Ok, so two halves here. One more specific to the specifics of the discussion, and the other to CPU, which is still (partly) on topic.
Grobi said:
I appreciate the creative efforts of the team to find funding to speed up the production.
What I don't like is the following:
It's hard to find out how many devices will be sold for $500 within 7 days. Was this number fixed anywhere? I also couldn't figure when the 7 day order period started or stopped and for what reason: sold out??? 7 days over???
The link to the order page is dead.
If the project wants to regain any credibility that was lost by bad communication policy or habit or manners, someone of OP team better defines right now:
- how many devices were sold for $500 and at what date?
- for how many of those devices the $500 were received by OP?
- how many of those paid devices are shipped as of today?
Before I hear of any of the happy $500-customers here in the forums, I have to believe this "7 day and you get what you paid for" is yet another smokescreen for missestimated production complexities.
grobi
I second all of these questions. And add on the question about specifically how many 7-dayers OPT will continue to sell, because:
WoD said:
I can't see how that can be the case. The most anyone can be delayed is 100 units, if they hold to the numbers and don't simply let thousands of people order an "instant Pandora."
What logic/evidence have you assessed to arrive at this conclusion? I haven't really been paying enough attention to the production process to work it out for myself.
OPT has never said that they *won't* sell more that 100 of them, just that they *might* not. Those were Craig's words, and we all know how those sometimes twist.
andmaz said:
Have to say that yesterday Tripmonkey_uk made some unfounded illogical comments however today, they are mostly well thought out and difficult to argue against (although people do).
......we are still in the dark as to how may boards CC are sending Craig every week (on average will do) - the 1000 per month, 250 a week that Ed did mention a while ago would blow the we cannot keep up to the boards issue Craig mentioned out of the water.
Craig must therefore be getting more than 350 boards a week from CC (3 people make 70/day * 5 = 350/week assembled) - if that is the case then the figures do add up but as per usual no one says anything and everything blows up - some of us are not stupid and know these figures make no sense with the available information.
Craig or ED just tell the community how many boards CC are sending - that way what you are saying regarding the queue jumpers does add up and benefits not only OPT but us as well - so everyone will be happish!
The queue jumpers are obviously a big thing to all of us even though most of us understand the business need surrounding the need for them.
........and we should have been given first refusal at upgrading to 7 days guaranteed although I know this may have been a logistical nightmare (but surely there is an Excel spreadsheet with everyones queue position, email address etc) - I manipulate/convert data as my day job and its not difficult once its in that type of format.
Again, I'm not sure about this. As Moxie points out:
Moxie said:
"And where, oh where, will these boards come from" - Well, if you actually read what is posted in this thread, in response to your namecalling and shouting, you'd see EDs explanation: Currently, the boards are "stockpiling". There are more boards than can be put into Pandoras. The piles grow. Whilst the board 8 positions down in the 6th pile might rightfully be yours, all yours, that won't do much good unless someone actually builds it, right?
Which is fairly consistent with the reports on how many boards have been received and how many finished units has been shipped these last weeks. If you want to dive into the dark art of divining the future from leftover plastics, it must be fairly obvious that the numbers where skewing the other way now.
ED did talk about stockpiling in this thread. But over in
this thread ED said that they shipped more boards sooner, because they'd run out. Where's the stockpile?
Also, having done a number of
excessive checks, I don't think that all the numbers are adding up right to being a surplus of boards.
--------------------------------------------
And the second half, to CPU:
Custom Processing Unlimite said:
-- If ANYBODY understands math on an algebraic level, more workers means exponential increase in production of ANYTHING. Can mean must more horsepower flat out, or a more efficient workforce (as was mentioned before by switching from 1-person/1-pandora to an assembly line method). Prove it yourself, carry buckets of water from one place to another with 3 people carrying back and forth then get 5 or 6 people and make a line passing the buckets from one end to the other... less work, more product. Scientific truth!
Actually, no. That would be a linear increase, not an exponential one. Twice the input, twice (or slightly more, in this case) the output. Exponential would be if you double the input, you get four times the output. (
see here)
Custom Processing Unlimite said:
-- Profit is necessary for a business to survive, like food is necessary for a body to survive. If I use all my energy up and don't eat, I'll die. If they spend all their money up, the company will die... Simple math!
There are things such as non-profits. Now, of course, OPT isn't trying to be one, and so they do want some. But it's not strictly necessary.
Custom Processing Unlimite said:
Valid question... and it deserves a response. It's better to be ahead than behind. Also, if they, as a small group, are ahead of these big production companies producing these parts, it will look bad for the part mfgs...
But more importantly, it's better to be ahead than behind. It would cost less to hire extra people part time and get done early than to warehouse parts that haven't been "gotten to" yet because of slow device production. If they get all the parts built into Pandoras in 2 days vs 5, that means an extra 3 days off. If OPT is smart, they are paying their workers by completion vs by the hour, because people are more productive and can count their own money better when paid per completion. So it's more efficient in the long run.
Time off isn't the same as paid time off. So getting it done sooner is all well and good, but then you're out of a job again. Or, you could have just not accepted the work, and had all the days off. I agree that hourly is more efficent, though, which brings me to:
Custom Processing Unlimite said:
Ex: If I paid you $10US/hr to produce say 4 devices/hr vs paying you $2.50US/device, then you (doing simple math) will realize that if you can produce 8 devices/hr, you will pay yourself $20US/hr vs $10US/hr. Also, if I note that I will dock you $.75/device for each defective completion that is proven to be caused by sloppy build work, you are less likely to slack on your work. If I, in an assembly line scenario, say that I will dock everybody that amount for each improperly built device, they will be more willing to work together to produce a better product as fast as possible, thereby being more efficient across the board and working as a team. Thought that could backfire and one person could be enough of a bastard to dock everybody's money, but the frequency of that will be VERY low since they lose money too. A pay-by-completion model raises productivity exponentially. Also, by-the-hour pay gives people an easy chance to slack off if not supervised (which costs more money because a supervisor needs to be hired along with a QA person, where the pay-by-completion model only needs a QA person). In one way, I pay more up-front when I pay-by-completion, but I also get more up-front on the product and can produce faster for a lower cost in the long run (less RMAs, higher customer satisfaction rates, better reviews, more sales, etc). But I digress, because this is more than is necessary to answer the question above.
I was partially opportunistic enough to throw that idea out there in hopes that OPT either already uses it, or agrees and will switch to something similar that works for them.
In the end, it's better to be ahead and have rest time than be behind and get no rest.
Also, people can't blame the bottleneck on OPT!
Your math is rather off there, since you change your numbers in the middle. Ignoring docks for defective completions, are you paying per hour, or per pandora produced? If by hour, 2 people x 10 hours is 20 man-hours, or if you pay 4 people x 5 hours, it's still 20 man-hours. In fact, if they can produce a little faster overall, there are then *savings*, not increased costs. If you're paying by the Pandora, then 100 Pandoras produced is 100 pandoras produced, and so the costs are the same, whether they're spread out over 4 people or 2. Sure, making the Pandoras faster is a higher upfront cost, but it's (roughly) the same dollar amount, either way.
We do agree, though, that being ahead is beneficial. On the other hand, it's still pretty unclear that OPT is behind, or at least not on schedule for completion of boards when new ones arrive. If that's the case, then speeding up the assembly doesn't really help the real bottleneck, and the purpose is unclear.
