Following on from discussions in other topics about whether Farish should bring back production to the UK I would like to report on my shoe-buying experience today.
The last time I bought a pair of Dr. Marten's was about 10 years ago. They were made in China and were very uncomfortable so I have been buying other brands since then.
However I decided to give DM's another chance today.
I am pleased to inform you that they are once again made in England (and comfortable) but they cost Euro 230, about 3 times what I paid last time.
Best regards,
Joe
Hi Joe,
This topic comes up numerous times on different forums and the concensus seems to be that it would not make commercial sense for model railways. Despite recent labour cost rises in China and the devaluing of the Pound they are still a low cost manufacturing location. Modern models have lots of fitted detail and this requires skilled labour - imagine how much it would cost to do this sort of thing in the UK. Also, China has economies of scale in this area that I fear the UK could not get near.
I would love to see model railways made in the UK again but sadly I struggle to see how this can happen. It might be possible if all the manufacturers got together but that is not going to happen - cartel, lack of competition etc.
In terms of UK railway models I just don't think there is the volume anymore - everything is a limited edition. ;)
Paddy
It isn't just the cost of manufacturing in the UK, but also availability of skills.
Cheers, Mike
Farish (i.e. Bachmann) are a Chinese owned company so UK manufacturing will never happen.
Dapol & Hornby are UK Companies so theoretically possible. I could be wrong but I believe that Dapol produce some of their plastic kits in the UK and that Humbrol Paints are now locally produced.
Quote from: Paddy on February 09, 2017, 12:01:56 PM
Hi Joe,
This topic comes up numerous times on different forums and the concensus seems to be that it would not make commercial sense for model railways. Despite recent labour cost rises in China and the devaluing of the Pound they are still a low cost manufacturing location. Modern models have lots of fitted detail and this requires skilled labour - imagine how much it would cost to do this sort of thing in the UK. Also, China has economies of scale in this area that I fear the UK could not get near.
I would love to see model railways made in the UK again but sadly I struggle to see how this can happen. It might be possible if all the manufacturers got together but that is not going to happen - cartel, lack of competition etc.
In terms of UK railway models I just don't think there is the volume anymore - everything is a limited edition. ;)
Paddy
I used to run factories in the Far East and I can confirm they have no skills we do not have. What they do have is cheap money to build factories and cheap labor to build the product. We could make all the products being produced in China here but we would have to pay the extra. The last quote I saw was an iPhone would cost $5 more to make in the US rather than China.
However as the pound has slipped by 20% the advantage of "cheap" China is currently being lost and I know companies in many industries here who make in China are going to be moving their production back here. Having said this they wont do it until they know it will stay this way permanently (the end game of Brexit whatever it is is still open). Regardless we are going to pay more, just that in future we will employ more people here than paying to employ them in China.
I'm trying to keep this a economic input however, watch the world of protectionism, trade barriers US vs Mexico, US vs China and you will see there is political will to bring manufacturing home everywhere, as it has finally dawned on politicians that the cost of unemployment, social care and lost taxes is greater than the cost of cheap manufacturing.
One thing to remember is volume though. In the case of the iPhone you are talking about 10s of millions of units which means any increase in costs can be spread out. Given the margin Apple enjoys on a iPhone they could be probably be made almost anywhere and still be profitable. ;)
Sadly, Hornby can only dream of selling that many A4s. :(
Paddy
Quote from: Paddy on February 09, 2017, 12:37:41 PM
One thing to remember is volume though. In the case of the iPhone you are talking about 10s of millions of units which means any increase in costs can be spread out. Given the margin Apple enjoys on a iPhone they could be probably be made almost anywhere and still be profitable. ;)
Sadly, Hornby can only dream of selling that many A4s. :(
Paddy
No, everything is relative and volume might affect the amount of difference but not the fact there is a difference. We are already paying the baseline price penalty for a low volume product, so its only differentials that matter. The $5 is a differential not a change in base cost.
Mike
They are using schoolgirls no brighter than ours and training them. I literally have been there and done that. "No skills" are a capitalist propaganda weapon and complete rubbish.
In China this week they will train +500,000 new workers who have joined the workforce for the first time after the Chinese New Year, and next week they will be 100% trained and productive (or they will be sent back to their villages).
In fact I just read the booklet that came with my shoes. In 2003 Dr. Marten's closed all their UK factories except one and outsourced 98% of their production to Asia.
Shoes from the remaining UK factory sell at a premium of around Euro 100 compared with the asian products.
Best regards,
Joe
I think I'll put on my Chinese Doc Martens and kick this thread into touch.
Sorry, Joe, but as far as manufacturing model railway stuff such as Farish, Dapol and DJM, it's just not going to happen in the UK :no:
newportnobby, I think you are correct on this, however if the pound stays at 1.24 to the dollar indefinitely it would certainly be cheaper to make in the UK for all scales not just N.
What you have to remember is that most components in a model are low tech in their nature (molded plastics, etc) and require automated high tech to manufacture (so we can buy the same machines as they do). The few high tech parts like motors can be multi country sourced although may still be cheaper from the far east for a while. It's a question of critical mass of production but if Hornby, Dapol Farish and the rest all committed to UK manufacture it would easily sustain two or three independent manufacturers.
Sorry, but I don't think you are taking the labour situation seriously enough in your calculations. I know I'm tip-toeing on the edge of getting into politics here but I don't know how much a Chinese worker gets paid but I'd bet on the fact it's less than the UK minimum wage :hmmm:
As others have said, training and payment of a wage a UK person would consider acceptable would still price things out of the market.
There was a telly programme a couple of years ago about a cushion manufacturer in the UK who was repatriating some of his production from China. It clearly showed that the Chinese workers were less productive and had less of a work ethic than his British ones. Perhaps this is why there are so many complaints about quality control with Chinese-produced models.
The thing that keeps on coming up, and being ignored, is that Bachmann/Graham Farish is owned by Kader, which is a Chinese company, which does its manufacturing in China. I'm sure there would have to be a very strong economic argument for them to offshore part of their manufacturing to the UK.
There are other factors to consider as well if you product is being made in a factory that you do not own on the other side of the globe.
Lack of quality control unless you have one of your employees on the factory floor and maybe not even then.
Products coming out of the back door and being sold at half your price, look on eBay, Atlas Dinkys sale for £10 or less including postage, subscribe to Atlas Editions and they cost £18!
Being gazumpped when a larger order from another customer arrives, creating delays for your product.
The cost of shipping, I know you can get a lot in a 40ft container but it all adds to the cost.
As for skills that is debateable. I received an Atlas Dinky with only one wheel on the front axle as the axle was not long enough to fit the other one. Where was the quality control or the workers interest in doing the job properly.
A lack of esprit de corps for your company, they are not part of it.
We are only part way through the 5 year plan to increase wages by 100% in China, when that ends will there be another plan to increase wages?
I am old enough to remember when cheap far eastern goods came from Japan, Taiwan and S Korea, they are not cheap now.
I can see a time when China prices its self out of the market.
Geoff
Quote from: Yet_Another on February 09, 2017, 03:35:47 PM
The thing that keeps on coming up, and being ignored, is that Bachmann/Graham Farish is owned by Kader, which is a Chinese company, which does its manufacturing in China.
