Modularity

- [Jill] Hi, I'm Jill Butler,…and this is the Universal Principles of Design.…In this movie, modularity,…or the power of thinking inside the box.…You may be surprised to learn…that the motorcycle manufacturing capital of the world…is not in the United States, or the U.K.,…or Germany, or Japan,…but in China.…The city of Chongqing, to be exact.…Home to more than 130 motorcycle manufacturing companies…producing roughly 12 million motorcycles a year.…

Now, making this many motorcycles year after year…creates an interesting problem.…How do you make enough parts to meet this kind of demand?…One company making all of these parts…isn't really feasible at this level of production.…So the only way to do it…is to outsource the manufacturing to external suppliers.…And that's where one of the world's largest manufacturers,…Dachangjiang, did something interesting.…Rather than following the traditional method…of designing all the parts…and then outsourcing their manufacture…to a vertical chain of suppliers,…they instead broke their motorcycle design into modules,…