This week, we tour Seeed Studios in Shenzhen. Seeed has an interesting origin story which has eventuated into a flourishing business. They started out as a group of Makers at a Maker Space who just wanted to make things for others. In doing so, they have become the factory for the Maker, providing services like PCB manufacturing, PCB assembly and testing, designing and distributing their own kits as well as those from other Makers. Startups from all over the world prototype and manufacture products with Seeed. They have also connected big players like Microsoft and Intel with the Maker community, by selling their offerings as well. Seeed provides 3D printing and laser cutting services, Stencil manufacturing, PCB layout services and a Bazaar to sell Makers products to the world. CEO Eric Pan explains how they continue to foster the “Maker Movement” by providing innovative ideas like the Open Parts Library (OPL) which Seeed keeps on hand for quick and efficient prototyping services, and they provide a footprint library for Kiacad and Eagle CAD software, eliminating problems at the design level.

See https://www.seeedstudio.com/opl.html Seeed has also collaborated with Make Magazine to bring Makerfaire to Shenzhen. They have collaborated with the local Chaihuo Maker Space and the Chinese Government to bring the xFactory into existence. SOE will tour the xFactory in an upcoming episode. https://www.xfactory.io So come join in and take a tour of the highly efficient but modest sized Seeed Studio factory and see how clever they have been in organizing, maintaining and operating a rapid manufacturing plant. Through the use of “dashboards” to keep track of jobs to the repurposing of “lolly” packaging machines to bag parts, it’s a fascinating look into the company. https://www.seeedstudio.com

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