Hardware Podcasts

#032 - Why manufacturing in USA vs China is becoming interesting, with Scott N. Miller of Dragon Innovation, USA

The Hardware Entrepreneur · 5 Jul 2017 · 36m

What this episode covers

Scott N. Miller, co-founder and CEO of Dragon Innovation, discusses the shifting landscape of manufacturing between the US and China, highlighting how rising Chinese labor costs and the rise of crowdfunding are making US production viable for lower-volume hardware startups. He details Dragon Innovation's new software tool, Product Planner, designed to help hardware companies manage bills of materials and unit economics, and announces a partnership with Kickstarter and Avnet called Hardware Studio to support creators. Miller also shares a critical failure story from his time at iRobot involving the first 15,000 Roombas, where a design flaw caused optical encoders to fail due to rubber dust, illustrating the importance of testing and quality control.

Most relevant to

companies scaling up

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Dragon Innovation, Kickstarter, Avnet, iRobot, Pebble, Bose, MakerBot, Formlabs, Rethink Robotics
Products
Roomba, Hardware Studio
Tools
Product Planner

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The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by The Hardware Entrepreneur. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.