McLaren F1 Tech Applied to Other Industries | Hacker News Reader

McLaren F1 Tech Applied to Other Industries

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76 pointsvalhalla16 comments

The technology in Formula 1 is just impressive, there's far more to it than meets the eye of a casual observer.

Just to name a few things related to McLaren... Their headquarters has an artificial lake to cool down the airflow in their 145 meter underground wind tunnel [1]. And when the cars are out on track anywhere in the world, their engineers and strategists are hard at work in their mission control room [2] that resembles something out of a space program more than a racing team. Not to forget that they are pioneers in using composite materials in racing and other applications.

But I really had no idea that they had something to do with toothpaste.

Now, I'm a bit gutted to see such a great team having such a horrible season in racing with their new engine supplier.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren_Technology_Centre [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYhl7csZJHw

I would honestly prefer to watch an F1 competition where we get to watch all the back-room engineering and support infrastructure than the actual F1 car on the track itself. I've always been a fair-weather F1 watcher, but I'd really dig seeing more of what goes on behind the scenes as part of the battles between engineering teams.

Secrecy is an inherent factor in F1 - no team wants to give away valuable data to their rivals.

If you're interested in the technical side of the sport, there are many journalists providing very detailed analysis. Craig Scarborough, Matt Somers, Steven de Groote and Ted Kravitz spring to mind, but there are plenty of others.

Yup, it's all shrouded in huge secrey because it's each team's differentiating factor given that the cars are so standardised. It doesn't reduce how much it fascinates me :)

I will check out some of those journalists. Thank you for the suggestion, I greatly appreciate it!

Same here. I like the tech and the cars more than watching the sport. Documentaries are great though.

> “We didn’t tell the shop-floor workers what to do,” McGrath says. “We put them in McLaren overalls and let them play with the system. They saw for themselves what had to change.” The Maidenhead team developed a seven-step process that began before the changeover, mirroring McLaren’s cycle of simulation, pre-planning, debriefing and continuous improvement. Changeover times fell by 60 percent, dropping from an average of 39 minutes to 15, equating to an extra 20 million tubes by the end of the year. “We used to see changeovers as down time,” Glover says. “McLaren sees pit stops as an opportunity to win the race.”

It seems like it boils down to this. Which means it's a management issue, in a way.

It's nothing new, either. In the industry, this sort of attack on down-time is core to (the original) lean principles: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-Minute_Exchange_of_Di...

I've done analysis in manufacturing lines where I found 95% reductions in set-up time to be possible. Getting buy in to make the necessary changes is never easy, though, and using the McLaren brand to facilitate is genius.

Yeah, it sounds great from the "irrational human" perspective, which shouldn't be underestimated in importance.

Metcals, Mantises, own reflow line, they certainly dont eff around. F1 bans testing? they Matrix tests. Im all jelly.

This is certainly a good PR piece, makes me want to work there.

> “We used to see changeovers as down time,” Glover says. “McLaren sees pit stops as an opportunity to win the race.”

This is a compelling way to change the frame-of-reference. Business X has a factory that makes widgets. By framing the downtime as a "pitstop" instead of a "break", it totally changes the mindset, expectations, and pace of the participants.

> “We used to see changeovers as down time,” Glover says. “McLaren sees pit stops as an opportunity to win the race.”

This is news to me, having watched F1 over the years, I was actually under the impression McLaren saw pit stops as an opportunity to lose races it really should have won.

Ok, the above might be somewhat tongue in cheek, but 2012 was the height of this when they had, at least in Hamilton's hands, probably the best car on the grid, but only he only ended up 4th in the Drivers' championship largely due to numerous pit stop errors.

Admittedly they aren't the only team that has made mistakes, but they are the only team I know of that tries to sells it's expertise so openly to other industries.

I know they set this division up several years ago, when the team was much stronger, but now that the team has become a shadow of their former self, it must make their marketing of these services that much harder.

Seemingly a puff piece on McLaren...

Ron Dennis has always wanted to diversify, to use the Mclarent know-how and brand elsewhere, and that was good when they were winning races. The embarrassing spectacle of both Mclaren cars at the back of the grid, being lapped, has to make one wonder if all group energy and bandwidth should be spent on the F1 operation rather than potential distractions. The brand is currently being damaged.

McLaren Applied Technologies is now working with and helping to attract racing team sponsors. I don't think it is a distraction so much as an aid.

just to supplement a really interesting article on how the same principles were applied from engineers is Japan

http://goo.gl/jkFaJZ

I'm so proud of my previous work, put to such a good use.

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