That was mentioned by Thorpe Parva.
Moving manufacturing around the globe is not that simple. The reason that virtually all electronics are made in SE Asia is because, that's where the supply chain is. Everything is made there, plastics, switches, enclosures, components, IC's, bare PCB's, etc, etc. The final manufacturing is only a small piece of the puzzle.
In order to build a mobile phone or computer in the UK you would have to import all the relevant bits from Asia unless you can convince your suppliers to move as well.
As for quality, you get what you ask or pay for. Every Apple product you own was made in China by Foxconn, the quality of Apple products is not in question, they make sure that their suppliers are measured at every level to ensure that corners are not cut. If you ask ACME manufacturing to make a DC motor for a train they will, if you then ask for a price cut you'll get one, but ACME will be cutting back costs in manufacturing and quality will suffer, this doesn't just happen in China it happens everywhere.
Bottom line is that if you want quality you have to pay for it, whether it's made in the UK or Asia.
As for the Dinky example of being able to buy through the back door then that is Dinky's problem.
To get into a major electronics plant in China you have to be screened through metal detectors and NOTHING is allowed to leave other than by the containers parked in the loading dock, at some plants even employees of the US or UK based companies have to wear scrubs so that underwired bras, studs on Levis jeans, etc ,etc don't set off the metal detectors, no jewellery, or pens, or watches, or phones, or ring binders, are allowed in.
For a 10 pound car that's probably overkill, but for a 2000 pound Apple MAC then it's worth it.
Regards,
John P
Calculating the total cost of anything manufactured is very difficult. The piece price charged by the manufacturer is of course known but there are so many other costs. Shipping, having cash tied up in goods on the high seas, distance from manufacturer causing quality problems and delays to name but a few. All of these are costs to the business which may be difficult to allocate accurately to piece cost.
Production of current items cannot be moved from China because, although you will have paid for the tooling the Chinese will not let you move it out of China. I would expect that amortisation of tool cost is a significant part of the cost of any model. The Chinese have expertise in this area that we would have learn in the U.K.
As the cost base in China increases it is possible that one day in the future a new design item might be made in the UK but the lower wage economies in parts of the EU.
USA Trains manufacture some wagons in the USA and manage to sell them at a reasonable price so it is possible.
Quote from: Snowwolflair on February 09, 2017, 12:52:28 PM
Mike
They are using schoolgirls no brighter than ours and training them. I literally have been there and done that. "No skills" are a capitalist propaganda weapon and complete rubbish.
They are not using schoolgirls to do the difficult parts though - ie tool making, CAD design, artwork etc. Some of those skills are available in the UK, but finding a tool maker and injection moulding for the sorts of volumes (and prices) we are talking about is very difficult.
I don't see what is capitalist propaganda about any of that. I'm sure if I chuck enough money at people we could get things made in the UK, but then you have tripled your price easily and gone bust.
So perhaps I was taking a short cut when I said the skills weren't available - more accurate would have been the skills aren't available at a price the market will pay.
Cheers, Mike
With all this there is 2 factors that people have not seemingly looked at in my opinion:
1) We have for 100s of years been an island trading nation, exporting what others cant offer.
2) if you look at what the UK is listed as in terms of trade we are not a base manufacturing nation any more and haven't been since the 1980, these days we trade mostly in services (banking, IT , consulting and the like) followed by high technology exports (Defence products, Satellites, modern aircraft components)
With these factors the idea of the UK becoming a major manufacturer in any areas is less and less realistic, but anything UK made we pay a premium for the quality or tends to be of inferior quality to out sourced factories abroad.
Only time will tell if production remains in china in the long term (there was rumbles of it moving to India for some firms), it will all depend on future costs and well any UK - China trade deals, but no doubt as china develops it will out price it self from the market and production will move but I doubt back to the UK all manufacturers will move to the next cheaper country
Quote from: newportnobby on February 09, 2017, 02:28:10 PM
I think I'll put on my Chinese Doc Martens and kick this thread into touch.
Sorry, Joe, but as far as manufacturing model railway stuff such as Farish, Dapol and DJM, it's just not going to happen in the UK :no:
I agree with you Mick. I don't mind paying 200 euros for shoes made in England instead of 100 euros for asian shoes because I will get the benefit of the extra quality every time I wear them over a period of several years.
However, I would not pay an extra 100 euros for an N gauge loco made in England compared to a Chinese one.
Just to close, I have the impression that the analogy between shoes and model trains is valid because there seems to be quite a few manual operations in both manufacturing processes.
Best regards,
Joe
QuoteThe last quote I saw was an iPhone would cost $5 more to make in the US rather than China
I don't know where you got that from, but MIT last year estimated that a shift to US production would add $30-40 ie about 15% to the cost of an iPhone 6 whilst more recent articles suggested the cost would double.
Those producing model railway stuff appear to think that UK manufacturing remains impractical.
Quote from: red_death on February 09, 2017, 06:58:06 PM
Quote from: Snowwolflair on February 09, 2017, 12:52:28 PM
Mike
They are using schoolgirls no brighter than ours and training them. I literally have been there and done that. "No skills" are a capitalist propaganda weapon and complete rubbish.
They are not using schoolgirls to do the difficult parts though - ie tool making, CAD design, artwork etc. Some of those skills are available in the UK, but finding a tool maker and injection moulding for the sorts of volumes (and prices) we are talking about is very difficult.
I don't see what is capitalist propaganda about any of that. I'm sure if I chuck enough money at people we could get things made in the UK, but then you have tripled your price easily and gone bust.
So perhaps I was taking a short cut when I said the skills weren't available - more accurate would have been the skills aren't available at a price the market will pay.
Cheers, Mike
There is a very large industry segment in the UK tooling for PEP (Precision Engineered Plastics) with thousands of trained specialists and toolmakers. Just do a web search for PEP manufacturers in the UK. We have everyone we need here already! As for cost the differential of 20% on the sinking pound plus this years Chinese mandatory salary rise, they must be already increasing the cost to make the Pendolinos by 25-30% assuming you started today and I assume you have pre-paid and hedged to avoid this.
As far as the $5 extra cost to make iPhones that was a difference in the assembly cost in the US rather than in Far East (Parts sourced from same places). This reflected a manpower + automation in the US vs a manpower only operation in the Far East. Yes they do some automation in China but nothing like new factories in the west. The MIT figures assumed you used the same manpower in the US as used in the Far East with no increase in automation, which shows how blinkered academics can be.
Remember one of the most efficient car factories in the world is the Nissan plant in Sunderland, not some Chinese factory, why? because it was designed for high automation from the ground up.
Remember it is human nature to follow the heard and making models in the same Chinese factory as everyone else is safe (no one got sacked for buying IBM) but at some point a manufacturer will take the plunge and get models made here. My guess is it will be for a wagon or coach rather than a locomotive.
Political comment removed. ................QED Rapido Trains Inc will soon be manufacturing in the US.
