The San Franciso Fire Department makes its own wooden ladders by hand
If you get a chance to visit a Smokejumper base, I highly recommend it. One of the things you learn is that everyone on the team is required to make all of their own equipment by hand. So all of these highly trained, ex-military guys spend days on end doing nothing but sewing clothes and packing parachutes. The reasons described:<p>- Cheaper than contracting out everything<p>- They have a better idea of the exact specifications they need for everything<p>- It instills a strong culture of self-reliance and trust (anyone has to be able to pack your parachute)<p>- It fills a lot of offseason downtime<p>My takeaway is that it makes a lot of sense to in-house your own tools - a lesson from outside of the software industry.