How is a Swiss Army Knife Made?

Have just watched an interesting short documentary on Discovery Channel. How to make stuff. This evenings stuff? A Swiss Army Knife.

Wow! This really amazed me. I can't believe how manual the process is for making a Swiss Army Knife.

They have machines to stamp out the blades and other associated tools you get on a knife, 20,000 per hour! But, this is then moved around the factory in metal boxes to the next machine, then poured into a tumbler to polish off the burrs, then carried to the heat treatment machine to harden them off, where they are laid out by hand to go through the furnace, then off to the polisher, again laid out by hand!

They wouldn't show us how they they sharpened the knives, but I'm sure there was a little army of Swiss Children all armed with little ceramic sharpening stones....

Finally the whole thing is assembled, yes, that's right. By hand. This lady is so skilled that she can put together 60+ components in 2 minutes. I'm very impressed.

So when you buy your next Swiss Army Knife, just think how many people have handled it. Almost, almost, hand crafted. But they don't seem expensive.

Have they heard of lean manufacturing?

The Source of the Thames

Who knows where the source of the River Thames is? I had no idea until a few moments ago when I looked it up on t'internet. One of my valued regular customers has just sent me an email saying that she found the source of the Thames and is now has another 179 miles to go. The Thames is (according to web research 210 miles long).

I've never really thought about the source of a river. I wonder where the source for the River Arun is that runs through Horsham? Finding the source of a river always sounds like it is going to be a swash bucking adventure. The sort of things that Harrison Ford (in actor mode) of Ranulph Fiennes would do. Fighting your way up river, against all the odds, the boat getting holes and nearly sinking while the crocs watch from the riverbank, waiting for you to go under.

OK, so I was getting a little carried away there, but Ran (as I fondly call him, having met him the once at a book signing and he signed my book to Gary) has actually done this finding the river source thing. He used hovercrafts to get to the source of the Nile. Now that must have been an adventure.

So here is your challenge, and you have a year to complete it in:

Find your local river, then find it's source.

I'm sure with modern technology like GPS and Internet sites you should be able to find it. I'm going to hunt down the source of the River Arun.

Keep it local, beat the credit crunch and reduce carbon emissions.

(But hey, you can't beat a good bit of travelling to somewhere exciting - source of the Amazon anyone?!)