I will now take the saddle of my high horse. :D
Quote from: Snowwolflair on February 09, 2017, 08:45:33 PM
There is a very large industry segment in the UK tooling for PEP (Precision Engineered Plastics) with thousands of trained specialists and toolmakers. Just do a web search for PEP manufacturers in the UK. We have everyone we need here already! As for cost the differential of 20% on the sinking pound plus this years Chinese mandatory salary rise, they must be already increasing the cost to make the Pendolinos by 25-30% assuming you started today
But not at the price or volumes model train manufacturing needs! Why make a highly detailed model train when you can injection mould 10s of thousands of something much simpler. The sinking pound doesn't make it cheaper to manufacture here, it just means manufacturing abroad is more expensive - when the market is so price sensitive increasing costs by moving production to the UK just doesn't work.
There is at least one RTR model company in the UK, but that is 7mm. If we could charge 7mm level prices (margins are much, much higher in 7mm from the figures I've seen) then we would perhaps manufacture in the UK. £600 for a 92 anyone?
Cheers, Mike
Gosh I'd love to bring back production to the UK for good reasons (carbon footprint these days for one) but reading this thread and the way it's posed I can't really explain experience working abroad or why I think so -it's entirely political whatever way I look at it so I'll keep shtum.
Rich
From MIT's review to illuminate some misconceptions.
This is what it really says:
Current situation of manufacturing in China of Apple's I-phone.
Cost of components of a I-phone 6 Plus is approx $230.
Cost of assembly of these parts is estimated to be $4 to $10.
If assembly was moved to USA.
An increased cost of $30 to $40
"That's partly because labor costs are higher in the U.S.,
but mostly it's because additional transportation and logistics expenses would arise from shipping parts, and not just the finished product, to the U.S."
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601491/the-all-american-iphone/ (https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601491/the-all-american-iphone/)
Bear in mind that manufacturing electronics in any country is very highly automated from production of base materials to sub-assembly. Human involvement is only done where it is cost effective (cheaper than machine) or not possible to use current robotics.
China is no exception. Since their manufacturing base is fairly recent they usually have the best equipment (a lot made in USA).
If manufacturing was moved to USA.
"Dedrick and his colleagues estimate that producing the constituents of an iPhone in the U.S. would add another $30 or $40 to the cost of the device."
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601491/the-all-american-iphone/ (https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601491/the-all-american-iphone/)
So the all up increase would be around $60 to $80.
All manufacturing requires human involvement whether robotic or not, in the USA this is an extra cost which is added at each level of production not simply at the final assembly stage.
One further consideration is the pool of talented smart workers, with the huge population the pool is much larger.
"As Steve Jobs once told President Obama when he asked why Apple didn't make phones in its home country, the company didn't hire manufacturers in China only because labor is cheaper there. China also offered a skilled workforce and flexible factories and parts suppliers that can, Apple believes, retool more quickly than their American counterparts."
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601491/the-all-american-iphone/ (https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601491/the-all-american-iphone/)
I could imagine that moving production of model trains to any advanced economy would encounter the same problems.
CFJ
Quote from: NinOz on February 10, 2017, 01:26:17 AM
From MIT's review to illuminate some misconceptions.
This is what it really says:
Current situation of manufacturing in China of Apple's I-phone.
Cost of components of a I-phone 6 Plus is approx $230.
Cost of assembly of these parts is estimated to be $4 to $10.
If assembly was moved to USA.
An increased cost of $30 to $40
"That's partly because labor costs are higher in the U.S.,
but mostly it's because additional transportation and logistics expenses would arise from shipping parts, and not just the finished product, to the U.S."
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601491/the-all-american-iphone/ (https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601491/the-all-american-iphone/)
Bear in mind that manufacturing electronics in any country is very highly automated from production of base materials to sub-assembly. Human involvement is only done where it is cost effective (cheaper than machine) or not possible to use current robotics.
China is no exception. Since their manufacturing base is fairly recent they usually have the best equipment (a lot made in USA).
If manufacturing was moved to USA.
"Dedrick and his colleagues estimate that producing the constituents of an iPhone in the U.S. would add another $30 or $40 to the cost of the device."
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601491/the-all-american-iphone/ (https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601491/the-all-american-iphone/)
So the all up increase would be around $60 to $80.
All manufacturing requires human involvement whether robotic or not, in the USA this is an extra cost which is added at each level of production not simply at the final assembly stage.
One further consideration is the pool of talented smart workers, with the huge population the pool is much larger.
"As Steve Jobs once told President Obama when he asked why Apple didn't make phones in its home country, the company didn't hire manufacturers in China only because labor is cheaper there. China also offered a skilled workforce and flexible factories and parts suppliers that can, Apple believes, retool more quickly than their American counterparts."
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601491/the-all-american-iphone/ (https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601491/the-all-american-iphone/)
I could imagine that moving production of model trains to any advanced economy would encounter the same problems.
CFJ
I'm sorry but the link you give to the MIT opinion piece starts with "Donald Trump says" and it is published by a left wing academic institute in the middle of an election year. :laughabovepost:
You think Apple gave then such commercially sensitive numbers, or do you think they cooked them up. 8)
Another factor not being taken into account is that the model railway industry is changing. Not every young boy (or girl) wants a train set anymore, so there's no reason to run a large Triang factory to churn out train sets. The big companies like Hornby and Backmann have been consolidating and hoovering up lots of smaller brands in order to remain large enough to manufacture in any kind of quantity (and Hornby is doing very badly at the moment, by all accounts).
It's becoming a much more small scale and specialist sector, and new advances like 3D printing are only going to intensify that. Smaller companies may well be the future of this hobby and they might well consider manufacturing in the UK, just because of the simple fact that they don't have the scale or specific skills to commission and manufacture product abroad. However they are realistically going to just be small scale operations, employing a few staff at most.
This isn't a pessimistic view of things by the way, the hobby is still going strong, it's just changing into a different kind of business.
Quote from: red_death on February 09, 2017, 11:06:11 PM
There is at least one RTR model company in the UK, but that is 7mm.
In N gauge don't forget Union Mills (though I do forget whether the Isle of Man is technically part of the UK or not, but it certainly ain't China), though I guess that's a small 1/2 person operation which wouldn't be able to scale up effectively.
I think that Union Mills would have to be a British model railway success story.
My Tuppence worth if I may, on what is a very interesting, if emotive, subject.
I quote TylerB's post above ...
Quote from: TylerB on February 10, 2017, 02:28:19 AM
Another factor not being taken into account is that the model railway industry is changing. Not every young boy (or girl) wants a train set anymore, so there's no reason to run a large Triang factory to churn out train sets. The big companies like Hornby and Backmann have been consolidating and hoovering up lots of smaller brands in order to remain large enough to manufacture in any kind of quantity (and Hornby is doing very badly at the moment, by all accounts).
It's becoming a much more small scale and specialist sector, and new advances like 3D printing are only going to intensify that. Smaller companies may well be the future of this hobby and they might well consider manufacturing in the UK, just because of the simple fact that they don't have the scale or specific skills to commission and manufacture product abroad. However they are realistically going to just be small scale operations, employing a few staff at most.
This isn't a pessimistic view of things by the way, the hobby is still going strong, it's just changing into a different kind of business.
