However, she cautions that we can’t just jump straight from our current position, which she likens to “crawling out of the primordial ooze,” to an end goal of mass customisation akin to ordering a bespoke, Nike shoe.. Jaimie Johnston says that at the moment, there are still too many breaks in the digital chain to get us exactly where we need to go.. “We never get operational data in a particularly sensible format,” he says.
How making things bigger, growing operations tends toward greater economic efficiency.He was right, in some circumstances.
The problem is that such simple rules, although alluring, can be unhelpful or plain wrong in other circumstances..When lecturing my students, I discuss the dis-economy of scale.How large processes need large peak demands of inputs, how many design factors are not linear so doubling the size of a process can mean 4x or 8x the energy, the time, or the effort.
For some processes, a colony of ants would be much more efficient than a brontosaurus..The point is that scale is a complex but critical issue if you are concerned with multiple factors – profitability, economic agility, sustainability, system reliability.
We cannot just keep doing what we have always done or following over-simplistic thinking.
The technological advances of the last 50 years have allowed us to be able to model scenarios from millisecond by millisecond to decade by decade.We have to bear in mind the coordination below the ceiling too, with dropping services, wall-mounted isolation and panels, shut-off valves and emergency stop buttons, all competing for space on the walls.
Internal windows will be needed in labs with dangerous atmospheres to ensure line of sight for occupant safety, which will further impact the below ceiling coordination.While external windows will need to be maintained to introduce daylight, this can lead to solar heat gains.
Blinds can be used but they can trap dirt, so we will place them between secondary glazing.Alternatively, we use solar film and external blinds, and if possible, design the building so the lab is north-facing..
(Editor: Budget Treadmills)