What can Manufacturing & Making learn from 20 years of software development? 1. Design for change & failure — we have useful patterns 2. Iterative delivery works — Agile/Lean approaches 3. Design for version control — full digital change tracking is powerful 4. The system is socio-technical — people and machines together From a talk given at Leeds Digital Festival 2018. See https://medium.com/confluxdigital/what-can-manufacturing-making-learn-from-20-years-of-software-development-3149c8540de for more details.

1. 20 years of digital:
what lessons can we learn for
manufacturing and making?
Matthew Skelton, Conflux | 16 April 2018, Leeds Digital Festival

2. Unambiguous
specification and
execution instructions
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3. Optimise for engaged,
empowered people
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4. About me
Matthew Skelton, Conflux
@matthewpskelton
matthewskelton.net
Leeds, UK
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5. About me
Matthew Skelton, Conflux
@matthewpskelton
matthewskelton.net
Leeds, UK
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assemblyconf.com

6. What we’ll learn
● Global systems - huge scale
● Agile ways of working
● The power of open collaboration
on code
● The value of empowered people
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9. Global Scale
20 years of digital:
what lessons can we learn for manufacturing and making?
9@ConfluxHQ

10. Global Scale
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● The system will be wrong
● Design for upgrade
● Design for auto-scaling
● Design to handle failures

11. Design for change &
failure: resilience,
scaling, deduplication,
fault-tolerance, etc.
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12. Agile Ways of Working
20 years of digital:
what lessons can we learn for manufacturing and making?
12@ConfluxHQ

13. Agile Ways of Working
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● Iterative delivery
● Something working every day
● Design and execute for rapid
customer collaboration
● Discover the solution over time

14. Iterative delivery works:
show working
improvements each day
(not incremental)
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15. The Power of Open
Collaboration on Code
20 years of digital:
what lessons can we learn for manufacturing and making?
15@ConfluxHQ

16. Open Collaboration on Code
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● Version control
● Fully-trackable change history
● Transparency drives innovation
● Powerful reasoning ability
● Trigger automation on changes

17. Design for version
control: specifications,
instructions,
documentation
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18. The Value of
Empowered People
20 years of digital:
what lessons can we learn for manufacturing and making?
18@ConfluxHQ

19. Empowered People
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● Engineers co-creating with Biz
● Live telemetry to development
● Conway’s Law: system design
constrained by communication

20. The system is
socio-technical:
people and machines
working together
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21. Making + Manufacturing + Software
20 years of digital:
what lessons can we learn for manufacturing and making?
21@ConfluxHQ

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29. Summary
20 years of digital:
what lessons can we learn for manufacturing and making?
29@ConfluxHQ

30. Design for change & failure
Iterative delivery works
Design for version control
The system is socio-technical
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20 years of digital:
what lessons can we learn for manufacturing and making?

31. Questions?
matthew@confluxdigital.net
@matthewpskelton
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