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Unread 15-10-2009, 11:31
Tristan Lall's Avatar
Tristan Lall Tristan Lall is offline
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FRC #0188 (Woburn Robotics)
 
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Re: Survey for engineering class

Quote:
Originally Posted by EricH View Post
Tristan: That's actually how we'd start up... three engineers making these in America. That is, however, three engineers who would own the company, and who are trying to keep costs low.
That's sort of what I was afraid of...assuming you're budgeting for engineer-style wages (e.g. $25/h) a significant portion of your overhead is going to go towards paying yourselves to cut and sew (I'd guess $5–$8 per piece for your labour). What about contracting out the fabrication to an established tailoring business, maybe on a piecework basis? At least that way, you'd be paying up to the same amount for proven skill, and freeing yourselves for other productive activity. (That would depend to some extent on your expected volume...but if you're turning over anything more than a hundred pieces per month, it would probably work out much more efficiently.)

Another consideration: are you going to bunch orders together into production runs, or respond individually to orders? If you can run orders together (like once per week), you'll probably be significantly more efficient.
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