Now, if we take this and combine it with a quote from RedDeath, we get close to my analogy of where things "might" be heading ...
Quote from: red_death on February 09, 2017, 11:06:11 PM
There is at least one RTR model company in the UK, but that is 7mm. If we could charge 7mm level prices (margins are much, much higher in 7mm from the figures I've seen) then we would perhaps manufacture in the UK. £600 for a 92 anyone?
Cheers, Mike
I believe demographics (generation iphone "ain't" buying model trains) will change the industry. Yes, there will be enthusiasts coming into the hobby in adulthood, but I don't think the volumes that are even produced today (which I imagine are less than 30 years ago) will continue to be produced in the future. I could be wrong and those growing up now with fangdangled electro gizmos might suddenly wake up in their thirties and come over all nostalgic. Who knows? We aren't there yet and we do not know how the influence of ipads etc. is going to influence the generation growing up now. Lego have been doing well, so there's hope still. One thought I often do have though, is that adults of today DID have exposure to model railways and other "boyish" (sorry girls, no sexism intended) hobbies, and so reconnecting with them in adulthood is something completely understandable. My concern with the current generation of kids is that there is far less exposure to such hobbies (unless your mum/dad is a model railway enthusiast, you live next door to the village hall which hosts the local MRC, and so on). The exposure today is overwhelmingly homogenous in that it consists of ipads, galaxies and facebook (in my opinion). Yes there is variety within the world of facebook or whichever other app / chat thingy that is used, but the pursuit itself is homogenous ... a pursuit which involves staring at a screen and not getting involved in creative hobbies. Therefore, I struggle to see how levels of demand for model railways will be sustained going forward.
So, what does this mean, and how does it tie into production in China vs. the UK? Given my thoughts on the above, I too believe that the hobby will become more specialist, as eluded to by TylerB. If it becomes more specialist then I believe production and many things related to it will gravitate towards where the customer base is - or at least towards a location which also has a customer base (in our hobby that would be Japan, Germany, Switzerland etc. where the industry will, I imagine, be going through, or go though in the future, the same changes as the UK).
There will be little point in churning out a few thousand of xyz loco if there's only a demand for a few hundred - hence the factories in China won't be interested in producing them (they'll get more orders for ipad covers and the like). The likes of Farish & Co. could go either of two ways. They could see this coming and "move with the tide", producing less models with their resultant higher prices (which I think we might be seeing already), or they could churn out higher volumes at lower prices, leading to the risk of unsold inventories, pressure to sell anything profitably. If they choose the first route (which I think they are), we have two things happening: 1) Smaller production 2) Rising prices. Both of these move us closer to a point where production in the UK (or other country with a specialist customer base) becomes tenable. I don't know when that point will be, but my thoughts are if those two factors continue (smaller production / higher prices) then we are moving towards a niche, which lends itself to production in a higher wage economy. I don't see the discussion as being "would Farish move production back to the UK?" Rather it is a case of the conditions being set for production to be possible in the UK (lower volumes, higher prices) and then someone else will take up the mantle.
Model trains becoming an even more specialist product will mean prices rising, but economically speaking, it will be the only way for the industry to continue. Who knows, the quality might even rise further as the hobby goes more niche (look at the precision engineering in the very large gauges) but the down side will be that it will become even more of a "rich man's hobby". And herein lies the reason I included the quote from RedDeath ... GBP600 for a 92 anyone?
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the above. I find it a fascinating discussion and remember, most of the above isn't fact, but rather opinion.
Cheers
Dan
Quote from: Snowwolflair on February 10, 2017, 01:35:10 AM
I'm sorry but the link you give to the MIT opinion piece starts with "Donald Trump says" and it is published by a left wing academic institute in the middle of an election year. :laughabovepost:
You think Apple gave then such commercially sensitive numbers, or do you think they cooked them up. 8)
What do I care, I merely posted a correction to your incorrect interpretation of the basis of the article.
Why so disparaging and dismissive? Could it be a personal political bias shining through? :hmmm:
Got any real data to back your assertions? ???
Or does innuendo defeat information. :no:
Personally I would put more credence to an MIT review by qualified persons than that of an armchair expert.
CFJ
Let's keep this interesting (but as Deserthound says, emotive) thread on a friendly footing, folks. :thumbsup:
For a few years in the early part of this decade Oxford Diecast regularly used to state that their long term objective on production was to return it to the UK, having been the last large volume diecast producer to have manufactured here before setting up their own factory in China. I noticed that this statement has been absent for the past few years.
I think that our Western economies have not coped well with the automation and mechanisation of manual work which has left a cross-section of the population in a wilderness devoid of suitable employment. Similarly precision assembly of small components has been largely automated, and, for example, building a car is about joining together big precision sub-assemblies. This has excluded another tranche of people from the precision assembly work. Right now the low wage Chinese economy is in transition which will see/is seeing its precision assembly work outsourced to lower wage markets, either by the Chinese owners themselves or by companies further up the chain of supply.
There is an impression that the work which has been lost in western manufacturing can be brought back and still compete in the western mass markets. I doubt that will be the case, because the lost work will not be done by people. Making our toy trains here will not create mass employment to serve a mass market. Rather, by design, we will find ways of making precision objects with the minimum of human intervention to serve a specialist market with much higher prices. At least I hope I will not have to re-solder the pick-up wires on almost every Dapol Mk3 coach where the variable hand soldered connections have failed.
For companies like Dapol (no connection with me) I am sure that dealing with Chinese manufacturers who are much larger than them is a pain. There is inconsistent quality, you are given a production time slot in the factory that might not suit you, shipment takes about eight weeks and they don't always make exactly what you want in the quantities you want.
It therefore follows that having items made in the uk would be preferable to China if it was possible.
Conclusion: as things stand today China must still be quite a big better on total cost for model railway manufacture than the UK.
Quote from: NinOz on February 10, 2017, 05:58:52 AM
Quote from: Snowwolflair on February 10, 2017, 01:35:10 AM
I'm sorry but the link you give to the MIT opinion piece starts with "Donald Trump says" and it is published by a left wing academic institute in the middle of an election year. :laughabovepost:
You think Apple gave then such commercially sensitive numbers, or do you think they cooked them up. 8)
What do I care, I merely posted a correction to your incorrect interpretation of the basis of the article.
Why so disparaging and dismissive? Could it be a personal political bias shining through? :hmmm:
Got any real data to back your assertions? ???
Or does innuendo defeat information. :no:
Personally I would put more credence to an MIT review by qualified persons than that of an armchair expert.
CFJ
NinOz
As Bealman says keeping it civil. 8)
With reference to "armchair experts". :goggleeyes:
I have run factories in China, I suspect neither you or the economists at MIT have. :o
So I guess that makes me the qualified person. :D
One thing has not been mentioned in this debate, Balance of Payments, many years ago at the end of each month the BBC News issued the figures for that month. In those days we had a manufacturing industry very much larger than today which was left to decay as the financial sector was seen by some to be our saviour , we all know what happened there. Today most of our manufacturing industry has gone and most of what remains is owned by overseas companies and a very large percentage of goods that we buy is imported, much of it from China. Today we never hear about the Balance of Payments which must be a larger deficit than years ago, the result is that the country hemorrhages money every month as we spend more on imports than we earn on exports.
