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by yaakov34 3512 days ago
In most manufacturing, you have a prototype hall or floor where you have somewhat more general purpose/flexible machines with a lot of manual intervention to make small quantities of prototypes, and factories with automated machines set up to make the exact parts you need for your full production.

This was always my experience in electronics - you, as the development engineer, set up small-scale production (going from prototypes to EV or engineering validation articles, which are basically the final product produced by these manual/slow methods), and then manufacturing engineers work with you to transfer your processes to an automated assembly line making who knows how many units a minute.

It's not unusual to produce a special prototype in the small/experimental floor; I mean, Apple probably goes through hundreds (or whatever) of prototypes and test articles before releasing their next phone, and they are certainly not stopping their million-per-day manufacturing plants to make them. However, it does show impressive commitment to the customer on the part of Fujitsu.

Also, electronics is more cyclical than cars (3-year-old model may be completely different and useless compared to the current one), so it is common to produce everything in batches rather than "the Toyota way" with just-in-time. In other words, if a laptop model is sold for 2 years, the whole run may have been made in 6 months, and then you have that manufacturing equipment sitting idle while the next prototype is worked on, so you may have equipment and engineers to spare. Only a few of the highest-volume factories (e.g. Apple again, I assume) run at full capacity all the time.