implmex
Diamond
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2002
- Location
- Vancouver BC Canada
Hi Scottl:
You make a good point, but what I'm seeing is a manufacturing environment in which they can throw resources at a project that we can't easily match.
I am a one-man show with maybe half a million in gadgets to do what I do.
On top of that I'm in North America with North America prices for everything from pencils to nuts and bolts.
My Chinese competitor has gear that would cost multiple millions to put on my floor, and it's all new or nearly so.
He has around 30 bodies running around in there, all needing to be fed with work, and he's sitting in a stream of manufacturing activity that can justify the risk and the outlay to service the need.
He can guarantee a turnaround that I cannot hope to compete with, and he can sell you a part for not much more than my raw material price, and still turn a profit.
They're not stupid people, and they learned fast.
Now they're as good as we are...when we see shit work from them it's usually what we pressured them for, or let them get away with, or implied with our crappy instructions, as many have pointed out.
Against that I can offer only a more seamless transition from "Art to Part", but once we're there, my value to service my customer's need need drops like crazy.
I have come to recognize that and I'm shifting my business model accordingly.
So yeah, there were once a whole lotta hole in the wall shops with dirt floors like you describe, but that's not what I'm competing against now.
In the thirty years since this reality began to rear it's head, the landscape has changed a lot.
Cheers
Marcus
www.implant-mechanix.com
www.vancouverwireedm.com
You make a good point, but what I'm seeing is a manufacturing environment in which they can throw resources at a project that we can't easily match.
I am a one-man show with maybe half a million in gadgets to do what I do.
On top of that I'm in North America with North America prices for everything from pencils to nuts and bolts.
My Chinese competitor has gear that would cost multiple millions to put on my floor, and it's all new or nearly so.
He has around 30 bodies running around in there, all needing to be fed with work, and he's sitting in a stream of manufacturing activity that can justify the risk and the outlay to service the need.
He can guarantee a turnaround that I cannot hope to compete with, and he can sell you a part for not much more than my raw material price, and still turn a profit.
They're not stupid people, and they learned fast.
Now they're as good as we are...when we see shit work from them it's usually what we pressured them for, or let them get away with, or implied with our crappy instructions, as many have pointed out.
Against that I can offer only a more seamless transition from "Art to Part", but once we're there, my value to service my customer's need need drops like crazy.
I have come to recognize that and I'm shifting my business model accordingly.
So yeah, there were once a whole lotta hole in the wall shops with dirt floors like you describe, but that's not what I'm competing against now.
In the thirty years since this reality began to rear it's head, the landscape has changed a lot.
Cheers
Marcus
www.implant-mechanix.com
www.vancouverwireedm.com