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A lot of people have the assumption that the computer is replacing man.
To be honest it's all about craftsmanship, the tech for example, the computer, 3D modelling,
it's at all, it's an extension of man's hands, okay so it's not a chisel or a plane or something
we would associate with craft, but it is a craft, it's an extension of us and enables
us to make it a better product, but it's certainly not replacing man, it's just an extension
of man.
The same thing is for machines as well, the injection moulding machine for example, it's
an incredibly complex machine with a myriad of parameters that need to be adjusted and
set to enable a perfect product to be made and that requires craftsmanship.
The year 2001 is made out of plastic, we get asked a question a lot about why do you use
plastic, but on the year 2001 for example, on the inner part of the product or the upper
base we use polycarbonate, the reason why we use polycarbonate is because we can make
it very stable under very high temperatures and also put an additive into it to make it
flame retardant and that's very important for the safety in your house and for example
if there was a male function in the product you could have a spark which could cause a
product to catch fire and melt, have a massive short circuit and that wouldn't be very safe.
So polycarbonate was the material of choice and that's why we used it.
You take the lid for example, we've used the ABS, the ABS has very different properties
to polycarbonate, we've matched the colours and made it identical so you can't tell the
different material, but they are and we've chosen ABS for its flexibility, its resilience.
The year 2001 gave us the perfect opportunity to bring the manufacturer of the product into
Europe itself and indeed Italy.
There are certain component parts of the product that are still coming from the far
east and that's the name of the game and indeed there's actually other components in the product
that are actually coming from other parts of the European continent as well.
Working, having the manufacturer here in Italy actually enabled us to have a much, much closer
working relationship with our manufacturing and development partners and enabled a very
close synergy and in turn enabled us to have achieved the quality that was needed.
Some products lead themselves to full automation and if they're made by the millions and millions
then it can warrant a constant investment into using say robots or automatic assembly
machines but in our case and our kind of volumes, it's all assembled by hand and again that's
the craft in itself, the ladies on the production line are slowly getting better and quicker
and more tuned to the product and making very fine skill judgements and motor judgements
and that's the craft in itself as well and really the product is all about craftsmanship.