Geoff
NinOz
With regard to
QuoteWhy so disparaging and dismissive? Could it be a personal political bias shining through? :hmmm:
I could express and opinion about a certain gentleman, and frankly all the rest of his ilk :veryangry: but the bad language filter on the Forum would overheat :D
I am strictly non political, but I am aware to the games they all play as I deal every day with their type.
QuoteSo I guess that makes me the qualified person
I'd say the qualified person here is Mike from Revolution Trains, who is actually in the business of making model trains.
To put a purely selfish spin on it, what do you think it would do to the delay in new models being issued if manufacturing switched to the UK from China?
It wouldn't be a case of just switching off the production line in China on Friday and restarting it in Britain on Monday, there would be all the tooling to re-import, the factory to set up. specialised staff to be recruited and trained, test runs to iron out problems, supply chains... not to mention the issue of the old factory not caring about the quality of the product line if it knew it's contract was coming to the end (this is not a criticism of China by the way, I think this would be the case anywhere if you told them their services are no longer required). And modern models contain a multitude of components so would there still be a need for a fair number of components to be sourced abroad?
Whatever the comparative costs of manufacturing, the switch-over would be immensely expensive, and I reckon it would slow down the release of new stuff by a year at least. There would also be an inevitable quality loss over the transition period.
Look at how long Farish took to get properly going again once Bachmann took over, and that was just with the relatively (by modern standards) unsophisticated product being made at that time
Quote from: longbow on February 10, 2017, 10:26:10 AM
QuoteSo I guess that makes me the qualified person
I'd say the qualified person here is Mike from Revolution Trains, who is actually in the business of making model trains.
I don't disagree with that but its Rapido Trains Inc. that are doing the factory interface and who are passing on their understanding, I suspect commercially filtered, second hand.
As I said I suspect Rapido Trains (I need to correct my earlier post) will find that given the new protectionism in America they will eventually conclude bringing their manufacturing back to the US is the thing to do. Not now but soon if it keeps going the way it is. After all he is making enough volume to justify it.
Quote from: Snowwolflair on February 10, 2017, 10:40:39 AM
I don't disagree with that but its Rapido Trains Inc. that are doing the factory interface and who are passing on their understanding, I suspect commercially filtered, second hand.
As I said I suspect Rapido Trains (I need to correct my earlier post) will find that given the new protectionism in America they will eventually conclude bringing their manufacturing back to the US is the thing to do. Not now but soon if it keeps going the way it is. After all he is making enough volume to justify it.
Sorry to disappoint you but we deal direct with factories on two projects (plus we trust Rapido and talk to a lot of the other small manufacturers dealing with the same or similar factories).
If you read Rapido's recent newsletter they addressed the issue of bringing back manufacturing to N America and they are terrified by the prospect for similar reasons to us - lack of skills at a price the market will pay.
On a wider issue raised by TylerB and DesertHound - I'm not so sceptical about the size of the market, where there has been a significant change is that the manufacturers have covered the obvious go everywhere models eg class 37 or 47 or a black 5. Those are the sorts of things you knock out by the 1000s. So new models are almost by definition more restricted in appeal and therefore you need to start looking at smaller volumes. The other issue is that companies are trying to be more efficient in holding less or no stock (ie less cash tied up) but that means models aren't sitting in stock 12 months of the year.
Cheers, Mike
Only time will tell :D
Quote from: Snowwolflair on February 10, 2017, 10:40:39 AM
Quote from: longbow on February 10, 2017, 10:26:10 AM
QuoteSo I guess that makes me the qualified person
I'd say the qualified person here is Mike from Revolution Trains, who is actually in the business of making model trains.
As I said I suspect Rapido Trains (I need to correct my earlier post) will find that given the new protectionism in America they will eventually conclude bringing their manufacturing back to the US is the thing to do. Not now but soon if it keeps going the way it is. After all he is making enough volume to justify it.
I think Rapido might choose Canada rather than the US for manufacturing, otherwise as a Canadian based company they would still risk dealing at arm's length with the "off-shore" manufacturer. I am not sure that they ever manufactured in the US.
Quote from: woodbury22uk on February 10, 2017, 11:31:39 AM
Quote from: Snowwolflair on February 10, 2017, 10:40:39 AM
Quote from: longbow on February 10, 2017, 10:26:10 AM
QuoteSo I guess that makes me the qualified person
I'd say the qualified person here is Mike from Revolution Trains, who is actually in the business of making model trains.
As I said I suspect Rapido Trains (I need to correct my earlier post) will find that given the new protectionism in America they will eventually conclude bringing their manufacturing back to the US is the thing to do. Not now but soon if it keeps going the way it is. After all he is making enough volume to justify it.
I think Rapido might choose Canada rather than the US for manufacturing, otherwise as a Canadian based company they would still risk dealing at arm's length with the "off-shore" manufacturer. I am not sure that they ever manufactured in the US.
Good point but they are inside NAFTA so i'm not sure how that would affect them.
Quote from: DesertHound on February 10, 2017, 05:35:21 AM
So, what does this mean, and how does it tie into production in China vs. the UK? Given my thoughts on the above, I too believe that the hobby will become more specialist, as eluded to by TylerB. If it becomes more specialist then I believe production and many things related to it will gravitate towards where the customer base is - or at least towards a location which also has a customer base (in our hobby that would be Japan, Germany, Switzerland etc. where the industry will, I imagine, be going through, or go though in the future, the same changes as the UK).
Japan is a bit of a different case, sure there's a demographic problem (fewer children) but it's an incredibly train-orientated country and despite being full of gadgets I have yet to hear any serious worries about "the future of the hobby". Moreover it's retained a substantial portion of its model manufacturing capability and I think in the longer term it will be easier to bring back production from overseas if necessary (except maybe for MicroAce who have already had their hand burnt once in China).
These articles were published in January after the partisan US election hype but as a consequence of the winds of change in the US. They both still contain bias but the basic facts are correct.
Could Apple's next iPhones be made in the USA?
Apple supplier Foxconn reportedly mulling $7 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing
Its a sign that things are beginning to move, or to be more precise the Far East manufacturers are getting uncomfortable about the threat of a trade war.
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/apple-iphone-us-manufacturing/ (http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/apple-iphone-us-manufacturing/)
Making an iPhone in the USA wouldn't bring jobs here
My point earlier on much more automation for a US factory.
http://bgr.com/2017/01/16/iphone-8-us-manufacturing-trump-foxconn/ (http://bgr.com/2017/01/16/iphone-8-us-manufacturing-trump-foxconn/)
Remember Rome was not made in a day, but it was made in Italy. :D
I'm really enjoying the conversation - some good points have been made from differing angles and they all contribute to the debate. A few observations on points made earlier today if I may ...
Quote from: woodbury22uk on February 10, 2017, 07:22:43 AM
There is an impression that the work which has been lost in western manufacturing can be brought back and still compete in the western mass markets. I doubt that will be the case, because the lost work will not be done by people. Making our toy trains here will not create mass employment to serve a mass market. Rather, by design, we will find ways of making precision objects with the minimum of human intervention to serve a specialist market with much higher prices. At least I hope I will not have to re-solder the pick-up wires on almost every Dapol Mk3 coach where the variable hand soldered connections have failed.
