www.thefabricator.com: We at OSH Cut have always focused on speed. We quote instantly, and our standard lead times are usually just two to three business days, with options for same-day production.
Still, rapid turnaround is expensive. While we’ve been able to keep prices reasonable and fair, default fast service makes it more challenging to serve cost-sensitive customers. As I write this, we’re tackling this challenge head on.
3 comments:
As someone who has ordered from manufacturing businesses like this (for robotics), I really like the idea of this concept, and I do think it makes a lot of sense for many industries, not just this one. To me, the concept is just like a service ticket: their are priority levels, and one of the levels is "whenever convenient." There are many products I would absolutely wait longer for the product to save a little bit of money, and conversely, I see a lot of industries and times where people are willing to pay more for rush, or just have the money to spend and don't want to wait. I do understand where the author is coming, with the fear that too many people will want the service, but I don't think that is too likely. I'm not sure how much saying "low priority" will actually save the company (and by extension the consumer) money. I understand how small jobs can be tacked onto other jobs, but as far as simple priority, I suppose it may result in more efficient job processing (batches) or better staff hours, but either way, I like this feature, particularly because it means that priority orders can become even more priority if other orders are categorized as low-priority.
The article got me hooked by introducing the concept via the “economics of speed.” I’ve plotted enough supply and demand graphs in my college economics classes to know most people shoot for equilibrium, or at least that's the least volatile place a business can sit. There is exactly as much supply as demand necessitates. What's then interesting to see is how their business model changes based on the values of the company, for instance speed and cost. By putting those two aspects first, their system becomes more volatile. A volatile system is less efficient, and thus a money waster, as the article described having periods where the shop floor activity drifts from very little to too much. I am very intrigued by this proposed “stand by” time works, as I think it seems like a very smart idea to reduce the volatility of production. However, I think a lot of it hinges on their ability to maintain some consistency even within the flexibility of the standby time offered. What could be better in theory, might end up being harder in practice, in my opinion due to the fact that they're sort of creating competing systems, one with two weeks worth of heads up, and one with only three days. I would be very interested to see how this turns out!
I think it is super interesting to hear about how this company adapted to the challenges presented to it. When the article author mentioned that the idea of integrating standby lead times into their workflow had been on the company radar for a while, but that they were reluctant to start the system because of the ways it could go wrong, it seemed strange to me. After the article described all the ways that they system had gone well, how could they have ever hesitated? It made me wonder if we have any systems like that which we've been hesitating to implement. While standby lead times might not be exactly what we need, especially with multi-department pieces, what could we do to increase workflow?
I am also curious about what these standby orders look like from the point of view of the worker on the floor. Is there a program that is automatically seeing if the pieces can be nested into another project, or is it completely up to the discretion of the operator?
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