podemos […]

  6. […] A través de Marcin Jakubowski : […]

  7. […] a local version of commonly used agricultural machinery? Obviously, doing this requires training in new development techniques from new industrial models, study of existing projects, models for energy autonomy, etc. We can help you with that, too, but […]

  8. […] local version of commonly used agricultural machinery? Obviously, doing this requires training in new development techniques from new industrial models, study of existing projects, models for energy autonomy, etc. We can help you with that, too, but […]

  9. C.A.

    Hey, I know this is kind of off-the-topic, but have you guys ever considered building open-source wheelchairs? I personally know a few people who might find those very, very useful…

  10. neodynos

    C. A., with respect to open design wheelchairs maybe contact the folks from the Open Prosthetics project to see if you can cooperate. These days there is a free & open project for plain everything, truly amazing …

  11. Skaloj kaj P2P-revolucio

    […] libera aparataro, malmultekosta kaj sporta dezajnita por ties hejma fabrikado) kaj precipe kun la lan?o far «Open Source Ecology» de ties platformo de «Xtreme Manufacturing», teknologio por la disvolvo kaj loka produktado de ?iuspeca aparataro (de brikofabriko al […]

  12. […] presos de la comunitat de programari lliure. De manera conjunta estan desenvolupant Extreme Manufacturing (XM) , una metodologia per al desenvolupament ràpid de maquinari […]

  13. […] sobre la Extreme Manufacturing, el nuevo plan de la OSE para desarrollar las 50 máquinas del GVCS hasta final de año, […]

  14. ARQUITECTURASDEUNIÃO

    […] – http://blog.opensourceecology.org/2012/04/extreme-manufacturing/ […]

  15. Servicios Open Source | elDronte

    […] OSE usa extreme manufacturing como metodología de desarrollo basada en la extreme programming; ésta última se usa para software, la primera para hardware. Pero ¿existen metodologías homologables para el desarrollo de servicios? […]

  16. […] d’agilité, cette approche a donné naissance à un processus de fabrication révolutionnaire : Extreme Manufacturing (XM). Joe Justice et Marcin Jacubowski, fondateur d’Open Source Ecology, l’ont nommé ainsi en […]