In my vision of the future the market will have shrunk considerably and be so niche that the question won't be whether UK manufacturing can compete with Chinese manufacturing, but rather could Chinese manufacturing compete with the UK? I say this because model runs might only be 100 or so and it will be akin to a cottage industry. That doesn't imply inferior quality - they will most likely be very high end, both in quality and price. Of course I could be wrong here (and I hope I am) but it's a thought I do hold and I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong. Perhaps it will become very niche AND still be made in China, with companies such as RevolutioN serving the market. I don't think there would be mass employment from any UK manufacturing (I think Graham Farish in Poole had about 30 employees or so in their factory) and I do not see model trains as a mass market when compared to other goods which are produced for the leisure market (certainly not these days anyway).
Quote from: TylerB on February 10, 2017, 10:35:43 AM
It wouldn't be a case of just switching off the production line in China on Friday and restarting it in Britain on Monday, there would be all the tooling to re-import, the factory to set up. specialised staff to be recruited and trained, test runs to iron out problems, supply chains... not to mention the issue of the old factory not caring about the quality of the product line if it knew it's contract was coming to the end (this is not a criticism of China by the way, I think this would be the case anywhere if you told them their services are no longer required). And modern models contain a multitude of components so would there still be a need for a fair number of components to be sourced abroad?
As others have mentioned, with Graham Farish now being a Chinese owned company, I see little chance of manufacturing returning to the UK. My thoughts in this discussion are not so much along the lines of "established brands returning production to the UK" but more so that new entrants at some point find the conditions such that they can produce in the UK. It might not be any time soon, but I do wonder.
Quote from: red_death on February 10, 2017, 10:50:08 AM
Sorry to disappoint you but we deal direct with factories on two projects (plus we trust Rapido and talk to a lot of the other small manufacturers dealing with the same or similar factories).
If you read Rapido's recent newsletter they addressed the issue of bringing back manufacturing to N America and they are terrified by the prospect for similar reasons to us - lack of skills at a price the market will pay.
On a wider issue raised by TylerB and DesertHound - I'm not so sceptical about the size of the market, where there has been a significant change is that the manufacturers have covered the obvious go everywhere models eg class 37 or 47 or a black 5. Those are the sorts of things you knock out by the 1000s. So new models are almost by definition more restricted in appeal and therefore you need to start looking at smaller volumes. The other issue is that companies are trying to be more efficient in holding less or no stock (ie less cash tied up) but that means models aren't sitting in stock 12 months of the year.
Cheers, Mike
Mike, you probably have the greatest insight here of all of us. Without delving into confidential info. could you kindly bandy around some figures re the size of the market, e.g. size of the UK N market, what is a realistic loco production run, and so on? It would be fascinating to know.
Quote from: railsquid on February 10, 2017, 12:52:38 PM
Japan is a bit of a different case, sure there's a demographic problem (fewer children) but it's an incredibly train-orientated country and despite being full of gadgets I have yet to hear any serious worries about "the future of the hobby". Moreover it's retained a substantial portion of its model manufacturing capability and I think in the longer term it will be easier to bring back production from overseas if necessary (except maybe for MicroAce who have already had their hand burnt once in China).
Interesting point you make Railsquid, and you might be on to something specifically with Japan - it might just be different. That said, is it still a hobby for the young generation (your little one aside) and have newer technologies not muscled out our cherished hobby? My concern (worry) from what I see from twenty-somethings today is a fixation with mobile devices connected to the internet. My personal opinion is that this is leading to shorter attention spans, a "have it in an instant" culture and generally less patience - these are "qualities" which are diametrically opposed to our hobby. Are these not prevalent in Japan too? I find it baffling (amusing) to see people's responses when I tell them I cannot get the internet on my phone unless I can connect to a wifi account, or that I don't (generally) use or care for facebook or said country equivalent.
All my thoughts guys and proffered with the greatest of respect.
Kindest
Daniel
Quote from: DesertHound on February 10, 2017, 02:58:24 PM
Quote from: railsquid on February 10, 2017, 12:52:38 PM
Japan is a bit of a different case, sure there's a demographic problem (fewer children) but it's an incredibly train-orientated country and despite being full of gadgets I have yet to hear any serious worries about "the future of the hobby". Moreover it's retained a substantial portion of its model manufacturing capability and I think in the longer term it will be easier to bring back production from overseas if necessary (except maybe for MicroAce who have already had their hand burnt once in China).
Interesting point you make Railsquid, and you might be on to something specifically with Japan - it might just be different. That said, is it still a hobby for the young generation (your little one aside) and have newer technologies not muscled out our cherished hobby? My concern (worry) from what I see from twenty-somethings today is a fixation with mobile devices connected to the internet. My personal opinion is that this is leading to shorter attention spans, a "have it in an instant" culture and generally less patience - these are "qualities" which are diametrically opposed to our hobby. Are these not prevalent in Japan too?
Good question, if you walk past the local playground on the way to the nearest level crossing you'd have a good chance of seeing a huddle of teenagers each staring at their own smartphone, but also seeing others at the level crossing spending hours waiting for unusual formations to pass so they can photograph them. But I don't have any empirical evidence one way or the other. As far as instant gratification goes, that's what Kato Unitrack is for - I know it's anathema to some people but it's a damn good way of making the hobby accessible. It also helps that it's comparatively cheap, and widely available. Which all helped to get me hooked, 50 quid or so got me a controller, some track and a cheap basic EMU and it all just worked. And like I said, Japan is very train-orientated so there's much wider exposure to the whole idea of trains than in many other countries, it's also not seen as a weird to have an interest in them.
Something else which probably plays a role is "Plarail", which is kind of like a cross between Brio and Lego trains, very robust, very cheap and incredibly popular - get used to that and it's a logical step to Unitrack etc.:
(http://japan-train-blog.infogogo.com/static/misc/squidlet-2016-12-27a.jpg)
(Having played with that for a few weeks, the Squidlet, when shown some sections of Tomix Finetrack, indicated very clearly that I should join them together for him).
Erm, and kind of back on topic, that blue Plarail stuff is made in Thailand, for whatever reason.
Remember Rome was not made in a day, but it was made in Italy.
Like Fiats then - built by robots, driven by Italians!
Quote from: Railwaygun on February 10, 2017, 05:28:00 PM
Remember Rome was not made in a day, but it was made in Italy.
Like Fiats then - built by robots, driven by Italians!
You have grasped the idea :D
Quote from: Snowwolflair on February 10, 2017, 11:37:26 AM
Quote from: woodbury22uk on February 10, 2017, 11:31:39 AM
Quote from: Snowwolflair on February 10, 2017, 10:40:39 AM
Quote from: longbow on February 10, 2017, 10:26:10 AM
QuoteSo I guess that makes me the qualified person
I'd say the qualified person here is Mike from Revolution Trains, who is actually in the business of making model trains.
