Virtual/RealWorld Custom Manufacturing Project: Double Happiness Jeans

It took me some digging to put all the pieces together, but this is just too fascinating not to have made the effort. 

Without a doubt Second Life is helping companies innovate products and processes - even though 2007 mainstream media was seemingly all about SL marketing efforts.  Often such innovation is being done inside organizations that are quietly tapping the collaborative, cost-saving virtuality of it all.    But Double Happiness Jeans is a public and shining example of the innovation potential of Second Life.  This is product innovation, design innovation, process innovation, business model innovation - and perhaps much more lying just below the surface.

Double Happiness Jeans are real world custom-made jeans that are "manufactured" virtually – and then delivered to your local Kinkos or Double Happiness Jeans express store location. The jeans are the product of the  Invisible Threads, project that explores telematic manufacturing through Second Life. 

The project is virtually replicating a RL assembly-line manufacturing facility, with ten manufacturing stations each correlating to a specification of the custom jean order.  The physical “just in time” inventory system allows customers to place an order for one of several styles of jeans with a live factory representative at a terminal.   The process then enters Second Life. 

Customers can watch their jeans being created in real time in the virtual factory via projection screens.  At the end of the manufacturing process the jeans are output on Tyvek material to a large-format printer in physical space.  With simple assembly the jeans are ready to wear. The manufacturing process takes about 20 minutes. 

Double Happiness Jeans is employing an “indentured servitude” model for its SL workers.  Workers will be given land (and Lindens) in exchange for their factory service over three months’ time, emphasizing the relationship of the exchange of real world dollars for virtual assets. 

From the Invisible Threads web page:

"At the start of each workday, workers will need to clock-in. The worker will then be assigned to a specific department and workstation and given a specialized task to perform. Just as in a real life factory, workers will be monitored by a department supervisor and be held accountable for their speed and efficiency and any production errors. The erratic flow of supply and demand and extenuating circumstances such as equipment failures and irrational dispositions may result in docked pay, layoffs and overtime."

Project collaborators and Double Happiness Jeans co-owners, Dr. Stephanie Rothenberg and Jeffrey Crouse of Eyebeam also hope to shed light on the politics of outsourced labor and the role of “play” in cultural production, according to Adam Elenbass over at Reality Sandwich.

The project will have a special debut at the Sundance Film Festival in the New Frontier Theater on Main Street in Park City, Utah January 17 – 27.  On-site sales staff in Park City will help you customize your jeans, or you may order your jeans on the web site through February 2008.

Double Happiness is currently hiring and training SL factory workers.  Check out their promotional video.

Eyebeam is supporting the project on their Second Life Island, and the profits from the project will be used to maintain the project and pay factory workers.

Double Happiness Jeans is located in SL here: secondlife://Eyebeam%20Island/204/43/27.

Questions come to mind: 

How might this disrupt the clothing manufacturing industry?

How might this open up unseen revenue opportunities for Kinkos?

What new businesses might develop to “receive” in the physical world that which was “manufactured” in virtual space?

Might this potentially impact equipment manufacturers in the future?

Edward Castronova’s book Exodus into the Virtual World dicusses the possible impacts on the economy when segments of the population are spending time and energy producing in virtual economies rather than real ones.  How might such virtual telematic workers impact economies, labor, laws, society?

Are you at least considering how practical virtuality might impact your business?

Is SL really just some cartoon interface?

December 31, 2007

Comments

[Dave Elchoness]

Great post and a fascinating concept. Certainly this specific case is new and I imagine will be adopted by other small manufacturers as a means of reducing the need for corporate real estate and other significant real life costs. That said, other companies have "hired" SL avatars to do real work for them and that's something we should be careful about. For example, in the November 2007 issue of HR Magazine, HR concerns arising in the context of avatar employment was discussed. I was quoted at length in that article, as an experienced US employment attorney and HR consultant, but also a RL/SL entrepreneur. There are significant risks undertaken when you have an unknown person, in a unknown RL jurisdiction perform work for you. Although I am a huge proponent of SL as an amazingly powerful communications medium, I think we need to understand that even though the platform is a new place for work, existing work laws will generally apply.

[Linda/Znetlady]

Hey, Dave! Happy New Year!

Any chance you have a link to the article?

Existing work laws - but another question :-) - whose existing work laws? U.S.? Wherever your SL Grid server is located? Where your corporate org is headquartered? Where the worker is located?

Running into these same issues regarding privacy policies. Generally, it seems it comes down to U.S. because LL is there.

Your insights?

[Dave Elchoness]

Happy New Year to you too, Linda! A link to the reprint of the article appears at http://tinyurl.com/2sqal6.

As for which laws apply -- without providing legal advice -- it depends. (No legal advice is given here as all advice depends on the particular situation appraised by competent counsel.) The law where the employee physically works will impact heavily. So, if you "employ" an avatar whose real life counterpart sits physically in New York, you could convert yourself into a New York employee perhaps inadvertently. Think about the typical remote working relationship. Your company is in California. Your server is in Nevada. Your employee works physically in Colorado. We all know that the Colorado authorities will expect their overtime laws to apply, right? Same goes for real life employees sitting in foreign countries. All this said, the laws of jurisdictions other than where the employee physically sits could surely impact the employer, employee, and employment relationship in other ways.

One thing's for sure: Real life wage laws, benefits laws, etc. will come into play here and one of these days someone's going to get bit for employing someone without the proper legalities in place. For those companies out there that think free avatar work is a great savings over paying a "real" employee $X USD per hour (minimum wage, anyone?), they should think twice and perhaps consider these issues much more closely.

By the way, I plan on writing on issues such as these, specifically relating to virtual workplace, human resources, and employment issues at my new blog at my new site http://www.VRWorkplace.com.

[Linda/Znetlady]

Thanks for the link, Dave.

While Double Happiness Jean is paying avatars it doesn't equate to RL minimum wages...hmmmm, interesting issues. We'll be watching your blog for commentary and insights on these virtual workplace issues.

[Ron / Hiro]

Is that Aimee's and Reuben's avatars I see on the second picture?

[Linda Zimmer]

Hiro, I'm thinkin' it is so...

[Rich Bruchal]

I'm a little confused about a couple of things.

1. These are RL jeans being produced? The article says they are "printed' out on Tyvek. Do people really wear Tyvek jeans? I must be getting old :)

2. What exactly do the SL employees do? Are they actually controlling the RL manufacturing process in some way, or is this just for show? If it's just a pattern printed out, what exactly is there for them to do?

[Linda Zimmer]

Ron, these are RL jeans, yes. They are printed out on the material, you then cut it and assemble the jeans.

As I understand it the SL employees are working at stations and their SL actions are tied to RL processes that produce the jeans.

[Wanda]

Very interesting post. I had no idea that Second life was that involved.