Dapol: ENHANCED UK PRODUCTION

[Rabs]

I wish them every success. The loss of the Chinese New Year would be a huge side benefit

True, but they will probably have a Christmas shutdown instead.

[Snowwolflair]

I wish them every success. The loss of the Chinese New Year would be a huge side benefit

True, but they will probably have a Christmas shutdown instead.

But believe it or not they get far drunker at Chinese New Year

[acko22]

I looks like a serious piece of kit!! Just one question where does the coffee come out? 

I think its a clever move in many a respect, things like wagons and coaches may be easy enough to move across from china but powered models well that's another matter.
But I suppose it will all be a mater of wait and see, although it does interest me as to how much the price difference is between producing the tooling in the UK Vs done in china

[Hailstone]

My best wishes to Dapol on a brave move - I hope that it proves to be a great success

Regards,

Alex

[Newportnobby]

I wish them every success. The loss of the Chinese New Year would be a huge side benefit

True, but they will probably have a Christmas shutdown instead.

But the Chinese New Year puts at least a 3 week dent in production times and no one is sure which of their workers they'll get back afterwards. A weeks Christmas shutdown is a small thing in comparison.
Damn! I swore I would not use the 'C' word until at least August

[njee20]

It's a funny thing isn't it, the only person I've ever really seen complaining about the immense disruption of Chinese New Year is a certain former Chirk employee. On the face of it yes, being UK based should mitigate that, but I'll wager it'll be a 2-week shutdown for Christmas, and that'll probably be extended because they won't want to be starting a run in the second half of December because people will be off.

I imagine the staff return rate will be higher, but it wouldn't surprise me if the actual production disruption was similar.

Moot point anyway, if they're doing things like containers then it's unlikely there'll be a baying mob waiting on a delivery date howling "but 8 years ago you promised they'd come next Tuesday!".

[Steven B]

By moving some production back to the UK it means that the exodus of staff that often follows Chinese New Year will have less of an impact (many Chinese take the money they're earned and return home, or move to a different factory offering more money).

However, moving production away from China may not be all good news. With less work for the Chinese factories Dapol may move down the pecking order for production time. It could mean that delayed projects like the class 142 move up the list though.

Happy modelling.

Steven B.

[Snowwolflair]

molding is not the problem with holidays.  If the machine is state of the art it will be capable of thousands of shots a day and allowing for mold setup and changing they should be able to make to parts for several thousand coaches a week.  (i'm estimating as I have not seen the machine spec but that is capability they should have bought).

[geoffc]

Hello all,

My understanding is that they are taking it - quite sensibly in my view - one step at a time.

They already have some tools at Chirk, for the old kits, and I believe have had the tooling for their containers in N and 00 sent from China.

The containers are a good way "back" into UK manufacturing - moulding, painting, printing, packaging but no complex running gear, electronics or motors.  And most importantly, no fiddly assembly required.

Once these have been mastered then it may be that slowly more and more models, of increasing complexity, can be made here. 

When it comes to finished RTR with lots of separate detail parts then China remains very hard to beat in terms of both labour costs and available skills, but this may change as wages there rise and if Sterling continues to perform poorly.

Cheers

Ben A.

The containers are all ready being made in Chirk and are as good if not better than the Chinese ones.

Geoff

[robert shrives]

http://www.dapol.co.uk/image/data/News%20Items%20and%20press%20release/UK%20Production.pdf

Hi news for home production on Dapol website

Robert

[Newportnobby]

Same statement as in the OP, Robert

[robert shrives]

ops -sorry ! brain fade apologies ..

Robert