As I said I suspect Rapido Trains (I need to correct my earlier post) will find that given the new protectionism in America they will eventually conclude bringing their manufacturing back to the US is the thing to do. Not now but soon if it keeps going the way it is. After all he is making enough volume to justify it.
I think Rapido might choose Canada rather than the US for manufacturing, otherwise as a Canadian based company they would still risk dealing at arm's length with the "off-shore" manufacturer. I am not sure that they ever manufactured in the US.
Good point but they are inside NAFTA so i'm not sure how that would affect them.
Mexico is in NAFTA, and the agreement is in the current US administration's sights for "renegotiation."
One thing that this thread hasn't touched on, that I think is important, is the likely changes in manufacturing technologies.
At present the design of our models has some distinguishing features that, to a large extent, define how they are made and hence where they are made:
Detail: The only manufacturing process that can accurately and repeatably produce the fine details that we want in our models, at a price that is in any way affordable, is injection moulding. However, injection moulding is a process that is much better suited to production volumes of >1,000 (and really comes into its own in volumes >100,000) than short runs of a few hundred. It's a process where setup times are significant but process times are quick. A modern IM machine can run off a few hundred impressions of a small part like an N gauge shell in an hour or two. However, it takes many times as long to set it up for that run. This, along with the high cost of making the moulds, makes it a pretty uneconomical for what we want but we don't really have an alternative at present. We are currently using a sledgehammer technology to crack a small nut.
Manual Assembly: Our models require a lot of manual assembly, which is expensive wherever you do it (although it's obviously substantially less expensive in the far east).
It doesn't need to be this way, though. Over the next few years we will probably see significant changes to how small volume products are manufactured because of technologies like 3d printing and more flexible automation. These will reduce our dependence on injection moulding and manual assembly and it seems pretty clear to me that this will help to level the playing field between manufacturing in the far east and the rest of the world, at least for low volume products.
That said, the question of whether the effect of this will be in 2, 5 or 10 years hard to guess and will probably make or break quite a few production managers' careers in the next few years!
Quote from: DesertHound on February 10, 2017, 02:58:24 PM
Mike, you probably have the greatest insight here of all of us. Without delving into confidential info. could you kindly bandy around some figures re the size of the market, e.g. size of the UK N market, what is a realistic loco production run, and so on? It would be fascinating to know.
Hi Daniel
No problem. For a powered model you are talking in the region of a minimum of 1000 models (potentially split across multiple liveries), for unpowered models 2000 upwards. The reality is you could produce fewer models but the cost of tooling would likely make it prohibitively expensive.
Size of market - small! The NGS has 5500-6000 members - what I don't know is how many N gauge modellers aren't members. I suspect it is a reasonable quantity to the point that you could say at least double that figure model in N gauge in the UK (primarily). I'm sure I've heard 15000-20000 N gauge modellers before.
Cheers, Mike
Thanks Mike
Useful information. So I'm interpreting that to mean 1000 models is a "comercially driven figure" in that it's producing enough to keep the models affordable, but not producing too many so as to leave them on the shelves unsold. That sounds like a reasonable number and I'd forgotten about multiple liveries meaning that you can get the cost efficiencies of a 1000 production run, but limit supply onto the market, of say, 200, if you had five liveries.
Crowdfunding, as per RevolutioN might be the way forward then in terms of de-risking.
As for the NGS - as soon as you said 5500-6000 members, I immediately thought total n gaugers must be 4 times that ... So my guess is around the 20,000 mark. My rational is that if it's only 10,000 then every second modeller is a member of NGS. I'm more inclined to say 1 in 4, but who really knows?
Thanks again for the info.
Dan
Tooling is an interesting question. I remember in the past Dapol have talked about the difference between hard and soft metal toolings for injection molding. Hard metal toolings are considerably more expensive but will last a long time. Soft metal toolings are cheaper but wear out faster.
As far as I understand it, most manufacturers currently use hard metal toolings with a plan to amortise the cost over potentially more than one run. Perhaps we are now reaching the point where more niche products might only be viable in soft metal toolings? So a single production run is done and once it is complete, the tooling is discarded.
I don't know the figures so I have no idea if it would be viable. But I have heard toolings account for something like 40% of the production costs so perhaps there are savings to be made there for niche items?
Good soft tooling will give you at least 1000 cycles before it looses its sharpness, but if you are doing cheap kits and don't mind a bit of flash and cleaning up the moldings they can go a lot further.
Soft tooling is also easier to make using automated systems straight from CAD so you can remaster a soft tool relatively easily.
With the tooling is it not a potential false economy when it comes to Hard Vs Soft tooling?
I appreciate that the cost of the tooling's I one of the greatest costs in the production process, but if a manufacturer went with soft tooling's, while cheaper there may be a need for multiple sets to ensure that the quality is kept at the standard the market expects these days?
But also although there are niche models out there, and we all have the niche models in out wants list would the danger not also be that while a manufacturer may do a model thinking it would be a niche single run it may prove to be more popular when it come available to purchase off the shelf.
If this is the case then is there not a danger of it biting any manufacturer in the back side as any savings that could be made from soft tooling would be immediately lost in having to produce a second set?
Quote from: acko22 on February 14, 2017, 08:27:38 AM
If this is the case then is there not a danger of it biting any manufacturer in the back side as any savings that could be made from soft tooling would be immediately lost in having to produce a second set?
Yes, that is always a possibility. I am not saying that soft-tooling is the right answer. Only that it is a potential solution for small volume models which might make a marginal prototype viable.
Good point, but there is a vast cost difference between soft and hard tooling.
excuse me for my lack of knowledge what is the kind of difference between the costs of hard Vs soft tooling?
That's a how long is a bit of string question but from double to five times the cost is not unheard of.
Quote from: acko22 on February 14, 2017, 08:57:44 AM
excuse me for my lack of knowledge what is the kind of difference between the costs of hard Vs soft tooling?
And if you meant what is the difference physically. Hard tooling is made from tool steel, which is very difficult to machine and requires more exotic processess such as EDM or fairly complicated heat treatment. It is also much more difficult to modify if you need to make changes.
Soft tooling is either a softer grade of steel or a medium to hard grade of aluminium.
Tool lives of as much as 10,000 impressions aren't unheard of for soft tools, but it depends a lot on the shape of the part and for models that's the one thing you can't change much (at least on the outside).
It also depends on the machines and facilities the particular company has. Some places specialise in soft tooling so have got very efficient at inspecting tools for wear, repairing part worn tools etc. For some other manufacturers this would require them to change the way they work quite a bit so it would either be expensive or it wouldn't get done, resulting in possible quality problems.
QuoteIf this is the case then is there not a danger of it biting any manufacturer in the back side as any savings that could be made from soft tooling would be immediately lost in having to produce a second set?
Surley the cost of the tooling is included in the price of the end product so any further runs would include the cost of a new tool,but would still be cheaper than the initial run as the tooling design has already been done.
Quote from: themadhippy on February 14, 2017, 10:21:00 AM
QuoteIf this is the case then is there not a danger of it biting any manufacturer in the back side as any savings that could be made from soft tooling would be immediately lost in having to produce a second set?
Surley the cost of the tooling is included in the price of the end product so any further runs would include the cost of a new tool,but would still be cheaper than the initial run as the tooling design has already been done.
