No more posts for me..sorry I bothered you all..
Later....
----- Original Message -----
From: "jimlux" <jimlux@earthlink.net>
To: "Bob Maser" <bmaser@tampabay.rr.com>
Cc: "Mike Fatchett W0MU" <w0mu@w0mu.com>; "'Steve Katz'" <stevek@jmr.com>;
"'Kelly Johnson'" <n6kj.kelly@gmail.com>; "'mrlogs'" <mrlogs@verizon.net>;
<towertalk@contesting.com>
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 7:32 PM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Tashjian Tower Orders
> Bob Maser wrote:
>> If Steppir, FlexRadio and Elecraft had shorter leadtimes when they
>> introduced their products they would have sold more equipment. Having to
>> wait for 6 months or more is a turn-off for most. As I recall, Elecraft
>> also allowed you to cut in front of others by allowing them to use your
>> money while you were waiting.
>>
>> Most, if not all of these companies are run by engineers and engineers
>> have no concept of practices like Just In Time(JIT)manufacturing, line
>> flow balancing, queue elimination, and vendor relationships. They also
>> never stop designing the product and this causes delays and increases
>> costs because of material that has to be scrapped. When I worked at
>> Xerox in the 70's they went to a block cut-in mode when making changes.
>> Any improvement to the design was shelved until the next cut-in block and
>> it took an act of congress to violate this rule. It is usually easy to
>> spot a company that is run by engineers. There is unfinished product
>> lying all over the place waiting for parts to arrive from vendors. Work
>> in Process investment is usually ignored until someone points out that
>> costs of manufacturing have gone through the roof.
>>
>> Excuse my ramblings,
>>
>
> On the other hand, it requires capital to stock and staff up to accomodate
> the initial ramp up. Small company development strategies are often
> "bootstrapped" on the personal investment of the founder (engineers and
> craftsmen, as you say). Those folks often don't even know HOW to go about
> getting capital, much less actually doing it. When I used to run my small
> software development company, our customers were almost all small firms..
> the owner and a couple others, maybe with half a dozen manufacturing
> people back in the shop and a secretary, receptionist,
> jackofalladministration out front. It's the classic garage operation as a
> business.
>
> And as you note, lots of them stay that way, because it's impossible to
> scale doing everything with cash and net30. Relatively few grow beyond
> this size successfully.. it takes desire on the part of the owner AND
> access to capital, etc. To be honest, a lot of the owners don't want to
> grow. Say you're a skilled machinist and you run your own little CNC shop
> with a couple machines and a couple assistants. You can turn a million a
> year or so, make a reasonably comfortable living, all without needing huge
> capital. Maybe the machine tool gave you the financing on the tools, maybe
> you took out a mortgage on your house. You do it for 20-30 years, then
> sell up and retire.
>
> There was a recent blog post by Wayne Hale talking about the infeasibility
> of getting the space shuttle going again, and it's just because of this
> kind of thing. There's dozens (if not hundreds) of little shops making
> some specialized part for the shuttle. That's all they did, for all
> practical purposes. When the shuttle buys went away, the owners said: hey,
> I've been doing this since the 80s, it's time to retire. They were happy
> to do what they did, do it well, and be a part of the space program, but
> they're not interested in doing it forever.
>
> Jim, W6RMK
>
>
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|