From our computers to our chairs, our morning cereal and our daily pills, nearly everything we use – and countless other things that we never think much about – all were manufactured. How do products get from design to creation to delivery?

This course will explore how products or categories of products are manufactured, possibly summarizing the entire process or maybe focusing on one particularly unusual or interesting aspect. The coordinator will provide a list of topics, and we’ll explore two per week; participants can also suggest others. One session will be a field trip to a local manufacturing facility (TBD).

Format: Each course participant will be asked to “own an hour,” leading the group in learning about a topic. The leadership can take the form of: arranging a talk by a guest speaker (in-person or Zoom), showing illustrative videos, telling the story through slides and commentary, posing provocative questions and leading the group discussion, and other formats. It’s always best to reserve the last 20-25 minutes of the hour for discussion (the most popular part of the class for many LLC members).

Resources/Expenses: The just-published book How Things Are Made by innovation expert Tim Minshall is available on Amazon, new for $30.00 (hardcover) or $14.99 on Kindle. Try to read the book before the course begins.