Not necessarily. Because the cost of the tooling is so high it would make the RRP of the initial run way too much if it was only factored into that run. So it's amortised over the expected life of the tool (i.e. multiple runs) so the cost of the product per run is lower. That means though that you have to bet on the model selling enough over multiple runs to cover the money that you've invested.
Quote from: themadhippy on February 14, 2017, 10:21:00 AM
QuoteIf this is the case then is there not a danger of it biting any manufacturer in the back side as any savings that could be made from soft tooling would be immediately lost in having to produce a second set?
Surley the cost of the tooling is included in the price of the end product so any further runs would include the cost of a new tool,but would still be cheaper than the initial run as the tooling design has already been done.
Pretty much. If you have to remake the tooling for second and subsequent runs, you lose the potential savings available from reusing the original tooling. A hard tooling costs more initially but offers the potential for savings in the long run.
The question is whether there will be a long run. I suspect there is no single "right answer" to this issue, just different ways of cutting the cake. Conventional wisdom so far seems to be that hard toolings are the way to go with 2nd and subsequent runs being more profitable.
However, as the number of prototypes that are popular enough to justify repeated production runs continues to fall, it remains to be seen if this will continue to be true. Take the Pendolino being made for RevolutioN by Rapido. The Kickstarter for the project reached around 800 sets which (while short of the 1000 target) was considered enough by Rapido to justify proceeding. In spite of the great value price tag, this model only just squeaked into production (due in no small part to the efforts of Ben and Mike of RevolutioN). The Pendolino has some duplicate vehicles in the rake meaning that some of the toolings with be producing multiple thousands of vehicles (4 Motor Seconds in an 11-car rake and 3 in a 9-car).
I would love to see a GWR 4700 (annoyingly Heljan are doing it in 00 rather than Bachmann or we might have seen it as part of the Farish range eventually). They were long lived and distinctive but there were only 9 of them (plus a new build taking shape at Didcot). Could 1000 be sold? Possibly. Could 10,000 be sold (even spread out over several years)? I am not sure. Maybe a soft tooling that would last enough for perhaps 2 runs would be adequate and allow the model to produced at a commercially viable price whereas a hard tooling would be too expensive as there might be enough runs ever done to repay the tooling costs without a prohibitive price for the finished loco.
With all said, on the soft tooling been cheaper but with shorter runs available it does offer some advantages which cant be denied.
However thinking with a business head on its a big risk as what can any company call niche?? As with any model you don't really know the numbers until they actually start selling, I am sure Mike and Ben can vouch for that fact just look a the TEAs people held off and well how many regretted not getting some when they had the chance.
With the emergence of 3D printing and some of the new techniques been made there soft tooling seems like a risk for niche models which wont sell the 1000 minimum needed for hard tooling, which while more expensive allows for multiple runs without a fresh set of tooling as and when there is sufficient demand.
Quote from: Rabs on February 14, 2017, 09:38:10 AM
Quote from: acko22 on February 14, 2017, 08:57:44 AM
excuse me for my lack of knowledge what is the kind of difference between the costs of hard Vs soft tooling?
And if you meant what is the difference physically. Hard tooling is made from tool steel, which is very difficult to machine and requires more exotic processess such as EDM or fairly complicated heat treatment. It is also much more difficult to modify if you need to make changes.
Soft tooling is either a softer grade of steel or a medium to hard grade of aluminium.
Tool lives of as much as 10,000 impressions aren't unheard of for soft tools, but it depends a lot on the shape of the part and for models that's the one thing you can't change much (at least on the outside).
It also depends on the machines and facilities the particular company has. Some places specialise in soft tooling so have got very efficient at inspecting tools for wear, repairing part worn tools etc. For some other manufacturers this would require them to change the way they work quite a bit so it would either be expensive or it wouldn't get done, resulting in possible quality problems.
Thanks for the information, making things for clearer before I could ask! Do some of the small cottage industry makers actually keep soft tooling for decades? And how long can hard tooling last?
I'm not aware of any cottage industry suppliers who use injection moulding. Union Mills, Langley, PD Marsh, NBrassLocos and Gem all use metal casting (either investment or low pressure die casting). Most low volume 'plastic' parts are vacuum cast with resin (although 3d printing is making quite a bit of headway here).
For these processes yes, I believe that the owners do keep the moulds for many, many years and will top up stock as and when sales demand.
The discussion above about injection moulding is only really relevant to the larger manufacturers Farish, Dapol, RevolutioN (via Rapido)
High grade hard tools that are producing a shape that doesn't cause much wear on the tool can cope with >1,000,000 cycles. More generally you'd expect >100,000 parts from a hard tool with minimal maintenance. I don't know the detail of the economics for model railways but I can't see why anyone would use a fully hard tool - the volumes just don't justify the costs.
Not very long (~10 years) ago soft tools could be limited to a few hundred impressions. These days the better aluminium alloys will give at least a factor of 10 better life, which for a lot of industries turns what was a difficult choice into a very easy one.
Quote from: Rabs on February 15, 2017, 02:55:09 AM
I'm not aware of any cottage industry suppliers who use injection moulding.
NGS (via others), Parkside Dundas, Chivers, Cambrian all spring to mind and there have been more (particularly in 4mm).
I know one of the large-ish RTR manufacturers uses soft (aluminium IIRC) tooling but when you understand their business model it is easy to understand why. The majority of the RTR factories use "hard" steel tooling.
Cheers, Mike
B H E use a very old plastic injection moulding machine to make their coach and D M U kits and it
has just been repaired so once the weather warms up me and Ray hope to get the stock built up again ,but its such an old machine that it is very tempermental ,sometime we can spend a whole Sunday and get hardly any roofs ,floors or sides ,but the next time we have a go we do reasonably well and another day we can get lots done .
I have got a bad chest infection at the moment and Val has been in hospital with pneumonia so that has put production back for a while as its very cold in Rays shed and unfortunately health comes first.
Bob
Quote from: red_death on February 15, 2017, 10:07:07 AM
NGS (via others), Parkside Dundas, Chivers, Cambrian all spring to mind and there have been more (particularly in 4mm).
I know one of the large-ish RTR manufacturers uses soft (aluminium IIRC) tooling but when you understand their business model it is easy to understand why. The majority of the RTR factories use "hard" steel tooling.
Cheers, Mike
Very interesting, thanks. I guess the economics must stack up a little differently than in the industries I work in. Perhaps the use of hard tools is driven as much by the need for very clean, flash and defect free parts (which hard tools are usually much better at producing) as by production volumes.
Thinking about it, most of my experience is with parts that are quite a bit larger. The costs of the tool go up in roughly proportion to the volume of the tool (i.e. roughly the cube of the longest dimension of the part). That would suggest that the tipping point for hard tools for small parts (like n gauge locos) is likely to be at much lower volumes than I'm used to. For larger parts, hard tools can be enormously expensive and you need to be very confident that you'd go through several replacement sets of soft tools before it makes economic sense. That probably isn't true for small scale models and might explain why your real world knowledge of what companies are actually doing disproves my theoretical ramblings above! :hmmm: